Author Archives: Chris van der Heide

AC 8201-8500 series hoppers – Part 3: End platform grating

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Here’s a good view of what the end of one of these cars looks like:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1251473

While the stock Walthers model basically just has some generic raised-tread pattern on the end, you can see that the pattern of walkway grating is quite distinctive, and I wanted to capture this.

The following wreck photo also highlights quite clearly how the grating is open, and would be see-through:

http://algomacentral.railfan.net/images/AlgoCenRy/AC_Mile_5_wrk-5_5-14-1980.jpg

If I were only doing one of these cars, I might consider completely cutting away the end platforms and rebuilding them from scratch to have the open grating, however for the sheer volume of these cars that I need, I’ve decided this would be far too much time and effort to be worth it.

I do however wish to at least replicate the tread pattern, which is a big difference from the model. To this end, after disassembling the cars and removing the handrail pieces, I filed the top surface of the end platforms smooth to remove the existing tread texture.

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End platform filed smooth.

I cut the new walkways out of etched brass walkway/grating material. The walkways are a rectangular “Apex” tread pattern. I’ve been using etched brass material from Details Associates. I just used a regular pair of scissors to cut the thin brass sheet.

There’s two parts to the walkway tread on these cars. There’s the grating on the open area of the platform, and an extra bit of grating leading to the end ladder. The platform grating is cut out of the etched material in a rectangle 2.5 by 10.75 scale feet in size. The cut piece should all be whole rectangles, with the “grain” following the width of the car.

The walkway to the end ladder grabs is oriented perpendicular to the platform grating. With the sizing of the rectangles in the Details Associates etching, I cut a strip from the etched sheet 3 rectangles wide; this is perfectly the size to fit between the platform grating and the car body. I then cut these into approx. 1.75 scale foot pieces.

With all the piece cut, I attached them to the prepared underframe pieces using CA adhesive. Very carefully, trying not to glue my fingers to themselves or the car, I used a toothpick to spread the CA across the bottom surface of the grating, and then applied the grating material to the car. For the smaller pieces I used a pair of curved tweezers to move them into position.

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Several finished platforms, with one just filed smooth in the middle.

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Completed walkway/platform grating with the underframe and body fitted together, showing how the walkway accesses the end ladder.

This is the current point I’m at with these cars (well, the 9 I’m [semi-]actively working on). 5 cars now have the grating complete (I just finished a few of them up tonight) and another 4 have the platforms filed and prepared (and actually have for quite some time now).

After I finish this current batch of cars, (I’m hoping to try to bring these 9 all the way through to completion now) I’ve got another 50 or so of these Walthers cars waiting for the same treatment at some point!

ex-Troop Sleeper Baggage Cars – Part 3: Plugging windows

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The next step with these cars involves plating over the carbody vents and the unwanted windows. The upper vents were all plated over on these cars, but the windows varied from car to car, and were done later. Up until the late 1960s and probably into the early 1970s, the cars all would have had their original windows still. In the 1970s however, some of the cars started to have windows blanked out and plated over when they received a full shopping.

The car I’m currently working on represents AC 306 (ex-AC 205, ex-US Army 7883). Photos I’ve collected from various sources online show that on one side of the car, 3 windows (2 to the right and 1 to the left of the baggage door) were plated over, while on the opposite side, only one window to the right of the door was plated.

Note that the windows I’m referring to here are all in the first double pair of windows; the original troop sleepers have a single window on either side of the original entry door, but both of these windows and the original man door are overlapping with the space where the baggage car door will go. Those windows will need to be completely gone, not just plated over with the frame still in place. That’s a little bit more involved, so I’m leaving that until later.

I plated the required windows quite simply by cutting rectangles of .010″ styrene sheet to fit the window openings. (Actually I cut this just slightly oversize and then carefully file down the edges so that it fits in perfectly.) When you look at the windows on the model, you can see the riveted frame around the window, and then an inset window sash, which on the rear car would have been the moveable part of the window. To plate over the window, I just cut the plate to fit just inside the outer frame, and lay down on top of the recessed sash. The .010″ thickness of the styrene sheet set on top of the recessed sash perfectly represents the plated over opening.

