Across the Canadian Shield - 1970's style


 

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HBM&S Anachronism - Wood Truss Rod Flatcar

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The Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Railway in Flin Flon Manitoba (the town named after a science fiction novel) has been in continuous operation since about 1929.  They have used a motely assortment of used equipment from all over North America including former interurban steeple cab electrics,  a Minnesota logging Shay and GE 70 Tonners (see https://hudbayrailway.blogspot.com/2023/01/hudson-bay-mining-and-smelting-ge-70.html ).  As well they have had a wide range of second hand freight cars, many likely rescued from the scrapper.   Among these refugees were a pair of wood truss rod flat cars, #136 and #137.  Their history is unknown, but based on their design features they likely are a product of the early 1900's.  They rode on arch bar trucks and had no hand brakes.  They did have early air brake equipment, and the wheels were chocked when they were parked.   Exactly how these cars ended up in captive service at a smelter in northern M...
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PGE, BCOL and CP 8' door 40' boxcars

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Whoops... someone forgot to say when to stop. North Vancouver BC in the 1970's My most recent projects were a quintet of 10'6" 40' boxcars with 8' doors.  Canadian Pacific and Pacific Great Eastern (later BC Rail) ordered these cars in the late 1950's and early 1960's for newsprint service.  They were among the last 40' boxcars built for Canadian railways before the switch to 50' cars.  CN had 8' door cars as well but they had a different door style. These are newly released Kaslo Shops Distributing cars both with and without roofwalks. Given how many of Kaslo kits I have built these were very fast to build.  Everything went together well, and sanding was really only needed on the ends to clean up the details.  I primed the cars with Mr. Surfacer 1500 which gives a very nice base to start from. The PGE car was painted with TLT PGE Freight Car Red and decalled with Black Cat decals. The Canadian Pacific block and script lettered cars were painted...
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CN Boxcars a Plenty

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Canadian National had a long lasting fleet of 40 foot boxcars, some of which lasted until 1996 in grain service.  Modelling northern Manitoba in the early 1980's requires a significant number of 40 footers in both grain and general service.   Over the past several years I have been building out my fleet of these cars using RTR, kitbashed kits and resin kits.  There have also been numerous CN painted models done over the years, with some being relatively accurate while others are stand in models - some call these foobies. First Thing To  Do If you want to accurately model any CN steel boxcar your first stop should be to find a copy of Railroad Model Craftsman's August 1993 issue with Stafford Swain's seminal article "Canadian National's 1937 AAR design 40-foot steel boxcars".  It covers the entire range of 40 foot steel cars from 1937 to the end of 40' car deliveries in 1957.  This is "must read" material.  CN Lines has a number of articles on the...
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