I took a quick look at the intermountain type 27 unterframe and the Tichy
tank. It looks very doable - perhaps even "quick". Can you point me in
the directions of photographs, drawings, measurements to do this? In
particular, I would like to see the "cradle" area supporting the tank.

Richard - don't want to step on your toes if you're planning on writing
this up...I'll be happy to see how it goes and send you what I cobble
together for review/critique as an aid in developing your article

Bruce, my toes are not easily stepped on, since I have far more ideas for
articles than I have time to build the models and write the articles. I
don't have, nore am I aware of, drawings for the USG-A class cars, but I
have several builder's photos I can scan for you. However, I'm leaving
town for several days and won't time to do so until next week.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Fellow Prisoners,

Going through the ACF book this weekend - blissfully
ignorant of the turmoil I caused with my questions of
last week - I couldn't help but notice, once again, the
sheer variety of tank car shapes and sizes. We've only
scratched the surface with the handful of accurate kits
that are on the market....a new tank car kit seems to hit
the shelves only once every decade, or so it seems....

Damn, Shawn, the glass is only half full. In the past five years we've
only gotten 10K ICC-103Ws from RC, 8K and 10K Type 27s from L-L, and 8K and
10K Type 27s from IM. And more and different models are coming soon -
trust me. Before that, we had, let's see, tank cars from Tichy and Athearn
(no prototypes) and Walthers and Mantua (urp, gag). So what's with this
sour note about "once every decade"? You remind me of my wife's favorite
mantra: God grant me patience - and I want it RIGHT NOW! Seriously...

....what can we do with
the various kits that now exist? Take, for example, the
underframes from the P2K, Red Caboose, and Tichy kits.
Can they be used as a starting point to make any other
kind of tank car? Can the tanks themselves, or even the
domes, be swapped around to create something new but
prototypical?

Yes, yes, and yes. We've already talked about the Tichy/IM kitbash to
produce models of the War Emeregency USG-A class cars; I know this works
because I've already done one. And though I haven't tried it, I think
Tichy's underframe combined with an 8K IM tank will make a pretty plausible
model of the 8K cars built by SSC in sizeable numbers for NATX in the
1920s. The AC&F tanks modeled by IM are quite close in design and
dimensions to the tanks of the same size built in the 1930s/'40s by GATC,
so it should be possible to do some underframe mods and model the GATC cars
of that era. Athearn's "chemical" tank can be shortened (getting rid of
the grotesquely oversize valve casing) and made into a tank for an
insulated 1CC-103/ICC-104, if a suitable insulated dome is fabricated for
it.

What part, or parts, would be needed to
open up some kitbashing opportunities?

We can do a whole lot with what we already have (except for lettering, and
I'm working on that). All it takes is some time. So many models, so
little time. Meanwhile, I've got several models to finish for magazine
articles I'm already committed to. But if you want to have a go at any of
the ideas outlined above, I can scan photos and suggest ways of going about
it.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Garth wrote:

As Richard has pointed out a number of times, the Tichy tank with the
small dome can be placed on the Type 27 underframe to give us a fair
representation of some cars built during WWII. Richard has promised for
several years to do the conversion and write it up, but has apparently
been trapped by mundane non-railroad activities, like putting a roof
over his head (only important if it protects his trains).

Richard, Garth,

I took a quick look at the intermountain type 27 unterframe and the Tichy
tank. It looks very doable - perhaps even "quick". Can you point me in
the directions of photographs, drawings, measurements to do this? In
particular, I would like to see the "cradle" area supporting the tank.

Richard - don't want to step on your toes if you're planning on writing
this up...I'll be happy to see how it goes and send you what I cobble
together for review/critique as an aid in developing your article

Happy Rails
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith V.M.D., Ph.D.
Scott-Ritchey Research Center
334-844-5587, 334-844-5850 (fax)
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
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Garth wrote:

As Richard has pointed out a number of times, the
the Tichy tank with the small dome can be placed
on the Type 27 underframe to give us a fair
representation of some cars built during WWII.

How did I miss out on that? I've got about a dozen
of those Tichy kits in the closet, which I've been
afraid to even look at since I found out there was
no prototype for them. I know that they can be bashed
into some kind of war-emergency cars, but I'm still
waiting for Richard to finish the second half of THAT
magazine article. Doggone it Richard, let ME come up
there and chase the deer out of Sandra's rose garden;
you sit down and write!

Seriously, one bright note (for me anyway) is that
you can take the 60" dome from the Tichy detail pack
and graft it onto the IM Type-27 tank, thus reproducing
Shell Chemicals' fleet of Type-27's, which all had this
feature. That's an easy kitbash, at least. And since
one of the "home points" for those cars was at Martinez,
California on the Espee, all the more reason to do several!

Shawn Beckert

Shawn:

As Richard has pointed out a number of times, the Tichy tank with the
small dome can be placed on the Type 27 underframe to give us a fair
representation of some cars built during WWII. Richard has promised for
several years to do the conversion and write it up, but has apparently
been trapped by mundane non-railroad activities, like putting a roof
over his head (only important if it protects his trains). I am sure
there are many other possibilities. What is lacking is shared
information. Richard noted recently that the magazines generally don't
want articles unless there is a kit to go with them, but perhaps the
Hawkins-Wider CYC would be a good venue for prototype photos and
thoughts on kitbashing. A possibility, Richard? Others?

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

"Beckert, Shawn" wrote:

Fellow Prisoners,

Going through the ACF book this weekend - blissfully
ignorant of the turmoil I caused with my questions of
last week - I couldn't help but notice, once again, the
sheer variety of tank car shapes and sizes. We've only
scratched the surface with the handful of accurate kits
that are on the market.

Since a new tank car kit seems to hit the shelves only
once every decade, or so it seems, what can we do with
the various kits that now exist? Take, for example, the
underframes from the P2K, Red Caboose, and Tichy kits.
Can they be used as a starting point to make any other
kind of tank car? Can the tanks themselves, or even the
domes, be swapped around to create something new but
prototypical? What part, or parts, would be needed to
open up some kitbashing opportunities?

I'm afraid if we don't come up with some way to stretch
the capabilities of the kits we already have, we'll have
to sit and wait for whatever the manufacturers come up
with. Do we have any recourse on this? Your input, please.

Shawn Beckert