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The kits come with scribed interior details, but I wanted cars
with full loads. As the cars track a bit light, adding a coal load
also allows the insertion of a few rectangles of lead weight:
Brush some grimy/soot weathering powder on the sides, inside
walls and rim to create the dirty state these cars were in for their
working lives. A few rust highlights on the NBW details reflect
the constant battering these cars took, not only by the job, but
by the elements as well. If anything, my cars are too clean, and
need a bit more battering to truly play the part.
Coal Cars - 6
10. On the author’s Mt. Coffin & Columbia River
layout, set in the early 1900’s in the Pacific Northwest,
a Ten-Wheeler spots a pair of 20-ton coal cars on a
scratch-built coal unloading dock.
10
Chris Schmucks’ photos on the RLW website show the cou-
plers painted the same red-oxide as the cars. I left mine black,
but cut the trip pins short and used powders to weather the
coupler and box. To create a hint of metal under the soot and
wear of the trucks, I spray Scalecoat Graphite onto a plas-
tic food-container lid and then paint the springs and metal
bands with a fine brush, over which I weather with rust and
soot powders. (Note: NeoLube works very well to stain and
weather both trucks and couplers without sticking them shut
like paint! -- MCF)
As each pair is a two-evening project, you’ll have a great cut of
six 20-ton coal cars by the end of the week. Fun to build and
detail, these hoppers make for an eyebrow-raising, era-evoking
element of any Turn-of-the-Century layout.
M.C. Fujiwara is a writer and
editor, as well as the model
railroad layout designer of
Yardgoat Layout Designs
(
. He
lives in his native San Francisco
Bay Area with his wife and two
children, who enjoy helping
their dad build his N-scale
layout projects by making
trees, painting rocks, and
running trains.
MRH-Mar 2013
