UPGRADING TRUCKS UNDER WEAVER BOXCARS

This weekend I switched gears from layout construction to freight car upgrades.  A change of pace is always good!

I decided to upgrade the trucks on my Weaver 50-foot boxcars.  These cars look great when weathered and detailed! 

 

One downer, however, is that the Weaver trucks do not have rotating roller bearing caps.  Being a railroader, when I see a moving car with frozen bearings my first thought is that someone left a tight handbrake on!  To remedy this problem, I decided to upgrade the cars using Lionel trucks and NWSL wheelsets.  The conversion is very easy and simply involves flipping the carfloor.  The Lionel trucks are built differently than Weaver's.  Inverting the floor gives a flush mounting surface for the Lionel's.  It just so happens that the resulting car and coupler height are dead-on the NMRA height gauge.  No extra shimming is necessary. 

I began by disassembling the car:

 

Then, I cut the bolsters from the center sill using a razor saw.  I made sure to remove enough of the sill to allow the trucks to swing freely:

 

The ribbed side of the carfloor becomes the bottom; the smooth side becomes the top.  I add small blocks of styrene over the truck mounting holes (see top of photo below).  The styrene, when drilled and tapped, gives the mounting screws a little more bite.  I drilled and tapped for 10-32 machine screws, then reattached the underframe assembly to the ribbed side of the car floor with ACC.  Last was adding Kadee couplers and installing the trucks. 

 

I insert 4mm lengths of 0.093 diameter styrene into the coupler spring to eliminate the caterpillar-like effect of the Kadee's.  There is just enough slack action to create a realistic effect, while the coupler still moves side to side freely.  

OPERATIONS ON THE NCIR

The NCIR  classifies inbound cars off CSXT and spots them as requested by customers.  The NCIR is one division of parent company Pioneer Railcorp, and crews are dispatched to work the various lines as required.  The best way to get a feel for operations is to picture yourself as a conductor working the line: 

Packaging Corp. of America requested a 7:00 am shift this morning.  They are anxious for a couple hot cars that came in overnight off CSXT, along with a couple more loads from the storage track.  They also have an empty car to be respotted for scrap paper loading. 
 
Here again is the layout of the branch line:

Here is a picture of your morning's work:

Start:

End:

And here is your work in switch list form:

Note that there are no cars for Premier and Dal-Tile did not request a shift today.  You'll only be drilling PCA.  Now it's up to you to get the work done.  No pressure, but remember the day shift manager at PCA is waiting for those hot cars...:-)

I've been operating the NCIR, in its final form, for about a month now.  Most sessions average 1 hour. ..just what I had in mind.  There are so many variables (e.g. number of inbounds, spots, respots, cars on/off the holding track, loaded scrap paper cars that must be held because billing is not completed etc.) that no two sessions are ever the same.


**Thanks to FrogRail for the GIF's!** 

LAYOUT LIGHTING

I experimented with several lighting configurations before I found one that I was happy with.  I ultimately settled on a combination of 4-tube fixtures directly over the layout + a 2-tube fixture mounted slightly in front of the benchwork, close to the valence.

I placed Phillips Daylight Deluxe tubes in the overhead fixtures. This gives a great ambient light source for the layout. However, the Daylight tubes alone give off a very bright but cold-looking light. I needed something to soften the light, and at the same time, shine down at an angle so as to really bring out the detail and weathering on my rolling stock. I tried track lighting with halogen fixtures, but could not eliminate "pools" of light at the front of the layout and multiple shadows to the rear. However, I found a second set of fluorescents, with cool white tubes, to be the answer. The cool whites give a beautiful, angled light to the layout, replicating a late Autumn day (my scenery will be set in November) and the daylight bulbs overhead give everything a nice, seemless punch.

 












 
I could not use the same shadowbox style lighting above the Commerce Street district due to overhead ductwork.  The ducts and utilities also eliminated any type of recessed can lights within the drop ceiling.  So, I went with pigtail fluorescents mounted in track light fixtures attached to the valence.  

STARCH HOPPERS ARRIVE

Most large cardboard manufacturing plants receive corn starch by rail.  My Packaging Corporation of America plant is no exception.  Starch is used as an additive in the adhesive that holds the layers of corrugated cardboard together.  

