ROLLING STOCK, CABOOSES, & PASSENGER CARS
Southern Colorado Land Navigation & Transfer Co.
(SCLN&TC)
This is the first On30 car I built. It’s a Chivers kit. These are nice kits and I love the shorty cars.
PHOTOS 002 & 003: Reefer No. 45
This reefer is another Chivers kit. This car and the boxcar were the humble beginnings of my On30 adventures.
PHOTOS 004 & 005: Stock Car No. 502
This is a RTR Bachmann car, re-lettered for the SCLN&TC. These are nice cars, but they sit too high for narrow gauge. Knowing how much work is in front of me I made the decision not to start modifying cars and can live with the height.
PHOTOS 006 & 007: Reefer No. 6831
This is another Bachmann RTR car. It had been a number of years since I built and weathered railroad equipment, and this car was a weathering exercise. I did not remove any of the original lettering, but wanted it heavily weathered. I’m satisfied with the results.
I have always liked cabooses, especially the standard cupola type. I really love shorty cabooses, so I’ll end up with an adequate number of these. My rules state that all trains including passenger trains will have a caboose, that way I can enjoy my cabooses. Without counting I have at least 10 cabooses in stock waiting to be built, but this way I’ll always have something waiting for my attention. Some of my cabooses are built pretty much in a standard manner and with others I get a little funky in my detailing.
PHOTOS 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007: Caboose No. 02
The base for this caboose was a Chivers kit. The cupola is scratchbuilt and a lot of detailing was added. Some of the photos have captions explaining the details. I spent a lot of time with this and it’s a sweetheart. The marker lamps are PSC brass parts with glass jewels for the lights. The cupola included in the kit was a low style which didn’t look right. I believe the tall cupola on the short caboose gives it a unique appearance, so the time scratchbuilding it was time well spent.
PHOTOS 008, 009, 010: Caboose No. 15
This is another Chivers kit that I modified. It also features a scratchbuilt cupola and additional detailing, but not quite as much detailing as No. 02. It’s a combination caboose, so I painted it green for variety. The marker lamps are PSC brass parts with glass jewels for the lights.
Caboose No. 3
PHOTOS 011, 012, 013, 014: Caboose No. 3
This started out as a Bachmann caboose with the cupola centered. I don’t like cabooses with the cupola in the center, so I modified it, which required a scratchbuilt roof. A basic problem with the Bachmann caboose is that the windows are too small. I thought about replacing all of them and then decided to live with the window size. I believe it turned out pretty good and will serve its purpose very well. The car is a very good runner. This caboose also features my infamous backup whistle. I won’t be putting this whistle on all of my cabooses, but thought it was a nice whimsical touch to a few.
PHOTOS 015, 016, 017: Maintenance of Way Caboose No. 524
Wow, I love this caboose! It was built from a radically modified San Juan Car Co. D&RGW long caboose kit. It was built specifically to ride behind my snow plow. More photos and complete descriptions of the caboose and in-progress construction notes, along with the snow plow can be found in the locomotive section.
This caboose is another radically modified San Juan Car Co. long caboose kit. This caboose is a little longer than caboose No. 524 and has a side window. Only the basic grabirons on the ends were used, so the holes for the other grabirons had to be filled. It is fitted with my whimsical coiled shock absorbing smoke stack brace, which I have been making for a number years. Look closely and you will notice something a little different about the trucks. The kit contained the wrong long wheelbase archbar trucks. San Juan was very gracious about sending me the correct replacement trucks, but the more I thought about it the better I liked the idea of using the long wheelbase trucks as it gives the caboose a unique appearance. The frame had to be modified so they would fit, but I got them in there. I made the sunshades, and the marker lamps are Grandt Line parts fitted with MV lenses. The safety chains at the ends were from stock I had on hand. Notice the brass door hardware. It is painted my standard caboose red with a black roof, and is lightly weathered, trying to achieve the look of the red beginning to fade.
The Rolling Stock Dept. is an ongoing work in progress. I have many more cars to build and will put them here as I get them finished.
The cupola windows are Grandt Line parts. The marker lamps, air hoses, brake wheels, and smoke stack are also Grandt Line parts. I scratchbuilt the bracket on the smoke stack for the brace. The marker lamps are fitted with MV lenses. As with all of my rolling stock, the couplers are Kadee HO Whisker couplers in Kadee No. 5 boxes with the ears cut off the boxes.
I weathered this caboose a little more heavy than I usually do. All weathering was done with chalk. I use artist acrylic sticks and powder them with sandpaper, then use brushes for application. Then a final coat of Dullcoat is sprayed over the model. Also, the lettering was faded out a little, which is done before the decal is applied to the model.
This is pretty cool, something I have never seen done before (except on my one rail truck). It’s a rather simple concept, but actually doing it is tedious due to the size of the parts. First I drill a No. 80 hole down through the handle and the angle cock, then a No. 76 hole is drilled through. Care is needed in doing this so the hole is straight. Next I cut off the handle and glue a piece of .015” brass wire to the handle. Next the wire is dropped through valve and the wire bent 90 degrees at the bottom to keep it from coming out and the wire trimmed off short.
Conductor Detail
The conductor was put inside the cupola to demonstrate how narrow the cupola actually is. Plus, he looks neat sitting in there looking out the window.
I wasn’t going to put safety chains on the end handrails, but after I looked at the photos I thought it would be a good idea. So these three photos show the caboose with the safety chains in place. I believe it improved the look of the model a lot. I won’t make that mistake again!
Most of the time I buy lettered passenger cars, and then remove the lettering, trying to leave a ghost of the original lettering. For whatever the reason I like heavily weathered passenger cars, although heavily weathered is subjective terminology. I guess I like them heavily weathered but not trashed out.
PHOTOS 1 & 2: Passenger Car No. 75
This is a Bachmann car. I believe the Bachmann passenger cars are really nice, and they are certainly good runners. I re-lettered it for the SCLN&TC but did not re-number it. I also added some figures and lightly weathered it.
Combination Car No. 26
PHOTOS 3, 4, 5: Combination Car No. 26
This too is a Bachmann car. I tried to leave some ghost lettering for the original Colorado & Southern lettering and did not re-letter it for the SCLN&TC and did not re-number it. This one is weathered rather heavy and I made the windows dirty. I also added several figures. I modified the one figure with a black cap and mustache.
The Rolling Stock Dept. is an ongoing work in progress. I have many more cars to build and will put them here as I get them finished.