They did it on cars that had leaks.  The lap seam roof was prone to leakage after it had been under the stresses of heavy boots, heating and cooling, etc.

When I was young, there were big strings of X29’s and X31’s awaiting evaluation of what to do with them, in the down-graded portions of Pitcairn Yard.  There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them.  They were easily accessible to us.

There was a major evaluation and decision vis-à-vis:  rebuild or  fix and get back on the road, versus scrapping, and you’d see cars there whitelined or stenciled with a destination for rebuilding.  The X29’s destined for rebuilding went into the X29 D/E/F/G programs, with new bodies and possibly major u/f mods, while the X31A’s (mostly) got rebuilt or fixed but not reclassified.  Some had their roofs ‘tarred” (asphaltum) and repainted FCC (with new PK lettering) all over.

Elden Gatwood

Back home from my trip. Here are those M103s.

While in the future of this list, I photographed several M103s on flat cars in Anniston, GA during a Southern Steam Excursion from Columbus, GA in about 1975.

In 1949, the T43 heavy tank was approved for development.  It eventually became the M103 heavy tank, of which 300 were built.

They weighed about 65 tons.  One fits nicely on the 100 ton flats that are being discussed.

I am sure the Army included the possibility of having to transport heavy tanks like these when they commissioned the flat cars.


Ed

Edward Sutorik

Charlie;

It is almost impossible to get all cars delivered with no loss of stirrups or grabs.  Easy fix!

The model is beautiful!

As delivered and through much of service life, they were either Freight Car Color, or FCC over asphaltum.  Late in service life some got asphaltum to minimize roof leaks, but even the early 60’s rebuilts/repaints got FCC over top.

The FCC often wore off over time, and the paint on the roof got bled away, the asphaltum got more and more exposed, but with the general deterioration in the carbody, it was hard to tell, unless (like i), you crawled all over them, ruining your new jeans. 

If you are modeling cars that have considerable years on the P&L, you might weather like the attached.  Some of the old PRR guys really thought it was realistic.

Elden Gatwood

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request.  I think that I have a good idea on how to proceed with painting and applying decals.

Thanks again,

Chuck Cover

Santa Fe, NM

I tried to post this to the group a couple days ago but it didn’t pop up on my summary emails, so I’m going to try again.  If you’ve already seen this, I apologize.

Several months ago I recall seeing a post about someone producing (or planning to produce) brass handrails for an F&C high platform tank car.  I didn’t have one of these models at the time and didn’t save the info.  But last week I scored one on eBay and I’d like to know where to order these replacement handrails.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Doug Auburg