On the Gettysburg & Northern Railroad, we delivered starch to Inland Container (whom my PCA facility is loosely modeled after) in 100-ton ACF Pressuraide hoppers like no. 51029 pictured below:

Now Atlas makes a beautiful Presssuraide hopper in HO scale, but has yet to produce it in 1/48.  However, Lionel makes a very well detailed ACF 4-bay; complete with see-through metal walkways, separate grab irons, and nicely done brake gear:

 

I obtained two of the Lionel SHPX cars, which are very easy to convert over to 2-rail.  Northwest Shortline #8293-4 (36" / 145 tread) wheelsets are drop-in replacements.  Not only is the conversion easy, Microscale Decals even offers an O scale decal set for CCLX Pressuraides.  You can view the decal set here: Corn Products Decals 

I considered kitbashing the Lionel car into a Pressuraide, but quickly dismissed the idea as too much work.  The pneumatic outlets of the Lionel car are close enough for me!  A few hoses for transferring starch from the hoppers into my PCA mill and I'm all set.  PCA will receive a hopper of starch about once per week.  So two hoppers will serve my needs quite nicely.  

Spending most of my free time on layout construction, I contacted Jeff Sohn to see if he would be interested in painting and decaling these cars for me.  Jeff did an AMAZING job on these!  If you need a model painted, I highly recommend Jeff's work.  And be sure to check out his website: Jeff's Custom Train Painting 

Here are pics of the completed models.  I need to add couplers and a little weathering, then they will be ready to start earning revenue for the NCIR.

 

 

THE RAILROAD ROOM

The NCIR occupies two walls of my 10 x 25 railroad room, which is located in the basement of our home.

The previous owner used the area as a shop.  The before photos below are from  2007, when we first viewed the house with our realtor:

I wanted a dry, comfortable area in which to model, but did not go overboard finishing the room.  One thing I made sure of was to maintain easy access to all pipes and wiring.


 

I gave the block walls two coats of Dry-Lok paint and insulated with 1-inch pink foamboard.  I framed up new 2 x 4 walls (using pressure treated for the base plate), ran wiring and covered with beadboard.  I was going for a look similar to the interior of a railroad depot.

I removed the storage closet and used the area for my modeling workbench:




NCIR's reference library is located adjacent to the shop.  Reference articles from magazines are grouped by subject into binders for easy access.





I insulated the area above the main part of the layout, then installed tongue and groove planking.  The planking is in an area with no overhead wiring/pipes.
  

 

I then painted the planking white to help reflect light down onto the layout.

A drop ceiling conceals low HVAC ducts and water pipes above the Commerce Street section of the layout.   

Access to the utility pipes is still easy...one thing I wanted to make sure of!  Murphy's law you know.

Upon moving into our house, we found that the previous owners left us two wooden cabinets down in the shop.  These cabinets were not in the best of shape; having paint stains, screw holes, scratches and other various battle scars.  

My modest roster of O scale boxcars consists of beautifully weathered models by Don Smith, Tim Carlson and Jim Lund.  I needed a safe place to keep these beauties while they were off the layout.  So, I decided to go to work on the battered wooden shelves and attempt to transform them into display cases for my rolling stock.

I filled all holes and scratches with wood putty, then sanded smooth.  The cabinets had a polyurethane finish, so I used a white, non-sanding primer as a base coat before painting:

    

I painted my cabinets to match the railroad room.  Here is one set after 4 coats of brown and two coats of beige: 

After sealing the new paint with a couple coats of polyurethane, I added cut-glass shelving, sliding glass doors, and brass drawer pulls.

I plan to have night-operations on my layout, so I added under cabinet light fixtures to the shelves:

The cabinet lights work off this neat remote control unit I found while Christmas shopping with my wife.  For around $10.00 you get a remote control unit and a receiver that plugs into the wall outlet.  Simply plug whatever device you want into the receiver and then switch it on/off with the remote.

2-RAILING MTH PREMIER HI-CUBES

MTH produces some finely-detailed 1/48 scale freight cars, including these Plate F hi-cube boxcars.

These boxcars are dimensionally accurate and feature individual wire grabs, metal crossover platforms, and fine end rails & stirrups.  The cars are only produced in 3-rail, but converting them to 2-rail is easy :-)

I use a number of these cars for paper service on my layout.  I standardize with Lionel roller bearing trucks (the ones with rotating bearing caps) and Northwest Shortline 145 tread wheelsets.  Here is a method I came up with for 2-railing my MTH cars:

Materials:

An MTH boxcar...Obviously ;-)

1 pair of Lionel roller bearing trucks

1 set of NWSL #8293-4 wheelsets (these are 36" wheels; 145 tread)

0.197 Acrylic Sheet

Epoxy

10-32 x 5/8 machine screws 

Tools:

Small phillips-head screwdriver

Metal Punch & Hammer

Power Drill

3/32 Drill Bit

11/64 Drill Bit

10/32 Tap

Dremel Tool with Cut-off Disc

Process:

Disassemble the car by removing the 4 door-track screws and  the 4 carbody screws.  Remove the factory trucks.

