I have been seriously modeling the New Haven Railroad for over 40 years. The excitement of the E&B Valley Osgood Bradly, then the 8600 stainless steel coaches and county cars made the possibility of making New Haven passenger trains for a high school / collage student a possibility. Brass cars were way out of my price range. E&B Valley (later Eastern Car Works) also made a series of Pullman Standard smooth side lightweight passenger cars, a 4-4-2, 6-6-4, coach diner and obs. Why am I rambling on about this? I came a cross four of these cars I built years ago, but do not plan on keeping. I dawned on me I have a bunch of Concord Jct and NKP Company brass car sides. I also have a stash of Train Starion Products 41-BNO trucks that work great on these cars.
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Here is the underframe. I added .030 thick styrene strips to each side to compensate for the thinner brass sides from the original plastic. The floor drilled and tapped for 2-56 screws for trucks and couplers.
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Here is the roof before I added the .030 styrene to the taps on the side. |
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When adding the .030 strips, make sure to lave a blank area for the vestibule window. |
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Here is the roof with the styrene
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Here I am clamping the two sides to the floor. |
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Here are two cars with the roofs temporally added. |
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Here are the diaphragms I use for the cars, I would recommend the ones molded in black. |
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Here are the partially built diaphragms. |
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Here are the TSP truck kit. |
Here is Allens Point. It is one of the very few cars that got the
revered logo, a black NH on a red field.
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Here are three cars. I built two per what I just wrote up, the third I did a while ago using a TSP core kit. |
This was a fun way to clean up stuff that is sitting around the train room, not going out and buying Walthers PS cars saved a lot of money (and time). These may no be sate of the art cars form Rapido or Walthers, but the look good on the layout and I am not waiting for somebody to bring them out in HO scale. If you don't have or can not find the brass sides, Union Starion Products makes the sides in styrene.