Passenger Car Lineup -- Part 3

 

In my most recent posts I mentioned this Roundhouse combine kit that I had on hand. After stripping the paint from it and a coach, I decided to move forward with this Harriman combine. My first step, after removing the cast on grabs, was to paint the body, using Tamiya TS-5 Olive Drab. I had picked up the green can along with Tamiya spray primer last year. I like the Tamiya paint; it goes on smoothly with very little build up. It was a nice clear fall day when I sprayed the two cars, so I worked outside. The paint is very smelly and the ingredient list is long and I am guessing toxic. I am glad that I worked outside. 

In my last post I mentioned going to a train show hoping to pick up some details. The show really focused on Lionel/O gauge trains, so although it was a big show, I didn't find much HO scale beyond swap meet kind of stuff. I did stop at Trains and Lanes on the way home from Allentown and found some diaphragms and picked up one pair to try. I also ordered some other details online, including passenger grab irons and seats. They should be arriving in the next few days. 

After going down a few rabbit holes of researching just how not prototypical this car would be anywhere, never mind on the GN, and ideas for building and detailing it, I started working on it. I am staying with the Talgo trucks for now; if I keep this car long term I will reconfigure later. I do want to experiment with weathering the car, so the first step was to spray the trucks with Dullcoat. As we have had our first blast of winter (10 inches of snow) I used the spray booth. I recently reread a Cody Grivno MR article suggesting Vallejo model washes for weathering trucks. As I have his suggested colors of Oiled Earth and European Dust on hand, I will try that technique. 

Passenger Car Lineup -- Part 2

Updated passenger lineup

While it is not really a pressing matter, I have continued along this vein of developing an operational and reasonable roster for potential passenger car service on the 4th Subdivision. 

After my last post I found my Sprog, downloaded JMRI to my new laptop, and set up the addresses on the two locomotives that I mentioned. The F7 seen above and the GP7 both have their DCC addresses set to their road numbers now, and they both are working fine out of the box. Without an option for continuous running, I will need to spend some time running them to get them "broken in" before I tackle weathering them. 

The F7, 312C, is a logical choice for passenger service with its factory applied diaphragm. I'm guessing that the diaphragm feature is because of the original intention of it to be a part of a multi-unit consist, but it still adds to the passenger train feel. I suspect that for now I will use the F7 as the power for an initial passenger local on the first phase, Nooksack centered, operations set up. While it appears from the Ferndale Memories websites that G7s were used in passenger service, I will use the GP7 for freight in my initial train running to get it broken in as well. 

My Harriman RPO, flying the orange and green paint scheme, went through a basic standards check. It has metal wheels, the coupler height checked out, and the weight was spot on for NMRA RP 20.1. While the GN did not have such a car, the model will work just fine for now as a stand-in. I used to run it as a trailer with my doodlebug,* but for now it will be the RPO on my first passenger line up. With its wire grabs and flashy paint scheme it will be a solid contributor once it has a little bit of weathering. I do appear to be running it backwards though. Oops.

This through baggage car replaces the truss rod coach car in my first passenger line up. It passed my basic standards evaluation with metal wheels, acceptable coupler height, and matching NMRA weight guidelines, It is not GN, but Canadian National Railways. The lineups shown in the Ferndale Memories website photos show lots of baggage and other head end cars including one or two from other lines. It would not be too much of an outlier headed towards (or from) the GN mainline and Vancouver. 

This other head end car, an express refrigerator car, is a GN car.  It did not pass my basic standards evaluation without some work. One of the couplers was not working well, so I replaced its couplers with Kadee whisker style scale couplers. I also placed a couple of drops of glue on one end's connection between the underbody and that end, as the body of the car was loose. After those few adjustments, it passed the routine standards check. 

The one thing missing for initial passenger service at this point is the ability to carry passengers. Last night, at the Thursday modeling night Zoom meeting, I attempted stripping paint from the coach and combine mentioned in my last post. I plan to move forward with working on the coach: clean up some flash, double check the paint stripping, and move on with painting. I rummaged in my stash of decals and have some GN passenger car decals. I am going to a nearby train show this weekend, and I will look for passenger car details.  My next post should either be updates on the progress of a car for passengers or a report on an ops session giving some running time to these two "new" locomotives. 

*The doodlebug is out of commission until I hardwire in a sound decoder, a project I am not ready to tackle right now.