Cheap-O Auto Parts Train (in breakable styrene & basswood)

[sarge]

Terry and DeBruin

A quick look at things googlish tells me Walthers still stock Solvaset.

My solvent of choice was Champ's decal setting solution, until it vanished from shelves, then I went to Solva-set. The only time I use Microsol is with very thin decals like (whodathunkit) Microscale and many of the decals made recently by the cottage guys. You have to be a little careful when throwing decals on a new project that you use the appropriate strength.

For throwing Champ and old Walthers decals, its Solvaset or my remaining supply of Champ fluid.

For this job though, even with Microscale, I find you need the shouty stuff to needle out airpockets and blush, especially older decals. I've never taken the ink off the substrate with Solvaset or Champ, but wouldn't be surprised if unsealed ALPS decals might be susceptible. In the case of this car, I'd bet older thick decals with the art sealed by a clearcoat, so brutality is not to be feared.

Regarding paint, I have done in paint using either Champ or Solvaset full-strength for new applications. It is my own dam fault though, for it was invariably Scalecoat paint that I hadn't allowed to fully cure.

Since decals really are a clear substrate (originally lacquer) with printing on them, the solvents eat similar paint just as they would eat the clear substrate of a decal. Once cured, Scalecoat is pretty rugged stuff. Before it cures, though, its pretty soft and porous so the solvent leeches through and will lift the paint off like a stripper.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I will post some more "modern" Quality Craft models here, encourage anybody else out there with one or more they're proud of (or not) something odd about wood kits to model steel prototypes

Please do so while starting a new discussion thread - "QC & Gloor Craft kit cars".

[DeBruin]

I will start a new string for modern cars built from wood kits Rufus (QC's, Ambroid, Lykens Valley etc.) however have one last mug for this E-Bay salvage auto parts string, an auto rack (which usually ran in their own blocks on regular manifest freights or dedicated extras and not the auto-parts runs anyway) it's an enigma, doesn't look like most PC or predecessor road's racks in that the herald/road name panel is on the bottom level. Also looks like the builder stopped before figuring out how to do the couplers, or maybe just quit after the cast ramps failed to stay cemented to the ends, they all showed up loose in their own baggy. I'm thinking maybe vacu-forming the 12 autos for the load might be the most practical approach weight wise as even styrene kit cars like Hawk or Revells would add up to too-heavy, as well as difficult and $$ to find 12 of the same year/maker model. Regardless it'll be a challenge to finish, moreso with a load.

[R.K. Maroon]

Pete, tell us a bit as to the state you found this. In pieces? Built but not painted? Painted with decals but damaged?

One of the problems you may have with finding autos for this will be finding a set that match the era. Can't put '57 Impalas or PT Cruisers on there. Or shouldn't, at any rate.

Jim

[DeBruin]

True, autos have to be same year, same manufacturer, though name/type/"brand" mixes were common depending on the factory (Firebirds-Camaros, sedans-hard tops-wagons, Ford-Mercury, etc), as I recall one of these 1:48 auto-rack kits appeared nicely built up in a late sixties or early seventies MR "Trackside Photos" with what (I recall) appeared to be 12 Hawk Camaros in various colors, again the likelihood, if not expense, of finding 12 of those these days(pretty sure they also produced Mustangs and AMX's in the same series) seems quite problematic.

The car showed up as you see it here, other than having to glue on some loose strips that had fallen off despite being well packed: as I recall one of a multiple listing with three other racks and some of those hy-cubes, I think I landed this one only because of the "Loudmouth Lime" urp-green PC scheme, the rest all went for a lot more dough, despite at least regarding the racks being in the same state of un assembly missing couplers and ramps.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

True, autos have to be same year, same manufacturer.............

Load it up with DeLoreans and charge the flux capacitor to full.....

[sarge]

That green autorack reminds me of a job we called trimming. This was basically sitting in an old Alco watching the hump crew push cars over the hump where they would roll down into the "bowl" sent to their proper track by the operator up in the hump tower. The resulting sort became new trains, but of course most of you know that already.

Anyway, the trimmer sat around until a car went down the wrong track. The radio would come on and off you'd go to fetch the errant car, bring it back out of the bowl along a perimeter track laid for the purpose, duck through this big oversized culvert under the hump, and pass the car back to the hump crew who would push it over again, hopefully to the right track. The culvert was pretty tight overhead, so there were limits as to what you could pull through. Bilevel racks would fit, but things like the big 86' boxcars for autoparts and appliances were over-height and had to be pulled out the back of the bowl and brought around once a shift all the way through the receiving tracks and pushed over after a long and circuitous trip. That took time.

