Some recent blog posts by
Some recent blog posts by Tony Thompson on Pennsylvania RR gondolas on his layout stirred something in the back of my mind. Port Costa is on the SP Western Division mainline between Oakland and Sacramento. Most freight traffic to and from the SF Bay area from the Overland. Cascade routes and some San Joaquin Mococo line traffic would be funneled along the southern shore of the Carquinez Straits past the small steam engine facility/depot at Port Costa on the double track mainline. In the early 1950's the heavy industrial powerhouse of the US was the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York area of the north east of the country.
Large industrial products manufactured in that NE industrial complex would be shipped in gondolas or flat cars to the Bay Area either for Northern California projects or for ocean shipment to Pacific destinations. During that period there was a war going on Korea and the other far eastern and Pacific economies were still recovering from the destruction of WW II.
Hence a need for some Mid-East/Eastern Road gondolas. Unfortunately most PRR gondolas of the time are 65 or 54 foot in length which does not match my need for cars that are 52 foot or shorter as my mainline segment is only 15 feet long including staging. This lead me to examine the possibilities of the 41 foot Accurail gondola. and the 46 foot Walthers gondola. The Walthers car is an early 20th century PRR prototype still in service in 1951 but the model has become scarce and is getting collector prices on eBay. If I chance on one I will add it to the fleet. I mistakenly ordered an inexpensive PRR decorated Accurail car on eBay before I realized the PRR didn't have anything like it. After running through a lot of discussions on the Steam Era Freight Cars group on Groups.io including their archives transferred from the old Yahoo group I determined that the closest prototype for what I now had on hand were the 500 C&NW gondolas built in 1948 and originally numbered 130701-13699 (odd numbers only.) Fortunately there was a Mainline Modeler April 2005 article by Jeffrey M. Koeller on this specific car and I have a digital copy of the full set of Mainline Modeler magazines.
After all that introduction, I began the work on the kit three days ago by removing the PRR lettering and spraying the body and ends with Tamiya Red Oxide Primer. I then test fitted Kadee 158 couplers with narrow gear boxes and the Accurail trucks which are incorrect to check height and running stability. I am not replacing the plastic shelves masquerading as grab irons. I break too many #78-79 drill bits with my aging shaky hands. As Barber S-2 70 ton trucks are required, placed an order with Moloco for their trucks. Tahoe Model Works only makes the 50 ton version. The Accurail trucks are Bettendorf 70 ton trucks.
The model comes with a steel floor with rivet detail that neatly covers a flat weight. But the CNW car used 12 inch wood flooring. I found a sheet of Plastruct scribed plastic and cut a new floor. This floor was primed with Tamiya grey primer and then has been covered with successive coats of Vallejo Model Color paints to produce a moderately weathered floor that would be only 2-6 years old in my model period.
I have ordered a set of Speedwitch CNW decals specifically designed for this type car. This mornings mail showed both the decals and trucks are now in the USPS system.
After all that I wondered what CNW shade of FCR (freight car red) to paint the car. In one of the captions for a black and white photo in the Koeller article it stated that the original paint was a bright red oxide. I am still looking for a color photo with good color reproduction, but I am beginning to think the Tamiya primer might do.
