I starting construction of a Sunshine Milw Road SS box car. Martin's
directions suggest painting with Modelflex Light Tuscan Oxide Red with a
small amount of Dark Tuscan Oxide Red. Ted Culotta, in this Essential
Freight Cars article, suggests a mixture of 2/3 Accupaint Iron Oxide and 1/3
Accupaint Rich Oxide Brown.

Can someone suggest an appropriate mixture for Floquil paints for these Milw
Road cars?

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com

Jack Burgess inquires-

I starting construction of a Sunshine Milw Road SS box car. Martin's
directions suggest painting with Modelflex Light Tuscan Oxide Red with a
small amount of Dark Tuscan Oxide Red. Ted Culotta, in this Essential
Freight Cars article, suggests a mixture of 2/3 Accupaint Iron Oxide and 1/3
Accupaint Rich Oxide Brown.

Can someone suggest an appropriate mixture for Floquil paints for these Milw
Road cars?

John Greedy, who IMHO is the ranking expert on the subject of Milwaukee box car paints ("the coats of many colors"), opines that a 50:50 mixture of Floquil ATSF Mineral Brown and Boxcar Red would be about right for cars before about 1950 or so. This has become my default paint for Milwaukee boxcars of that era.

As with most subjects of this nature from those years, however, no one really knows because of the lack of any defining visual or written data. Also, like a lot of other railroads for whom boxcar paint was simply a utility, the Milwaukee apparently bought red-brown paint from a variety of suppliers, and exact matching hues were not a priority.

These Milwaukee SS boxcars were produced by the thousands, lasted for decades, and were a ubiquitous feature on about any given railroad right up into the '50s. The thousands of famous steel ribside cars of the late 30's and the '40s replaced the mysterious double sheathed cars (also in the thousands, but little noted) of the '10s and teens, but it largely remained for more modern cars beyond the usual scope of this list to eventually replace the single sheathed cars.

The Sunshine kit of this car makes a truly nice model, but a do wish that a more economical styrene kit would become available so that the Milwaukee modeler can more easily build up a credible fleet.

Denny
--
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento

Denny wrote:

John Greedy, who IMHO is the ranking expert on the subject of
Milwaukee box car paints ("the coats of many colors"), opines that a
50:50 mixture of Floquil ATSF Mineral Brown and Boxcar Red would be
about right for cars before about 1950 or so. This has become my
default paint for Milwaukee boxcars of that era.

Thanks Denny....that is what I need.

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com

Denny Anspach wrote:

These Milwaukee SS boxcars were produced by the
thousands, lasted for decades, and were a ubiquitous
feature on about any given railroad right up into the
'50s. The thousands of famous steel ribside cars of
the late 30's and the '40s replaced the mysterious
double sheathed cars (also in the thousands, but
little noted) of the '10s and teens, but it largely
remained for more modern cars beyond the usual scope
of this list to eventually replace the single
sheathed cars.

The Sunshine kit of this car makes a truly nice
model, but a do wish that a more economical styrene
kit would become available so that the Milwaukee
modeler can more easily build up a credible fleet.

Short of using the Sunshine kit, does anyone have recommendations for
a more economical (i.e. a simple styrene kit) to serve as a "stand-in"
or "close enough" model for these cars? The closest I've identified
is the Accurail #7000 6-Panel boxcar with wood ends, but the prototype
had lumber doors on the ends and a straight center sill as opposed to
the Accurail fishbelly sill. If anyone can top that model, I'd love
to hear about it.

I've got an interest in these cars because the GBW had 150 boxcars
built by Pressed Steel Car Co. in 1925, identical to CMStP&P
708500-713999; there were also another 100 built between 1925-1930 by
Bettendorf Co. and Western Car Co. identical to other CMStP&P designs.
The smaller GB&W orders may actually have been combined with the large
Milwaukee Road orders.

Some of the GBW single sheathed boxcars which were identical to the
Sunshine Models boxcar kit remained in revenue service until at least
1970.

__________
Mark Mathu
Whitefish Bay, Wis.
The Green Bay Route: http://www.greenbayroute.com/

The thousands of famous steel ribside cars

of the late 30's and the '40s replaced the mysterious double
sheathed cars

Denny:

Do you know the best paint mix for the Milw ribside cars?

Thanks,

David Newcomb

Mark Mathu asked:
"Short of using the Sunshine kit, does anyone have recommendations
for a more economical (i.e. a simple styrene kit) to serve as
a "stand-in" or "close enough" model for these cars? The closest
I've identified is the Accurail #7000 6-Panel boxcar with wood ends,
but the prototype had lumber doors on the ends and a straight center
sill as opposed to the Accurail fishbelly sill. If anyone can top
that model, I'd love to hear about it."

It depends what factor is more important to you - how a freight car
model looks standing alone or how it looks in context in the yard or
a train, because the MILW cars came in two heights - 8' 6" and 9' 3".

