This is not a thread to discuss failings in adhering to prototype practice. It’s about what you’ve done that you just liked for what it is, regardless of any lack of documentation that it was ever real. Here’s my example to kick off.
I had an Athearn/Roundhouse express reefer that had the typical case of sagging couplers due to those little clips they use as retainers. I tightened it as much as I could be recrimping them and using the trip pin tool on that. Still sagging and I didn’t want to rebuild the draft gear. What about ride height?
That was a bit low, so considered Kadee washer. Then I decided to check my used truck stock. Needed something in SG suitable for passenger service. Found an old pair of BLI trucks off a CZ car where the clip-on king post had failed and been replaced under warranty. After cutting off the upright contect post for electricals and some careful drilling and tapping, and a quick trim at the bolster of the projecting open post, it worked, couplers where they need to be.
I tend to prefer Pullman green, but had to admit the shiny silver CZ trucks gave it some nice looking shoes. I had thought about repainting them, but I’m starting to like the look, even though I’m pretty certain this is something very unlikely in 1:1.
Anyone else with an inspirational freelance project that is what it is – and you like it?
I’ve got that same reefer and did a mud/dirt wash on the trucks. Got to say, the old Athearn BB kits were a major help to the hobby, and made many of my Christmas and Birthdays really nice.
Although this isn’t necessarily prototype for my particular prototype, here’s a scratchbuilt two-light ball signal because…I really like ball signals. [:P]
There were mainly used in the New England area - in particular, Vermont & New Hampshire.
Was it RMC that used to have the monthly feature, " But it isn’t prototypical " or something to that effect? Where they would show photos of trains and equipment that was, well… unprotypical just to show in the real world we could find just about anything if we looked close enough. Anyway, I agree with you, it does look good! Regardless of which scale or prototype I have modeled, I have always included a shortline railroad just for the purpose of being able to do just what I like!
Nice scratch build! I take it that the red lights will mimic the ‘ball’ positions, yes?
I am very much a subscriber to the ‘not quite prototypical’ school of modelling. I like prototypical stuff but if I lack the necessary prototypical information, despite trying to find it, then good enough is good enough. Some will call me lazy, which I guess I am, but at least I am ‘happy lazy’.
Before electricity, red lanterns would have to replace the balls; the red lights are a much more operator friendly and effecient way of signalling after dark or in bad weather.
Up in our part of the world, there can be up to 14 hours of darkness in the winter. Nothing like our friends in Alaska or Norway, but enough to make adding oil to lanterns in the cold no fun at all.
I’ve mentioned that my privately-owned coal hauler is home to some wildly unlikely kitbashes with no known prototype (or acknowledged parentage.)
The coal unit trains (which are typical Japanese 300 ton capacity, not Powder River monsters) feature (?) six and seven axle articulated hoppers and hopper-brakes that are unsanctified unions of Athearn BB 50 ton hoppers and bay window cabeese. (One end of a caboose + 1/2 a 50 tonner = one hopper-brake.)
Motive power for those trains comes in two flavors. One is the typical late 19th century (and foobie) teakettle tank locos, modernized with brake systems and electric lights the prototypes never survived to receive. The other is the articulated that never was, a 2-6-6-2 with four simple cylinders that looks like an E10 class 2-10-4T on steroids. (Japan had Mallet compounds, including a sizeable fleet of 0-6-6-0s with really strange tenders, but never had a simple semi-articulated.)
These share benchwork (and some track) with accurate to prototype Japan National Railways rolling stock. Actually, they fit quite comfortably, even though there was never anything similar in the Kiso country or anywhere else in Japan.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - sort of)
Everything on my layout is prototype specific and accurately scaled and proportioned. Somewhere… Maybe. Oh, shoot.
My ships are 1/96, but look good for HO. My South Oregon coast based layout has steam engines of probably eastern origin. (no wooten fireboxes or belpaire boilers though)
Did SP have a brick roundhouse at near the end of the Coos Bay branch? No. Still, I like it. Or a 90-something foot turn table? (They did have much smaller TT and a wood Rhouse once. And I’m adding buildings that are copies of those not in the coastal area but more from central Oregon, since I have far better reference material here.
Scenery? Some is VERY south-coastal, some a bit more Columbia River Gorge, to suit, well, my liking.
Little stuff too. I have a GE 25 tonner with handrails like a 44 tonner! Shocking, I know.
One thing many of us have realized… there isn’t a lot we can do that doesn’t have a proto of it somewhere at some time.
One of my early revelations was driving down I-45 to downtown Houston sometime in the 1980s, and eyeballing a parking lot filled with track sections - like Tyco would have in train sets. Seems these were ready replacements for washouts.
But if I put a stack of track sections on my layout, it would have reeked of phoniness…
You are correct, Dave. As George expounded on, the lights came with the introduction of electricity along the rails. That saved someone needing to refill the lanterns with oil or kerosine for signaling at night (or day). Some areas (e.g. Bellow Falls, VT) had as many as five balls on a single pole; more labor-intensive to keep up with during those long winter months.
Course, should the electricity go out in that area because of a bad storm, the lanterns could be easily installed again as an emergency backup system. There’s a great article about them in the 2003 fall issue of Classic Trains.
Neat seeing this thread. In the past I’ve sometimes felt guilty about freelancing “Stand-ins” and “Close-enoughs”, knowing that prototype specific modelers will immediately identify it as a “foobie”, as in the case below with an HO Budd-Baggage Dorm unit:
Prototype SCL:
My “Stand-in” version:
I longer feel bad about foobies, however, whenever I do show my freelanced equipment to modelers, be it in person or the web, I do point out that it’s not prototypically accurate.
Great idea to recycle 44-tonner handrails. The ones that come with the Grandt kit are kinda delicatae, because of the attention to fine detail that’s expected from Grandt. I’ll break them eventually and when I do I have some extra 44-tonner parts that should fix me up.[:D]
Here’s mine in a very non-prototypical scheme.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I usually pre-empt them by laying it out up front, too. That way they can go on at length about the failings of someone else’s project. What I find striking is that it’s ever so rarely the case that they show with their own work how they would do it so as to fit their critique. Yep, a few are modelers, but more often they are just, well, critics, not modelers.
Thus, I think that a “no shame” thread was badly needed. The hobby has benefited greatly from more attention to the prototype, but it’s still a hobby and whatever pleases YOU is part of that hobby, no matter that it may lack a prototype. I like to keep it plausible. Here’s an example, a Rio Grande version of the fabled SDL39, along with the tiny 49 and another reasonably believable as a Rio Grande loco, an Alco DL-535E.
I don’t get too hung up on the details except when I am building a specific model to prototype. Just because I build them that way some of the time is no reason I have to build them 100% of the time.
Interesting topic Mike. Here’s my contribution. I took the body shell of an SD40-2T, cut it down so it would fit on an SD40-2 frame and drive, then removed the Spartan cab, and installed a wide cab. I’ve never seen one before, if anything like this ever existed. I showed this over at Diesel Detailer, and pretty much got ignored, as with those boys, all rivets must be present and accounted for !
I like it, and it serves my railroad well. A one of a kind!
What I have liked in the past is when a rivet counter says it ain’t reight and have the builder produce a pic. Lets face it, thew real railroads did whatever they were allowed to do to keep things going.
