Batch-building freight cars 101part 2- 13
car body. If you take thetime toblend the various colors, itwill
lookprettygood. I don’t useanoverspray (suchasDullcote),
as I find itmakesmost of thepowder disappear on the car and
kills the “dusty” look. Instead, I leave the carsunsprayed, and
try tohandle the car as littleaspossible.
Enjoy the cars
The last stepmight be themost fun. Run the cars around the
layout, takepictures, and showyour trainbuddies. In theend,
thewholebuildingendeavormay takemanydays, ormore
likely,weeks. Bybuilding inbatches, youwill have four or six
cars, insteadof just one. In theprocess, youwill haveapplied
economy-of-scaleprinciples tofinish the carsmorequickly
54
54: Hetch-Hetchy number 5 puts our consist of stock
cars though its paces. All the cars ran great when they
were coupled-up, and no adjustmentswere necessary.
than if youhadbuilt themone-at-a-time. Everymastermod-
eler I knowbuilds cars inbatches. Don’t be surprised if youfind
yourself building somemore cars “just for fun.” Sooner or later
thenext questionwill be,what areyougoing todowithall
those cars?That leads to thequestionof how to store them.
Car storage andmanagement or howmany
cars do you need?
Howmany carsdo I need? I need themall!!Most of ushave
lotsof rolling stock. But, ifwe’rebeinghonest,most of ushave
toomuch rolling stock. I haven’tmetmanymodelerswho can
resist buyinganother cool kit or the latest runof superdetailed
cars.Wheredo theyall go? It doesn’twork tokeepadding
carsbeyond the layout’s capacity. Soon it becomes impossible
to run trains, due toall theexcess rolling stock in theway. At
somepointwewill have topull carsoff the layout.
Todevelopa carmanagement plan consider these things:
55: Here the stringof weathered stock cars rolls
throughMountainKing on themy layout.
55
MRH-Apr2014