The Accurail #7100 car with Dreadnaght ends is a better stand-in for
the taller cars in the 714000 series.
http://www.accurail.com/accurail/art/7100/7109.jpg
The center sill is easily corrected using 2 x 12 styrene strip, and
the model has the correct Hutchins roof and comparable Z-section
truss members. There's still a difference of 3" of inside height
between the model and this prototype, but the model does capture its
overall appearance.

The Accurail #7000 car with wood ends is not as good a stand-in for
the 8' 6" cars, mainly because it's tall enough to change the
overall proportions of the car. Even though there's "only" a 4"
difference in inside heights between the model and prototype, it's
enough to alter the "low-slung" look of 8' 6"/8' 7" 40-foot
boxcars. Visualize the difference in proportions between an
X29/USRA-design steel boxcar and the USRA SS/DS boxcars and you'll
see what I mean.

Unfortunately, there's not as good a stand-in for the lower cars.
The Walthers/Train-Miniature single-sheathed boxcar with "braced"
ends gives you the right proportions and also has Z-section truss
members, but you'll need to modify the underframe to get rid of the
fishbelly and correct the kingpin-striker distance to 5 feet, modify
the doors to get rid of the oversized door tracks and "claws", and
the roof is incorect. You can conceivably replace the roof with the
Hutchins roof from any Accurail single-sheathed boxcar, but it's up
to you to decide whether or not that approaches the point of
diminishing returns.


Ben Hom

David Newcomb asked:
"Do you know the best paint mix for the Milw ribside cars?"

We went over this two days ago. See post #68131.


Ben Hom

I wrote:
"Even though there's "only" a 4" difference in inside heights between
the model and prototype, it's enough to alter the "low-slung" look of
8' 6"/8' 7" 40-foot boxcars."

The difference is actually 5" to 6". Darned English units...


Ben Hom

--- In STMFC@..., "Mark Mathu" <mark@...> wrote:

Denny Anspach wrote:

The Sunshine kit of this car makes a truly nice
model, but a do wish that a more economical styrene
kit would become available so that the Milwaukee
modeler can more easily build up a credible fleet.

Short of using the Sunshine kit, does anyone have recommendations

for> a more economical (i.e. a simple styrene kit) to serve as a
"stand-in"> or "close enough" model for these cars?

__________
Mark Mathu

Funny you should ask, I just sent an email off-line to Ray Breyer
about this. I'm doing a kitbash of an MDC 50-foot double-door SS car
I heard of from the NEB&W site:
" The 50 foot cars can be cut down to approximately 40 feet (okay,
the panels are 4-1/2 feet long, so you can only cut out 9 feet). I
first cut the kit into flat parts. This photo shows an original side
above and the two panels removed to make it 40 feet, from an 11 panel
50 foot car to a 9 panel 40 footer."
It goes on to list the proper series for end-door and non-end door
cars, as well as mentioning the similar C&EI cars.
I decided a better way to cut the car apart is to remove the roof,
leaving the sides and ends attached. We'll see how well I get the
sides to go back together! However, the overall look is pretty close,
but to do it right you have to replace the ladders with drop grabs.
Actually, since they are ladder grabs on the ends, you only need to
carve off the rungs, which is surprisingly do-able. Oh, Ray saved my
bacon by mentioning that when you cut out the 2nd panel on the side,
make sure you are cutting on the proper side of the brace. You need
to cut off the first brace, which has the rivets facing the wrong
direction for this car.
If anybody is interested, contact me off-line for more info. This is
definitely a kitbash, not a simple kit. So, a fleet of them is easier
on your pocketbook than one of Sunshine kits, but much more time
consuming than Accurail kits. However, the kitbash has the advantage
of being distinctive (round roof, double door SS car, end door...) and
represents a sizable portion of the Milw fleet. Now, if I could only
figure out how to shorten it by a foot without hacking it into a dozen
pieces...
Dean Payne

Dean Payne wrote, in part:
"Funny you should ask, I just sent an email off-line to Ray Breyer
about this. I'm doing a kitbash of an MDC 50-foot double-door SS car
I heard of from the NEB&W site:
'The 50 foot cars can be cut down to approximately 40 feet (okay,
the panels are 4-1/2 feet long, so you can only cut out 9 feet). I
first cut the kit into flat parts. This photo shows an original side
above and the two panels removed to make it 40 feet, from an 11 panel
50 foot car to a 9 panel 40 footer.'"

Dean, you totally missed the point. The kitbash you described is for
the 1-1/2 door automobile boxcars. These are the cars being discussed:
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/milwssboxmain.html
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/modeling/models/culotta/milw713071main.
html
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/modeling/models/culotta/ctse716287main.
html


Ben Hom

No, I didn't quite miss the point, I guess I just kind of went off on
a slight tangent, which I tend to do. I was aware that the cars being
discussed are single door cars, but I think the double door cars make
a more interesting choice for modeling "Milw Road SS box cars" (the
title of this thread).
Perhaps I should have preface my post with "...another interesting
choice for inexpensive Milwaukee SS box cars would be the kibash blah
blah blah..." Ersatz Sunshine cars they are not.
Sorry I threw you a screwball. Consider the source!
Dean Payne