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Car with upper vents and two windows at left plated over. The two windows at right will remain open and receive the original kit window glass pieces when the car is fully completed.

Similarly the vents along the top of the car body were also plugged with .010″ material but in this case their narrow width meant a 010″x.080″ strip cut to length will fit perfectly in the vent opening. Again the recessed depth is such that a .010″ strip is almost perfectly flush.

That takes care of the easy part of the car side modifications; cutting out the door, removing the single windows and smoothing everything up again will be considerably more invasive surgery.

ex-Troop Sleeper Baggage Cars – Part 2: Doors

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The doors for these cars was an interesting scratchbuild project. It’s been a while since I worked out the measurements, but I was able to come up with something that looks pretty good. Here’s my drawing from my notes:

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Measured construction drawing of the baggage car door.

The scratchbuilt door master consists of a .020″ styrene door blank with the trimming made from scale 1″x6″ strip (except for the centre vertical that divides the lower part of the door into 2 panels with is a little wider – 1″x8″. Working carefully and measuring with my dial calipers, the trim was fixed by applying liquid styrene cement with a fine brush. My favourite here is the Testors liquid plastic cement. I highly recommend against Plastruct’s Plastic Weld in this application as I’ve found it to leave a nasty surface residue when used on styrene.

To get a nice clean upper window, I applied the trimming to the door blank before cutting out the opening. I don’t remember doing the cutting anymore, but the best approach would be to drill out the corners and then play “connect-the-dots” to cut out the rough opening. What I definitely do remember is carefully opening up the window opening with a series of fine needle files, filing the opening even with the 1×6 trim strips.

Since I knew I wanted to probably make more than one of these cars, I planned on making one door master which I could then make molds from to cast several copies in resin. The door blank was therefore cemented to a piece of .060″ styrene backing.

The window mullins were added after the door was cemented to the backing plate. This ensured that they were nice and flush. The mullins are .030x.040″ strips, laying on their wide side to match the ~.030 thickness of the .020″ door + 1×6 (.011″x.066″) trimming. These should be evenly spaced. (I didn’t keep notes for this spacing, but measuring the door master shows each window pane to be an average of .145″ wide (within a variance of .005″, well within a margin of error and not detectable by the eye).

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Finished door master.

Following the completion of the master, I was able to create the rubber mold from the master and use it to cast several copies of the door. I now have more than enough doors to do several cars.

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Rubber mold and scratchbuilt door master.

ex-Troop Sleeper Baggage Cars – Part 1: Background

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In 1949, the Algoma Central began to replace their older 1914-built wooden passenger coaches with “new” secondhand steel cars acquired from the United States. (Ironically the coaches acquired from the D&RGW were actually older than the wood cars they were replacing!) Included in the AC’s acquisitions were five surplus troop sleeper cars from the US Army.

These cars were built during World War II by Pullman-Standard, and following the end of the war, many of them ended up on railways all over the continent as they became surplus, many of them rebuilt as baggage or express cars or work service bunk cars. (The Alaska Railroad had perhaps the most interesting conversions, chopping up pairs of old troop sleepers and turning them into 50′ high-cube boxcars!) The five acquired by the ACR were rebuilt as baggage cars, initially numbered AC 201-205 and painted in the ACR’s then-current dark green scheme.

These cars were rebuilt with a sliding baggage door and remained in baggage service for many years. One car, AC 204, was later rebuilt to steam generator car AC 76 in 1952 following the dieselization of the railway. The ACR also built 4 more home-built steam generator cars on the frames of old 3100 series boxcars. (No original ACR locomotives were ever equipped with steam generators. The ACR preferred the flexibility of multi-service locomotives and stand-alone steam generator cars were built to heat the passenger trains.)

In 1981 the ACR’s baggage cars were all renumbered into the 300 series to make room in the numbering for the new AC 200-205 series GP38-2 locomotives. The remaining troop sleeper cars became AC 303-306. Since my modeling time frame is 1985, this is the series my cars will be numbered within.

