I just received some Bachmann cars today and they are just super for kit bashing.I am planning to detail them inside and out using mostly real wood and furnishing them with 1/24 parts and pieces.These cars are early Victorian so there should be lots of stuff out there to work with and what I can’t find I will scratch.
Depends on which ones you have but most of them are detailed for WW1 or later, a lot of them are detailed more for the 1930’s or 1940’s.
Hi Dave ! I am using the Bachmann large scale kits and will bash them from there doing whatever needs to be done,This is only a starting point,something to work with to do a static diorama.My cars will be Civil War era. Thank you for the info . Cheers! John.
I would suggest looking at BTS for ideas since they make models of Civil war era cars:
http://www.btsrr.com/btscar01.htm
Here’s s site on Confederate RR’s:
Does anyone know the real scale of the Bachmann large scale(G?) passenger car kits.Thanks.John.
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This is the Bachmann 1/22 scale old west passenger coach.The figure is 1/24 scale.The interior will be completely removed and replaced with wood,only the shell will be used. The exterior will also be replaced with wood.
I think that I will first build the opening scene from the movie which consists of half a passenger car with a shack built on the end.It is very run down and heavily weathered.The other passenger car will be turned into a luxury coach with all the Victorian trimmings.
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.The first step was to take it all apart and remove all the lighting fixtures.I have been very glad to find that this passenger car is built to 1/22.5 scale which is close enough for me to work with without having to change too much of the overall size.When I am finished very little of the plastic will be visible as I plan to use a lot of strip wood ,coffee stir stiks,tongue depressors and veneer and whatever else I can think off.I will next have to decide on just how much of this shell I will have to cut away.From one side it will look completely normal but from the movie set side it will be fake.
1/24scale also opens up a whole new world of furniture ,parts and fitting supplies that are adaptable from other genres of modeling.My motto when making dioramas is “buy what I can and built what I must”.I like to put lots of detail in my stuff so this may take years to complete the whole diorama.In the ten years that I have been building dioramas for the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa in 1/16th scale,I have so far completed only three and a half dioramas(the half is the one that I am completing now) and I work at this stuff just about every day.
I am really looking forward to learning about railroading as it is completely new to me.
Dave, I looked at this site, and I will definitely be ordering some of their kits. Looks like a great source of old cars and buildings for “railfanning” trips.
Thanks! [:)]
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,As you know this diorama has two completely different sides to it. One side will be for outdoor shots of what looks like a real passenger car.The other side will be a movie set.
In this pic you can see the beginnings of the set side.The smaller of the two openings is the door used in the opening scene, but the film was taken from inside of the car or on another set altogether.The other larger opening may only be temporary until I figure out how much of the passenger car(if any)was here.In the movie I cant recollect anything here at all just the shack built over top.The shack seems to take up about half of the scene.It is supposed to be a real early station that is for cattle and passengers,long before a more permanent structure could be built and it consists of anything that happened to be handy while they were pushing the railroad through the area.
I have never seen a real film set so I will be using my imagination on how the various shots were taken.
This sure is a lot of fun to do as all the reference I need(except the set itself) is right there in the movie which I can view frame by frame whenever I want to
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The plastic in these Bachmann cars is perfect for bashing.It carves well with both hand and power tools and does not clog up your burrs at low speed.It is flexible enough to stand some pretty rough handling and doesn’t scratch easily.It sands well with not to much airborne dust around.There is a warning on the box however so a good mask and other safety stuff would be advised ,especially when working indoors.I should have no problem working with this stuff at all.
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.This door on the set is open so I cut it out with the Xacto knife and plastic cutter thingy.In this era did the doors open inward or outward ? I wonder…maybe I can find a frame from the movie that will tell me…
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The fellow who owned “The General” kit many years ago had already painted up the base so I am using it here to sit the old coach on with the railway tracks running through the middle.Judging by the distance between the old coach’s original floor and the rail ,there are no wheels at all on it but it is only resting on the track.Cool idea because right away you know that this flick is about a railway.
I opened up another hole on prop side because there was a little room built off to the side next to a brick wall which is part of the shack.
On the set side I will have to open another large hole and move the car’s wall outward to become part of the shack’s wall.Clear as mud right ! Well I hope to get this done tomorrow and a pic posted when finished.I temporarily put in the WC and wood stove to see how it looks.
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.Some of my buds online have expressed an interest in seeing this Movie.If you do be sure to get the original 3 hour letterbox edition.Hollywood made a two hour version and hacked it to death.Better still see it on the wide screen to get the full impact of the cinematography.
Don’t even bother wasting time on the 2 hour Hollywood version,it is like viewing half a painting and then trying to understand whats going on.
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