As I mentioned in my previous post, this past year and a half to two years has been spent building rolling stock for the Delaware Central Rail Road and Navigation Company. I am just about finished with my 1st class passenger train. I am expecting translucent yellow Evergreen Styrene to arrive this Thursday so I can glaze the windows in the clerestories of the 4 cars. However, I couldn't resist taking a short video of the cars with a Bachmann (as yet unmodified) Jupiter in the lead. I hope you enjoy it.

The cars themselves are from AHM, Aristocraft, Bachmann, and a baggage car of unkown origins. The Aristocraft car, number 85, is a converted Lincoln Funeral car. I substituted the original under carriage with one from a Pocher car. In fact, the under carriages of all 4 cars were canabalized from Pocher combine basket cases I purchased cheap either at the Timonium Train Show or through eBay. If you want to make similar cars, be aware that there are 2 different types of undercarriages. One has and the other does not have, brake cylinders. I, of course, chose ones lacking the brakes cylinders for my 1863 time period. In addition, I figured I already had enough detail to remove without adding additional work. I made the following modifications to these undercarriages. First, I daylighted all the steps by carefully drilling out the backs and then using an Xacto saw with the finest bade I had, a #11 Xacto knife, and files to clear out the backs of all steps. Next I removed and reconstructed the truss rods. Then shaved off the cast on handrails. I followed this by rebuilding the ends: new floors, end beams, handrails, and brakes. I am using Grandt Line 8 ton Porter link and pin couplers in scratch built coupler mounts. All my couplers have a base coat of Polyscale grimy back with washes of rust. The cars were spay painted with Badger B&O Royal Blue. The under carriages were primed and sprayed with Tamiya TS-6 flat black. I know, I should have primed the car bodies as well. The letters were individually applied using Champ LZ-5 bronze gold 5/64" decal alphabet sets and Champ bronze gold passenger car scrolls and stripes. It takes one complete set for me to do one car. I fould myself short of "As" and "Rs" because of my mistakes. The ovals on 82 (of AHM origins) and 85 were hand painted using Folkart Brushed Metal Bronze craft paint. I also used this paint to highlight the detail on the trucks. All trucks are from either the Lincoln Funeral Car I canabalized or old AHM/Pocher cars. Some AHM/Pocher cars have matching truck side frames and some do not. My brake wheels are by Precision Scale, my brake pawls are modified from Tichy Train, my queenposts are 5" ones from Grandt Line, my wheels are Reboxx 1.015s, and my truss rods are 0.020 nylon monofiliment. This monofiliment happens to be left overs from some BTS cars I built this past year but you can also buy correctly sized monofilament at your favorite sports store. Here is number 85...

Number 82 began as an AHM passenger car. It turns out that the car body is the same as that used on AHM/Aristocraft's Lincoln Funeral Car. The same modifications/additions as done on car 85 were made. The major difference is the roof, which is a 3D print made by Eric Cox of Panamint models. You can find some of Eric's great offerings through his Shapeways shop. The roofs are all spray painted with Tamiya TS-66 IJN Gray and brush painted Badger B&O Royal Blue. The vents are brush painted from my small, carefully hoarded, reserve of Pollyscale grimy black. Here is car number 82...

Number 79 is a modified (as above) Bachmann old time coach with a different style 3D roof printed, again, by Panamint models. Unlike the AHM/Aristocraft/Pocher cars, it does not come with a raised oval that needs to be painted, I prefer using this style oval from the Champ decal set rather than tediously painting the ovals on the AHM/Pocher cars.

Number 77 is a modified baggage car from an unknown (by me) manufacturer. The first thing I did was sand off all of the cast on roof detail. Since the roof was originally intended to represent a riveted metal roof, sanding took a long, long time. Once the detail was sanded off, I then cut off the duckbill portions of the car's roof and scratch built the ends of the clearstory to match, as best I could, the ends of Eric's 3D prints.  All other modifications were as previously noted for the other cars. 

On a personal note, I married my wife in 1977, our oldest son was born in 1979, our middle son was born in 1982, and our daughter was born in 1985. Hence, the numbers chosen for the Delaware Central's 1st class cars. Also, I worked on my PhD (piled higher and deeper) at the University of Delaware whose school colors are blue and gold.