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Friday, July 8, 2022

My display train at BAPM 2022

 Most years when I attend the Bay Area Prototype Modelers (BAPM) meet, I fill up my carrying case with freight cars, plus a locomotive and caboose, to make a display of a complete train. I think most people enjoy seeing this kind of “larger” display. My previous post about the models displayed by other modelers at BAPM 2022 is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/06/bapm-2022-part-2.html

Again this year, as I often do, I chose steam power for the display, and SP Consolidation 2763 was on the head end. You will note alongside this engine is a description on a paper slip, and something similar is alongside every car in the train: a brief line identifying the prototype, and another line or two giving model information. (You can click on any image to enlarge it if you wish.) This is a Balboa brass model.

The first car in the train, as was often true in prototype practice, was a stock car, SP 73557, a Red Caboose model with correct Vulcan truck replacements.

Following the stock car was a Santa Fe automobile car, recently demoted from actual automobile service (note on the right-hand door that the identifying white stripe for that service has been painted out). I described my completion of this project of Richard Hendrickson’s in a series of prior posts (here’s the final post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/11/hendrickson-auto-car-part-6.html ). 

Next in the train was an SP tank car, one of those modified, and suitably identified, for liquid sugar service, primarily from the C&H Sugar plant at Crockett, California. This is one of my Athearn kitbashes (for a description, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/05/modeling-sp-tank-cars.html ).

Following the tank car was a Pennsylvania Railroad Class X29 box car, one of the most common box cars in America in the transition era. (I didn't notice until I got there that the brake wheel was missing!) The heavy weathering here is by Richard Hendrickson.

Behind the X29 was another tank car, this one modeled with a scratchbuilt tank and dome on a modified Tichy underframe (this project was described in a Railroad Model Craftsman article from January 2012; for more, see this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-tank-car-article-in-rmc.html ). As its lettering states, it’s assigned to carry hydrogen peroxide.

And to wrap up today’s part of the train, here is the sixth car in the train, a classic HO scale model, the Ulrich General Service gondola, in this case with improved trucks and new lettering. There were a lot of these cars on the SP, and they were very durable, many serving into the 1960s.

I will show the rest of the cars from my BAPM 2022 train display in a future post.

Tony Thompson

1 comment:

  1. Nice photos and much appreciated. I have two models of the same SP stock car that need to be prepared to enter service this fall. You SP 73557 photo will serve nicely as an example to mimic. Thanx!

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