Anyway, one night a rack went down the wrong track, so the trimmer was sent to fetch it out. A argument ensued about whether it should come up the trimmer track under the hump or join the over-height cars to be brought round the long way. The hump operator was all for putting it around, and the trimmer crew was after it when the yardmaster who knew everything ordered the car to be brought back up under the hump. Time was critical apparently, and that car had to go the fastest way possible. After an argument became an order, the rack was duly pulled up the trimmer track.

Bilevels fit, tri-levels not so much. Top row of LTDs on their way to Ayre Mass lost their roofs and the ground next to the tunnel under the hump still glittered in the headlight at night when I was bought off six months later.

[DeBruin]

Great story Sarge, was the duck-under basically a culvert lined with corrugated? the trimmer layout common to at least two NYC yards and PC's state of the art Buckeye, but I'll guess given your old Alco reference that it was Selkirk?

[sarge]

Not bad, Pete. It was Dewitt. That one was perhaps different as there were "runner' tracks around both sides of the bowls and you went from the north to south runners via the "hump tunnel" which memory serves wasn't a corrugated pipe, but I really can't remember for sure now 40 years on.

Now that you asked, I am trying to even remember the details of the layout and they aren't coming, I have to admit. It's frustrating, too, because I figured it would be clear as a bell and accurate to each brick; a man's memory being infallible of course. I found a map from 1979 online but it doesn't match my memory of humping in two directions, although there were great changes after Conrail came along and I had been gone five years by the time that map was done. I just can't be sure my memory is even close; pisses me off!

One thing I do recall clearly that Selkirk was our major GE shop by that time and Dewitt was the major Alco shop. My "career" was very short, perhaps a year, starting as a college student/labourer in the diesel shop. Later they let me outdoors to go fuel and water through trains and the Amtrak E8s at the station on the west end of the yard (under proper supervision of course). I had just escaped the clutches of the diesel shop and started to learn the ways of the outdoors when it all came to a grinding halt with Conrail. I remember the shop and the station area pretty clearly, but the rest was a little mindboggling in its complexity and still is. It was a big place.

Then I tried the construction trades. That didn't work either, so it was off to the military. I don't see what high-school kids find so fascinating about the '70s. They were not easy times. The 70s do hold a very almost fatal attraction as an era to model, though. I can understand why, for it was the time of an even more important change in the industry than steam-to-diesel. I suspect that more modellers will become attracted to it as the modern era continues to bring the importance of the 70s in American railroading into even clearer focus. If I ever return to US outline as my modelling medium, I would be very very tempted.

Your train and this thread does bring back some good memories. Thanks for that!

[R.K. Maroon]

Gonna bump a few favorites. Pete, let us know if you have any updates on the parts or autorack trains. I know you've had mostly loco rebuilds and passenger consists on your bench, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Jim

[De Bruin]

No progress on the auto-parts train since this was posted; I have accumulated more candidates for it though including an additional auto rack and some more 50 ft wide and dbl door cars all awaiting an appropriate PRR/NYC/PC paint and decal treatment. Likewise I have an Walthers N5 to "green up" into the PC scheme. Need to add another US built Weaver to the power set too, thinking about an NYC FA2. Ironically Collinwood Shops painted one into the red "P" PC scheme in 1969, pretty sharp looking but it suffered a crankshaft failure(the 244's Achilles heal) shortly afterward and went straight to the dead line at Altoona.

[R.K. Maroon]

My brother and I have had the chance to meet both Pete and Ed Jakl, sons of Bob and Elizabeth Jakl (who we also got to meet at this fall's Southwest O-scale show in OKC). Somewhere in there we became aware that Bob was looking for decals for an SP 86' auto car that Pete had built. By chance I had a couple of sets and sent them to Ed, who delivered them to his dad. Here is a photo of the finished model:



To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, if my layout were to become infested with models like this I would see no reason to call an exterminator.

JIm

[De Bruin]

That's gorgeous, and well done to boot, those auto-parts cars can be tricky to decal with all the external vertical rib-ing. I scored some Lykens Valley hy-cubes at the Chicago show last spring, none of which remotely look this good.

[E7]

By chance I had a couple of sets and sent them to Ed (Jakl), who delivered them to his dad. Here is a photo of the finished model:



To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, if my layout were to become infested with models like this I would see no reason to call an exterminator.

JIm

Jim, Whaddaya call it?......."Instant Train?" Gawd that thing is BIG! I'm not even gonna ask minimum radius!

Rich

[E7]

Pete, Could you tell us about the PRR loco 5 images down on page one of this thread, please? Looks like a "Bizzaro" (ala the old Superman comics) GG1. All squared off with pantagraphs and side rods......I like it!

Happy New Year
Rich