Over the years, windows on several of the cars were plated over. This seemed to vary a bit between the different cars, so working from photos is essential.

Most of these cars were still painted in the ACR’s handsome 1955 maroon and grey colour scheme in the 1980s. One exception was AC 306, which got painted into the 1974 silver scheme with maroon name band, but never actually received the Algoma Central lettering along the top, just the road numbers on the corners of the car. That’s just so silly, it needs to be modeled.

Here’s a link to a Ted Ellis photo of AC 205 (later AC 306) in 1979 in the silver colours:

http://algomacentral.railfan.net/images/AlgoCenRy/AC_205_Hawk_12-26-1979.jpg

And AC 303, looking a little the worse for wear, in the late 1980s still in the 1960s maroon and grey colours:

http://algomacentral.railfan.net/images/AlgoCenRy/AC_303_Hawk_Jct_6-19-1987.jpg

And lastly, a 1979 shot of steam generator AC 76, coupled to AC 74, one of the home-built generator cars just out of frame:

http://algomacentral.railfan.net/images/AlgoCenRy/AC_76_Steelton_12-30-1979.jpg

In HO scale, Walthers has produced a model of the Pullman-Standard troop sleeper car, which can be modified in much the similar fashion to the prototype in order to model these AC cars. Windows and vents will need to be plugged, enlarged door openings cut out and the doors scratchbuilt.

I’ve completed the doors and I’ve been working away on one of the Walthers cars to convert it into baggage car #306; ultimately I’d like to do the steam generator car 76 and possibly one more baggage car for a nicely rounded fleet.

Next: Scratchbuilding the baggage doors.

St. Marys Paper, Then and Now

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The old paper mill in Sault Ste. Marie, one of the original industries in town and an ACR customer for over a century, has recently closed down, and when I visited Sault Ste. Marie in July, the mill was in the process of being demolished. Fortunately I have some good photos of the mill from some previous visits to the area, so in this post we’ll look at the last 20 years of the mill’s operation.

All photos below taken by myself unless otherwise noted.

Note: this is the last in a series of posts covering specific locations on the ACR based on photos taken taken on my July trip to the former ACR.

THEN:

St Marys Paper in 1992 from the International Highway Bridge:

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Overhead view, 1992. Nell vanderHeide photo.

Plenty of stockpiles of pulpwood logs fill much of the open ground on the property. Plenty of Wisconsin Central boxcars await paper loading. (This shot is before the WC takeover of the AC, but much of the mill’s output was exported to the US.)

And a few more views from 2000:

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Those flatcars in the first photo in this set are most definitely former AC 2301-2373 series 40′ flatcars; these are likely owned by the paper mill and used for moving pulpwood logs around from stockpiles on the property. Note in the foreground of the 1992 photo above a pair of 48′ gondolas with similar home-made end racks.

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This photo shows what looks to be the log debarking and chipping machinery. A covered pipe or conveyor brings the chips into the pulping mill. Note the switcher poking out of the building at centre.

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We can see from this last photo that the water treatment facility has been expanded since the 1992 shot. The tracks running roughly through the foreground head towards the paper loading warehouse off to the left, out of frame.

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And here’s one of the mill switchers resting behind the mill, near the warehouse/shipping building. I wonder what’s become of this engine now? Sold to a new owner when the mill closed, or just scrapped along with any other rail equipment at the mill?

SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 360

And one last photo from 2004, taken from across the power canal. Compare this last one especially to the photos below.

NOW:

Closed sometime within the last few years, the mill is now being demolished. Everything but the remaining original sandstone structures has just about been torn down in these July 2013 photos. It appears that the original structures are being deliberately preserved for now due to their heritage nature, as they are over a century old. First three shots taken from across the power canal.

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From the front of the mill, we can see that the main mill buildings, except for the remaining original sandstone structures, have been completely torn down, and the modern steel warehouse/shipping building at right is the last structure to go. It’s not obvious from this angle, but the back half of that structure is already gone and it’s definitely in the process of coming down.