I notice many O gaugers don’t weather their rolling stock, and my guess is that’s because they feel they will get more money down the road for a like-new box car than a weathered one.
Does any one here modify, weather or scratchbuild rolling stock? My other hobby is model building, and I’d like to combine both hobbies, so are there any kits available? I would also like to try my hand at weathering, and who knows, painting and decaling an inexpensive reefer or two. Obviously structures are also a likely candidate for both building and weathering, but I think it would be fun to add more realism to a piece of rolling stock. Anyone else out there feel this way?
I do some weathering and scratch building for a club three rail layout. As I have built nearly all the scenery and structures on the layout it has a much more realistic look than most three rail layouts. As for weathering rolling stock I have done one set with a Lionel GP-9 N&W (8763) and several hoppers (9111) plus a couple of Rail King hoppers. All have had coal loads added and have been weathered with acrylic paint (paynes gray, iron oxide and raw umber) used in layers of thin washes. This could be cleaned off if necessary. Some of the sets run on the club layout are real collectables (a pre-war Flyer three rail Blue Comet and a 1939 Marx for example) and these are run as is and are run sparingly for shows or other special events.
I don’t know if this qualifies as kitbashing but I have also repainted and modified an old Lionel Soo Line NW-2 switcher (8569) from its original ugly red to more prototypical ( for the 1940’s&50’s) black with Dulux Gold safety stripes and lettering and have added windows, E-unit, back up light and an extra electrical pick-up (so it can creep across Ross switches) but did renumber it 8569 just to confuse the know it all collectors and nit pickers. To have a caboose to go with it I repainted an old Lionel caboose ($5.00 from the boxful at a train show) a nice red with yellow ends and added cupola braces and Soo decals to at least give it a prototype feel, So no I guess your not alone out there but there aren’t many of us. Ole
Jim, there are plenty of kits out there but I couldn’t tell you who makes them. I see them from time to time but they’re a lot less common than garden-variety Lionel. The 2-rail O gaugers are very much into kits and scratchbuilding, but there aren’t a lot of those kinds of guys. Back issues of Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman are a great source of precision drawings to use as aids in scratchbuilding.
I started to scratchbuild a tank car this summer and eventually I’ll come back to it. I got frustrated trying to form the rails and such. I probably should have picked something simpler like a hopper or a boxcar for my first attempt.
I am putting standard gauge trucks on a Bachman Spectrum On3 combine and repainting it because it is a great stand-in for a car I want to model but don’t have the time to scratchbuild. This and the price is pretty good for the detail. Does this count?
I’ve ordered a few low-priced K-Line box cars to practice weathering techniques on. I hope they stay on the tracks better than the Industrial Rail hoppers I bought.
I’m also looking forward to painting and weathering a few Plasticville structures, like Union Station and the water tower. Both look like they would really come to life with some much needed detailing. The Atlas rural passenger station is also a great candidate, as it has a fully detailed interior.
Below is a link to a great weathering oriented web site I stumbled upon. Check out the Weaver O scale UP hopper being worked on at the top of the page. What a transformation!
