J&C Studios O Gauge Archive


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What is the J&C Studios O Gauge Archive?

J&C Studios O Gauge Archive


O Gauge / O Scale Forums and Individual Blogs for Model Railroading

What is the J&C Studios O Gauge Archive?
(Guest)   JCS Archive   Scratch Built Rolling Stock   B&O and Other Equipment
 
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B&O and Other Equipment
Balto&NY
Joined: Jul 30, 2011
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posted Jan 12, 2012: 












The caboose is built in wood with some metal and wire details. Has full interior and underbody details.

The covered hopper was built from a 1940 Railway Age article in wood, with a thin sheet metal overlay. Wire ribs and detailed brake rigging.

The baggage cars is built in wood and sheet aluminum, with cast metal ends. It rides on 70 year old Walther's trucks fitted with brass journal bushings. Has working doors and full interior detail.

This SIRT camelback switcher was built in brass, using a kitchen sink tail piece for the boiler and firebox section. Has a full crew, constant/directional headlights and a correctly synchronized, battery powered on-board sound system.
 
cnjrr
Joined: Feb 4, 2012
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posted Feb 18, 2012: 
Nice work, Love the Camelback.
You used everything plus the kitchen sink.

You do nice work.
 
Balto&NY
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posted May 24, 2012: 



Lehigh Valley "wrong way door" 50 ton double sheathed box car built in styrene with Intermountain
"Viking" roof and 'back dated' AAR underframe. Doors work. LV used these cars in the bagged flour trade out of Buffalo NY until the 1950s when coverd hoppers took over. This model has a bagged flour load made of some Chicklets gum pieces inside.



The Chiclet gum pieces do weigh a bit. So the load was made to fit only within the door opening. 800 one hundred pound bags of flour would make a full load for prototype cars. 800 pieces of Chiclets gum would be out of the question for weight! Foam rubber strips in each end of the car help hold the load centered at the doors. To keep pesky critters from munching on the sugar coating, the Chiclet pieces were given three coats of Testors Dull Coat before glueing them into piles for the car.
Pieces of brown paper bag were used to duplicate heavy Kraft paper floor protection used in the prototype cars. Some baking powder was sprinkled on to represent spilled flour and flour dust in the car.
 
Balto&NY
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posted May 24, 2012: 



This Soo Line 80M class single sheathed box car was built with Northeastern wood and some Walthers parts
back in the 1970s for a cost of less than $10, including trucks and couplers! Information from a 1916 Car Builder's Cyclopedia and a few prototype photos from magazines were the references.
It features working doors and full underbody detailing.



.
 
Balto&NY
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posted May 24, 2012: 



In 1948, Santa Fe Refigerator Department had this one-off 'state of the art' refrigerator car built in stainless steel by Consolidated Steel Industries. It featured plug doors, convertible bunkers and several other new ideas. Santa Fe used most of these concepts in rebuilding its aging fleet of wood body reefers that included new steel roofs and siding, but did not repeat the use of stainless steel.

SFRD 13000 model was built in styrene over a wood body with stamped metal Athearn ends. Full data is included with all fractional measurements of the prototype. Champ decals were used but hand lettering had to be applied in two places: The "E" in El Capitan, and the word "West" which had to be smaller than Champ provided.

Unfortunately the bright silver paint for modeling stainless steel got toned down too much with just a brief dusting of Dull Coat, so heavier weathering was applied.
 
Balto&NY
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posted May 24, 2012: 



Swift & Company at one time had a fleet of well-kept wood body 36' meat reefers like this one. This O scale model was built in wood from an HO article in Model Railraoder and exhibited at MR's 50th Anniversary celebration in Milwaukee WI in 1983. At that MR model contest, only one other Swift reefer was entered. It was built in HO.
 
Balto&NY
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posted May 24, 2012: 



This Reading milk reefer built in 1910 was found on a siding in Buckingham PA in January 1968. With a buddy on a sub-freezing cold day, measurements were taken and sketches of details were made along with many notes. Later, a scale drawing was made from which this model was built in wood. The model was painted and lettered in the freight livery it had on that siding, last used in Reading Company ice service at Philadelphia.

One of three such cars built by Reading, they featured inward opening side doors, hence no hinges show on the outside. The prototype cars' end doors were framed with old rail and so were the end doors on this model.

In passenger milk train service these cars were painted dark green, black roof and under body with gold lettering. Lest anyone think a 'milk train' was slow, in spite of many stops they ran along at a rather good clip. Milk is perishable. Until the late 1940s, milk was hauled in cars like this to creameries and bottling plants in large cans from the farms, with crushed ice tossed over them in warm or hot weather.

Here is the above model of Reading 97019 repainted and back dated with its original number, 1587.
 
