In setting up my rolling stock collection for the railroad, I noticed that I had a preponderance of Great Northern rail cars. In recent research (Jeff Wilson's Freight Cars of the 40's and 50's -- a Christmas Gift) I read that about 50% should be home road, 25% other neighboring roads, and 25% more distant lines. One of the few more distant line cars that I already own is an Erie gondola that I picked up years ago at a train show. The initial problem was that it was underweight when empty, so it would not meet the rolling stock standards that I have established for the layout.
The solution was in the coin jar. Adding eight pennies brought the weight of the car up to the recommended four ounces. In addition to meeting standards, I wanted to add some weathering to the car. I recently read a weathering-tips article online that discussed "not-so-empty" gondolas. What follows is a description of how I brought Erie 45232 up to standard and improved its weathering.
The first step was to glue the eight pennies onto the gondola's original floor with gap filling medium CA. Then using .060 styrene, I scored and snapped a new floor to fit over the pennies. Using an emery board, I sanded the floor to fit, and then glued it into place with the CA. After the CA dried I brush painted the interior of the gondola with Model Master Rust and Grimy Black flat acrylic paints. In hindsight, masking and spray painting the interior with a primer would have meant fewer coats of streaky brushed-on paint. I'm finding that brushed-on Model Master does not cover as well as Poly Scale did and it has a bit more gloss to it. By using Bragdon weathering powders as well as glueing in some strip wood and coal with white glue, I was able to detail the interior and freshen the weathering of the exterior of the newest addition to my fleet. The next step will be to scratchbuild a pipeload using straws; maybe I can keep that to eight cents as well!
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