CN boxcar build


CN had a very large fleet of 40' steel boxcars that I have previously written about previously.  One car that I overlooked in that post was the fleet of Hutchins flat steel roofed cars.  There were 1000 10' IH cars with dreadnaught ends and Hutchins flat steel roofs in the 471000-471999 series delivered in 1937 from Eastern Car Company.  I had a Sylvan Scale Models (now offered by Yarmouth Models) Hutchins roof and an Intermountain 10'IH car.  Now what car to model?

By the early 1980's CN was removing roofwalks from their boxcars in a willy nilly manner.  Some got them removed when they were repainted or repaired, others kept the roofwalks to retirement.  Using photos as a guide is a must for anyone modelling the 1970's and on.

I wanted to model a car with the roofwalk removed.  Richard Yaremko has a good prototype shot in his Canadian Railcar Pictorial Volume 2 of 421856 (former 471039) in the CN tilted wafer "Serves All Canada" maple leaf scheme.  Now I just had to figure out the roof corner grab setup.  

Due to the different rib spacing on the Hutchins roof the CN shop crews cobbled up a different support from those used on other cars.  Stafford Swain's August 1993 Railroad Model Craftsman article on the CN boxcar fleet has a good overhead view of this arrangement.  It used the end roofwalk support and some steel angle along with parts from the original roof walk welded together to provide the base for the corner roof walk.  I took a leap of faith and decided to build the support based on the overhead photo of a different car.  

I used some flat brass stock along with some spare parts from some custom Black Cat etched end cages to replicate the setup.  I soldered up everything and ended up with a sturdy support that was attached to the resin roof with CA.  



The car also got chopped ladders on the A end, wire grab irons on the dreadnaught ends that was based on photos from other cars (hopefully 421856 had the same arrangement) and full height Tichy ladders on the B end.  I started this car before Black Cat came out with their very nice etched 8 rung ladders.  These will be my go to ladders for future builds.  









A coat of Tamiya Surface Primer provides a nice base for a coat of CN boxcar red #11 that I made using the MRH acrylic paint guide Vallejo Air mix of 2 parts 71.105 Brown and one part 71.038 Cam. Medium Brown.  

Vallejo gloss was used for areas where decals would be applied.  Black Cat CN maple leaf decals for a 10'IH car were used and sealed with another gloss coat.  I also added the AEI decal from Microscale along with wheel dots and "no roofwalk" decals from another Black Cat set.  To replicated chipping paint on the roof I mixed up some silver and light grey paint to get the look of galvanized metal that was used on these boxcars.  I weathered the car with various paint washes followed by Pan Pastels to replicate the prototype.  Another revenue service car for the Hudson Bay Railway is in service.   

Comments

  1. Rob Kirkham24 June 2021 at 18:50

    What a grubby old beast! Nice modelling. Nice modelling. Those running board supports are fun modelling detail. Did they ever run a clean, new car on that line?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marc Simpson25 June 2021 at 10:04

      By the early 1980's the original boxcar fleet was on its last legs. The Federal and Provincial governments along with CN were looking at options to replace the cars used to ship grain to Churchill. An experimental articulated covered hopper (CN 398000) was built to see if that was an option. Due to costs it was decided to rebuild the boxcar fleet so starting around 1984 the "buffalo" boxcars were refurbished and used to ship grain until the switch to cylindrical hoppers in 1996. The buffalo cars were in good shape to the end of their use.
      The beaten and bruised boxcars are one of the attractions of this line and era for me.

      Delete

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