Algoma Central woodchip hopper

The final (for now) woodchip hopper of the trio I built and painted for Kaslo Shops Distributing is this Algoma Central 1400 series woodchip hopper.  Algoma Central had a fleet of 90 woodchip gondolas for international service in the ACIS 1401-1490 series.  The cars were shipping wood chips to a mill in the US, hence the ACIS series.  

These cars didn't seem to get photographed often as there are only limited photos on line and none in my slide collection.  Based on the available photos I assembled the car, which was fairly straight forward.  The bigger challenge was figuring out what the paint colour was.  

After some lengthy discussions with Chris Vanderheide he suggested a paint mix of Vallejo paints to roughly replicate the blue green colour seen in the limited number of photos available.  I used the equivalent colours in the Vallejo Air paint line as I had those on hand.  The mix is 2 parts 71.095, 1 part 71.317 and 1 part 71.050.  Chris' mix was 2 parts 70.974, 1 part 70.990 and 1 part 70.844.  Both get you a reasonably close colour.  Until someone comes up with a paint chip from these cars this will be about the closest you can get in my opinion. 

The other headache with these cars is the yellow end door.  Other people have suggested using silver as a base coat for the yellow paint.  I did this but found that the yellow was not opaque.  I used medium yellow 71.002 for the end door and Tamiya red oxide primer for the interior.  The interior colour was a wild guess on my part.   

Precision Design Company produces Algoma Central woodchip car decals that accurately reflect the lettering on these cars.  I sprayed Tamiya TS-80 Matt finish on the car and used my favourite Vallejo Game Effects dry rust paint on the couplers and wheel faces.  Some Kadee brake hoses finished off the car.

The paint drove me up the wall but I'm pretty happy with how this car turned out.  I just need to justify an international service car from a different railway being in northern Manitoba.  I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Thanks to Chris Vanderheide, Nick A. and John Whitmore for their assistance with completing this car.  





 

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