Kitbashing: a cautionary tale

This story has a long background. Several years ago, I happened to have a Denver & Rio Grande Western stock car spotted at the stock pen in the East Shumala area of my layout, and a visiting operator asked about it. “Well,” I said, ‘it’s kind of a long story, not entirely a happy one.” His response was that maybe I could write it up for the blog. Now I’ve gotten around to it. (Here’s the model at work; there’s a better model photo below.) 

Back in the 1980s, I had spoken to Richard Hendrickson about a variety of kitbashing projects, and he mentioned the Denver & Rio Grande Western stock cars. I can’t recall that he offered to send a photo but I found one in the Beebe and Clegg book, Rio Grande: Mainline of the Rockies (Howell-North, Berkeley, 1962), page 287. It was taken near Frazer, Colorado by Jim Ehernberger, probably in 1955. Mid-train helper is 2-8-8-2 No. 3612.

Note here that the middle of the three visible stock cars, D&RGW 36403D (D for double deck), is distinctly taller than the cars on either side of it. Moreover, that car is somewhat like the Athearn stock car in its side bracing pattern and door. But it seemed to have a conventional paneled steel roof and Dreadnaught ends. A quick check of the ORER showed that the 36400–36499 series was 40 feet long and over 14 and a half feet tall.

But a lot of the D&RGW stock car fleet by the 1950s was still 36-foot cars, most of them about a foot shorter in height than 36403D. No doubt those are the identity of the two cars flanking D&RGW 36403D. 

Now this was back in the “bad old days” when our raw material for kitbashing was heavily based on Athearn “Blue Box” products. Knowing,as I did, that the Athearn stock car, based on a Union Pacific prototype, had a diagonal-panel roof that is a mirror image of the prototype (the diagonals run the wrong way), I started with an Athearn box car, cutting out the sides but saving the straight-panel roof and Dreadnaught ends.  

I then cut the sides from an Athearn stock car,and fitted them to the box car body, adding styrene spacers to each side of the box car floor to suit the width of the Athearn ends. The Athearn running board was discarded and replaced with  scale 1 x 6-inch styrene strips, and Westerfield corner grab irons were added.

As I often did in those days with Athearn rolling stock, I added a strip of styrene 2 x 4 to widen the brake step, and added 1 x 2 styrene supports underneath. I added wire grab irons to the sides, though I left the cast-on sill steps and ladders. Here’s a view of the B end of the model.

On the sides, I carved away the Athearn cast-on letter board at the left of the door, and made new letter boards from 0,010-inch styrene strip. I also decide to add a detail I thought was a great idea at the time, a broken board in the car side. The ends of it were painted raw wood color. I now know that a livestock owner could reject such a car for loading, because of danger of injury to the stock.

 The completed model was painted black, and lettered with parts of Champ set HN-4 and some Walthers alphabet decal parts. It was then given a coat of clear flat, and weathered with my usual acrylic washes (see Reference pages linked at the top right of this post). Here’s a side view of it.

Imagine my dismay when I learned that there were several problems with this model. First, the Rio Grande built these cars in 1954 and 1955, after my 1953 modeling era. Second, most or all of them had Improved Dreadnaught ends and diagonal-panel roofs, neither of which my model has. I didn’t create separate doors for the two decks, either.

But evidently not every 36000-series car had the later ends; below is a Jim Parker photo of 39432 (this is from Jim Eager’s excellent book, Rio Grande Color Guide (Morning Sun Books, 1996). Either this is a transition end, or is simply older (you can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish). 

So I have kept this car in service on my layout, stand-in though it may be. After all, it has a lot of the prototype right. And I confess I still like it.

Tony Thompson