  

Now cut small squares of .197 acrylic and epoxy to the top surface of the boxcar floor.

These squares will never be seen by humans (other than yourself) so they need not be pretty.  They only need to cover the large bolster-hole while fitting between the screws.  Cutting squares with tin snips makes the work fast and easy.

Once the epoxy sets, flip the car floor over and use a punch to mark the center of the large bolster hole. 

 

I lucked out in that the diameter of my punch matches that of the hole...this makes marking the exact center of the hole very easy!  I find that placing the boxcar floor on a scrap piece of 2 x 4 works well.

Now, drill a pilot hole using the small 3/32 bit.

Then, drill a larger hole with the 11/64 bit.  Clean up any plastic shavings around the holes.

Cut threads into the holes by winding in a 10-32 tap.  Take your time and be sure the tap is vertical.

 

Take the Lionel trucks and, using a Dremel, make two parallel cuts to get rid of the couplers.  Loosen the sideframe screws and remove the Lionel hi-rail axles.  Insert the NWSL axles, then re-tighten the screws.  Make sure that the insulated side of the NWSL axles are all on the same side of the truck:-)

The difference between the Lionel 3R and NWSL 145 tread wheels:

All that is left is to attach the Lionel trucks with 10-32 machine screws and reassemble the car.

 

A big improvement!  The narrow sideframes, rotating bearing caps, and fine tread wheels look amazing...at least to me anyway.

Next up is building coupler yokes, striker plates and adding couplers...stay tuned!

MODELING PHILOSOPHY PART I -- BENDING THE IRON

I like shifting railcars. Whether we are talking the real thing or simply models on a layout, I get a rush out of drilling cars into their proper order and spotting-up industries. Given a choice, I will take a switch-heavy job over a road job any day.

Of course, some industries are more interesting to shift than others. In my opinion, switching interest = tracks available for shifting + number of specific car spots + variety. Let’s explore each parameter.

Tracks Available for Shifting: Simply, the trackplan at the industry. Form-follows-function is the key phrase here. Track and switches cost money to install and maintain, so railroads and customers do not overindulge. All you need is a place to spot cars; a place to store extra cars waiting to be spotted; and an area in which to drill cars into order. Sounds like a lot of space required, but consider this example of a corrugated box plant:

Here we have everything needed using just three tracks and two switches! The passing siding (the track at left with boxcars) is used to store cars off-spot until needed. Crews dig cars out of the siding and drill them into spot-order using the main. Finally, loads/empties are swapped out on the customer’s spur.  (Cars are spotted at the warehouse dock at the upper right of the photo) Simple huh?

Number of Specific Car Spots: Multiple car spots add switching interest as you are now digging more cars out of the storage track (or your train). Locating a single boxcar amongst a string of cars on a siding is straightforward; digging three specific boxcars out of that same siding makes things interesting; finding three specific CSX boxcars amongst eight CSX cars on that siding makes things very interesting!

Multiple spots also allows (1) the respotting of certain cars that have not been fully unloaded the previous shift and (2) introducing different commodities (hence freight car types) to the scene. Let’s take another look at our box plant:

The plant typically unloads four boxcars of pulpboard per day. Often, one or more boxcars are only partially unloaded and need to stay. The plant also receives a hopper car of starch every few days. Due to the location of the unloading hoses, starch cars must be the next-to-last car on the spur. Finally, the plant reloads previously emptied boxcars with scrap cardboard. These reloads get spotted on the spur in front of the dock. The plant will specify which empty car(s) at the dock are to be respotted for scrap loading.

So, our single spur track now provides spots for loaded boxcars of paper; loaded covered hoppers of starch; and MTY boxcars to be reloaded with scrap cardboard.

Variety: We have already discussed variety in the form of multiple carspots and commodities. However, variety can also mean the number of cars to be spotted on a particular day; the number of respots; and the amount of cars on the storage track etc. All add up to give the industry a distinctive “ebb and flow.”

So that’s how a simple yet functional track plan, which serves a multiple car/commodity industry that calls for a variety of switching scenarios makes for a very interesting place to shift!

Next up: Translating my modeling philosophy into a layout design…stay tuned!