Balto&NY
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posted Jun 30, 2012: 



The prototype was a heavy-weight 1920s dining car that was modernized and stream-styled by B&O in 1946.
The model is built in wood with car sides scratch made with roofers aluminum sheet metal. Cast metal Keil Line ands and Golden Gate Depot trucks were installed. It features is a fully detailed interior with light fixtures in the ceiling as well as table cloths, roses in bud vases, bottles of B&O's Deer Park spring water and menus at each table.

The model was built for someone who specifically wanted B&O 1035 modeled in O scale to be a display piece for his collection of B&O dining car china. A display track was also built for it. The roof on the model can be propped open to show the detailed kitchen, pantry and dining room. The model was also built so it could be run on an O scale 2 rail layout if desired.

B&O 1035 was the only car of class F-4bc. Its claim to fame was service in one of two specials B&O ran for Queen Elizabeth II's October 1957 trip from Washington DC to Staten Island NY and a ferry ride to Manhattan. Actually there were TWO trains that weekend: An 11 car press train and the 12 car royal train.





The royal train consist included B&Os only stream-styled baggage car, seen as the above scratch-built O scale model, as well as the 12/1 Pullman St. Paul fpr a crew car. There were also four all-room heavy-weight Pullmans, two all-room with lounge Pullmans, B&O diner 1035, two US Army communication cars and B&O office car 100.

Both trains were operated as military Main Trains under great secrecy in that Cold War era. The trip as run non-stop in two segments, with a well guarded overnight hold at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey.

Both specials were a magnificent 'last bow' for Pullman's classic, heavy-weight high-end accomodation equipment in two-tone gray paint. Each car was carefully selected for its fittness and appearance, then thoroughly cleaned, inside and out.

Routing was B&O from Washington DC to Philadelphia, then Reading Company from Philadelphia to Camp Kilmer NJ via the Port Reading line. After a well guarded overnight stay, the following morning each special proceeded separated by an hour over the Lehigh Valley from Camp Kilmer to Staten Island Junction near Cranford NJ.

There, the Staten Island Rapid Trainsit forwarded each train about 12 miles to Stapleton Yard. A motorcade and parade took the royals and their retinue to the St. George Ferry Terminal for their trip to Manhattan for anther parade and a reception at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
 
Balto&NY
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posted Feb 7, 2015: 




This UP horse/baggage/express car was built in the years before the computer and internet.
The roof was made by planing and filing a pine board to the shape needed, A few commercial parts were used as well. The doors and ventilators were Watlhers parts andthe trucks were from All Nation when they were still in the O scale business.
The sides are made from aluminum roofer's flashing, with the rivet detail hand-embossed. Scale Coat paint and Champ decals were also used.
The only reference was a few photos of a prototype car. Turns out I made it a scale 4' too short! That's because all the photos I found were taken on an angle. I could not find a full broadside view in searching through stacks of TRAINS magazines and thumbing through railroad photo books. The internet has made finding accurate info a lot easier now!
Ed Bommer
 
Balto&NY
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posted Feb 7, 2015: 



This Milwaukee Road horizontal rib box car was built from drawings of the prototype in the 1953 edition of Car Builder's Cyclopedia. Stamped metal ends, doors, ladders and brake components are the only commercial parts used. The sides were made form Midwest model aircraft plywood, about 3/32" thick. The ribs are strips of Strathmore board glued over the plywood. It had previously been given four coats of sanding sealer and light sanding between coats to get a smooth surface. The roof was made from a strip of sugar pine, planed to the correct angles. The panels on the roof were cut from Strathmore board and glued on after the roof was sealed like the sides. The under-body has full air brake piping and rigging.
At the time this was built, there were no accurate MILW horizontal rib cars, aside from old Lobaugh kits, long out of production. Things are different now, with Weaver's excellent model of these unique cars.
Ed Bommer
 
Balto&NY
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posted Oct 15, 2016: 
Other than a few detail parts trucks and couplers, this 40' Pfaudler milk tank car was built from scrap wood and a used aluminum Multi-Lith metal master I got from a print shop. One small broadside photo was the reference, with dimensions worked out from known AAR clearances. I did not get to see a prototype of this car until many years later at the National Transportaiton Museum at St. Louis. The model is basically a decorated wooden box with embossed rivets on the sheet metal overlays made with a dress makers pounce wheel and straight edge. Walthers decals, dry transfer letters and some hand painting for 'Sealect' were done to finish it.



 
Balto&NY
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posted Oct 15, 2016: 
This scratch built Reading Company 65' mill gondola with drop ends was also built from a photo as well as a 1953 Car Builder's Cyclopedia to learn more about the dimensions. Long mill gondolas are built narrower than other freight cars, for better clearance on tight curves and close confines of industrial areas. The working drop ends were made from cut-down All Nation boxcar ends. The sides and floor are sheathed with rivet embossed aluminum roofer's flashing. The side ribs are from a Northeastern milled wood 'bulb' section. Lettering is from the style of the 1930s-early 1940s.


