The Freight Car Guy, Part 7

 In this latest installment in our continuing series, I needed to confront yet another freight car needing revision or correction. In the one just posted, I had changed an incorrect paint scheme on a PS-1 car body, applying instead a New York Central scheme with black ends and roof. The post about that is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-freight-car-guy-part-6.html . 

 The problem this time was, yet again, a surplus Seaboard box car, but this one at least had an 8-foot Youngstown door, as did the prototype (the model in the previous post had a 6-foot Superior door, as shown in the link cited in the previous paragraph). To repeat the prototype photo in the previous post, here is the Seaboard car shown there.

In the early to mid-1950s, a number of railroads were ordering 40-foot PS-1 box cars with 8-foot doors like the photo above, so there are a number of options to re-letter a model like this. Below I show just one example, taken from Ed Kaminski’s book, Pullman-Standard Freight Cars, 1900–1960 (Signature Press, 2007). Here again, the P-S photo is courtesy of Ed.

The C&O purchased the car shown above as part of a 1000-car order, delivered in June 1952. They were numbered 18000–18999. As it happens, K4 Decals has a set with this exact paint scheme (you can see their offerings at: https://k4decals.com/ .) I’ve used these decals before and know that they go on well.

So once again, I sprayed the model with a light-colored primer to reduce contrast of lettering and background, then gave it an overall coat of Tamiya Fine Red Primer. This covers well and has a semi-gloss finish that is very suitable for decal application. Shown below is the model, as-lettered. The decals even include a reweigh date for the major C&O car shop at Raceland, Kentucky.

Next came weathering. As I ordinarily do on all freight cars, I used acrylic washes made up with acrylic tube colors, mixing various amounts of Burnt Umber, Black, and Neutral Gray. 

The method is fairly fully described in the “Reference pages” links about weathering that you can find at the very top right of this post. Once weathering was complete and a protective coat of flat finish applied, I added patch panels for repack stencils. 

Finishing touches were the chalk marks and a route card, on the route card board on the car door, and a little streaking and highlighting with Prismacolor artist’s pencils. You can compare the overall car color, and brightness of lettering, with the photo above.

With this, the conversion of a surplus paint scheme to a C&O box car was complete. I would like to think that this is a good illustration of something a Freight Car Guy can do — and enjoy doing.

Tony Thompson