Category Archives: Freight Cars

Freight Car Friday #12 – CP 344702

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This Canadian Pacific gondola is one of a series outfitted with coil steel bunks and normally has a protective fiberglass cover applied to it to protect the steel coils (you can see some similar covered cars in the background) but here the cover is missing and you can see into the interior and see how the coil bunks and bracing are designed.

CN and CP both supplied a lot of cars for steel loading at Algoma Steel, so covered gondolas like this would not have been an uncommon site in the Algoma Central yards in Sault Ste. Marie, and CP traffic to western Canada would have been interchanged at Franz.

This car was photographed on July 30, 2014 in the CP yard at Sudbury so it would actually be on the way to Sault Ste. Marie for a load of steel coils.

Freight Car Friday #11 – ASCX Gondolas

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SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 360

These three old 48′ gondolas photographed in behind the Algoma Steel tube mill at Sault Ste. Marie/Steelton in August 2004 are former Algoma Central cars originally built in 1947 by National Steel Car in series AC 3501-3850. Most of their original lettering has been obliterated but traces of the bear logo is peeking through on all three cars. The 128 below appears to a late 1950s brown repaint.

SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 360

SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 360

40′ ex-ONT Boxcars Progressing

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This pair of ex-Ontario Northland boxcars has also been receiving some attention lately, with new stencil reporting marks and numbers applied, and some basic weathering with pan pastels. The weathering still has a ways to go, and they also need a little touch up in some areas yet (like some minor patching in the data and re-weigh information to properly date the cars and vary things up a bit more) and the ladders and end details to be re-installed.

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As on the model, the real cars were purchased second-hand from the Ontario Northland and just crudely patched out with AC markings. Both of these cars specifically follow the patch patterns of the prototype numbers they represent.

The 2906 is one of roughly 15 former Ontario Northland boxcars put into a series of general service cars; now when I say this, these cars were still basically non-interchange and captive to the ACR, and mostly commonly used for company materials and local wayfreight deliveries.

The 10352 has a work service number, and was likely a tool or work materials storage car. The real car has a pair of turbine style ventilators on the roof which will also still need to be added at some point.

I also have a couple of brown Ontario Northland cars in the wings which will also soon become another 2900 series car and probably another 10000 series work storage car.

Incidentally, this is the 100th post published to this blog!

Rapido Gondola Renumberings and Alternate Logo

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Tonight’s project is working on lettering on a few cars. Since I acquired “more than one” 6-packs of Algoma Central gondolas when Rapido Trains released their new Canadian gondola in AC colours, I have a number of cars with duplicate numbers to change. Also, some later repaints had a simplified version of the bear logo without the railway’s name spelled out in an encircling band around the logo. I have several sets of CDS dry transfers for AC gondolas in my lettering stash, and these sets include both versions of the logo, so I decided that on at least a few cars I will also replace these logos for some visual variety.

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Two Rapido ACR gondolas. Top car is unaltered factory paint/lettering; bottom car is renumbered and has a different logo applied, although differences are more obvious in close up or in person.

To remove the original lettering, I used the edge of a curved scalpel type blade. If you work very carefully, and with a light touch, you can scrape away the original lettering with little trace remaining. The new number and logo will also cover over the same spots, and a little bit of light weathering will completely hide any uneven spots.

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Logo comparison. Above is unaltered factory painted car. Below, the original logo has been carefully removed and replaced with the simplied logo from a CDS dry transfer set.

In the close-up photo you can more clearly see the difference between the logos. The top logo, as featured on the factory-painted Rapido model, includes an outer band around the logo with the railway’s name. The lower logo, applied from a CDS dry transfer lettering set, is a simplified version without the railway name and a proportionally larger bear silhouette.

I also removed the NSC builder’s logo (below the car data) and the fill lines (above the “GO MA” and “NT RA” panels) from the lower car, and I’ll probably actually be going over all of the cars I have and removing the builder’s logo from all of them. (Information suggests that when brand new/as built the original series of cars acquired in 1958 (AC 601-800) were originally painted *brown*, although photos of these cars in original paint are extremely hard to come by. AC 801-875, built in 1961-62 were probably delivered in black, as were coil steel service cars in series AC 900-924, built in 12/1962 and for which I have photos that clearly show the original NSC builders logo. The 900-series also had a slight variation in the font of the billboard lettering…)

Freight Car Friday #10 – AC 2420 Model

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AC 2420 is a factory painted, ready-to-run model from Walthers that accurately represents the Algoma Central’s first series of 25 52’8″ inside length bulkhead flatcars built new for the ACR in 1975.

The wrapped lumber load is a kit from Kanamodel products, although I didn’t see the lumber load kits listed on Kanamodel’s web site recently, so I’m not sure if the lumber loads are still in their product offerings.