Took some time this morning to touch up the hand rails and install the window glazing on these 2 new additions to the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Rail Road. Next, on to cut the grass.

I began working on these cars back in the early 1990s. Back then it was a modeling step up for me from just repainting and lettering ready-to-run equipment. I had shaved off the cast on body grab irons and replaced them with grab bars I bent from brass wire. I also removed the Tyco/Mantua trucks and replaced them with MDC/Roundhouse old time passenger trucks. I also installed AHM instamatic knuckle couplers. I had removed the roof detail, then sanded the roofs and covered the roofs with 600 grit sandpaper. I was never happy with the look of the roofs so removed the paper. This car project was then supplanted by  family, work, and graduate school. The cars were put in a box and forgotten until as few weeks ago when I began the hunt to find them again. After a very diligent and thorough search I found the box with the 2 cars. I replaced the truss rods with nylon monofilament left over from a couple of BTS car kits. Bill over at BTS always supplies more than I need in his kits. I also used Tichy Train turnbuckles on the truss rods. I replaced the Mantua brake wheels with Kemtron brake wheels on 0.020 brass wire. I used parts I modified from Tichy brake wheels for the ratchet mechanisms. Then I installed grab bars for the combine's freight doors and added n/b/w castings from Grandt Line and Tichy Train. The roof vents are from old Grandt Line passenger car roof details sets. The smoke stacks were scratch built. I replaced the the AHM couplers with Grandt Line On3 link and pin style couplers. The new wheels are Reboxx 1.020 double insulated sets. The car bodies, under carriages and trucks were primed with Tamiya primer. The undercarriages and trucks were then sprayed with Tamiya matt black. The car bodies were sprayed with Model Masters dark brown for the sides and Tamiya gunship gray for the roofs. The roof details and grab irons were painted with Poly Scale Engine Black. For the car numbers, I used decals from Microscale USMRR freight and passenger car sets. The road heralds are from old Champ P&WV decal sets. I was going to use Champ bronze gold alphabet sets for the decals but it was so much easier just to use the P&WV sets rather than apply each letter individually. The end window glazing is glass microscope side covers. The sides are glazed with Evergreen Styrene clear glazing. I used Canopy glue to attach all the glazing.