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

Post a Comment

What people are looking at on this blog

CN Boxcars a Plenty

Image
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
Read more

Tank car weathering

Image
Rapido Model Trains recently released their model of the Procor GP20 20,000 gallon general purpose tank car.  This has long been on my list of "must have" models for the Hudson Bay Railway.  Any photo with a tank car in it from the late 1970's to the 1990's was likely one of these cars.  They were used to haul gasoline, diesel and other fuel to various parts of the northern railway network.  They were used to stock the fuel tank farm in Churchill that serviced the barges that supplied communities along Hudsons Bay.  This required massive numbers of tank cars to travel north.   The model from Rapido is very nicely done with etched walkways and nicely rendered fine details.  They are pretty much ready to go out of the box, however I want to try adding some weathering to the cars to better represent the prototype.   One challenge is that there are not that many photographs of these cars in service in the early 1980's, as much due to the cost of a roll of film as at t
Read more

Painting wheels for roller bearing and standard bearing trucks

Image
One of my pet peeves is otherwise nicely done models riding on shiny metal wheels - it ruins the effect of all the other work done on the model.  And you should NOT use plastic wheelsets - they seem to attract dirt and grime and gum up your track.  Swap out the plastic wheels for aftermarket metal wheelsets.   Most of my replacement wheelsets are Intermountain, available in boxes of 100 axles.  The wheel profile is not the best but they are readily available and are generally in proper gauge or easily adjusted.  I have tried other brands but they are hit and miss as far as being readily available locally.  I have found that Rapido wheelsets are always too narrow compared to the NMRA, and they are a bugger to regauge.   My process for the wheels is fairly simple and gives good results.  Below are my go to paints: Vallejo Air Black and Vallejo Game Effects Dry Rust If you want to you can first clean the wheels with 99% (or whatever % you have available) alcohol to clean any oil and dirt
Read more