 
Balto&NY
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posted Oct 15, 2016: 
Here is a prototype 65' drop end Reading mill gondola, delivering one of two 100' long plate girders from the Shoemakersville Bridge Company, for a grade crossing elimination project on Staten Island in 1935. Flat cars were coupled to each end of this car while in transport from Pennsylvania to Staten Island (where I am from).



 
Balto&NY
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posted Oct 15, 2016: 
An article in an old Model Railroader Magazine about building a Rock Island covered gondola in HO was used to build this model in O scale. Built long before this WW II era gondola became available as a ready to run model it had to be scratch built. Styrene sides were made to fit on a wood body, with styrene used for the roof, its hatches and the car ends. It has a fully detailed under body including a slack adjuster in the brake rigging. Walthers decals were used for lettering this contest entry piece, which won as best of show in 1997. The prototype cars were used for hauling rolls of tin-plated steel from Pittsburgh PA mills to the mid-west for American Can Co. and other manufacturers.
 
Balto&NY
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posted Oct 15, 2016: 
OK, time for another caboose. This 8 wheel wood body caboose was built from a photo in a book by Lucius Beebe that covered in part, the Wichita Falls & Southern Railroad in Texas. The model has a wood body with removable roof and detailed interior. It has a center sill made from a 1/16" thick x 1/2" wide brass strip for strength and a solid mount for the couplers under the thin end platforms. Like the prototype, it rides on Fox trucks which in this case came from an AHM "Casey Jones" locomotive tender that was 'upgraded' with arch bar trucks.
The Susquehanna & Cheaspeake road name is a take-off from the Maryland & Pennsylvania RR at York PA, when I lived nearby in the early 1970s.

A four piece article on building this car was written for O Scale Railroading magazine in 1990. That was when publisher Myron Biggar had taken over the magazine and renamed it O Gauge Railroading.
 
Balto&NY
Joined: Jul 30, 2011
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posted Dec 31, 2016: 
OK, so this is not a scratch built 'bobber' caboose, but a rebuild from a 1952 Train Craft kit I bought with money earned from chores and lawn mowing when I was 14. My Dad thought I was wasting my money on such a thing. Here, it has been rebuilt with replacement siding and end windows put in and lettered for my model railroad's name at the time, Richmond & Northern. This was done in 1961, when I still lived on
Staten Island (Richmond County, NY).



 
Balto&NY
Joined: Jul 30, 2011
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posted Dec 31, 2016: 
Here is B&O a prototype K-1 class caboose still with its cupola at St. George on Staten Island in the early 1940s. The Train Craft caboose is pretty close but it needs accurate corner steps. The paint color used on cabooses at that time was B&O Freight Car Brown, the same as used on box cars until the late 1940s. Hard to tell, but all window sashes and end doors were dark green. I saw these cabooses (and camelback steam locos) in use when I was a boy.
 
Balto&NY
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posted Dec 31, 2016: 
With a few changes and finding a set of original B&O style caboose steps made by Train Craft in the 1950s. New paint and lettering with a new O Scale B&O caboose decal set gives the old Train Craft kit built caboose a new life and much closer to its prototype.
My father passed away in 1982.
Yes Dad, I STILL have it!
 
Balto&NY
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posted May 4, 2017: 




A 2005 Weaver troop sleeper/express car, modified to more accurately model a B&O C-17 class car.
A new floor was made with 1/16" thick ABS sheet and Plastruct 1/8" wood decking, which is 1/32" thick.
That matched the deformed die cast zamac floor for thickness. The body was modified by widening and lowering the side door openings and making new doors to match B&O practice. The car ends were also re-detailed with styrene channel and strips to match B&O which put on metal door frame extensions in place of the diaphragms.
Low profile Garland ventilators were added. B&O did not remove them as others did in converting troop cars to express service. Weaver did not include ventilators on its express cars.
The side sills were 'notched' to model how B&O re-enforced them after removing the Pullman style stairwell entry steps. They were on early troop sleepers built in 1943-44. Later troopers built in 1944/45 got two-step stirrups in place of the steps. That left the car side sills intact, with no gaps.
Scale Coat paint and Micro Scale decals were used to finish the model.
 
Balto&NY
Joined: Jul 30, 2011
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posted Dec 2, 2017: 
This BAR insulated/heater boxcar was made from an early Atlas plug door car kit. Side ventilators were added along with a Preco heater, mounted to the underbody. The heater is a detailed block of wood. Champion decals and Floquil paint were used to finish the car, back in the early 1980s.



 
Balto&NY
Joined: Jul 30, 2011
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posted Dec 2, 2017: 
Here is another older Atlas plug door boxcar kit, made up as a late 1950's Pacific Fruit Express mechanical refrigerator. Information and details were developed from an article on these cars in Railroad Model Craftsman. A diesel fuel tank was put on, along with vent panels for the refrigeration unit made form styrene clapboard siding. Alphabet decals were used to fill out the mechanical lettering, as Champ's PFE decal set did not include that. A chunk of 2x4 inside the car provides weight for this car and the BAR car above as they are very light.



 

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