Freight Car Friday

Hi folks. Todays freight car in the spotlight is a Bachmann On30 Tank Car. These cars were just an extension of Bachmann's On30 flat car with a tank added on the top. Admittedly, when I first got these, I thought the were a bit "toy like" in appearance with the glossy plastic and such , but with a small amount of effort, it is easy to transform the model into a respectable piece of rolling stock. One of the fellows in our On30 group did a weathering job for me  and once I got the model back, I went to work on it. First I took the tank off and added a Banta laser cut wood floor deck and stained it with a couple of light coats of India ink and alcohol. I then filed down the plastic tank supports. This was necessary as once the laser cut wood deck was added, the tie down metal straps that go around the tank to secure it to the deck, would no longer fit because of the small increase in height of the deck floor. Once the tank was back in place, I used large sized ( tie sized) strip wood to encircle the base of the tank. The wood was scribed with a razor saw to create grain and then once again, I  used India ink and alcohol to stain these beams. As a final touch, I drilled small holes in the beams to accept the bolt ends of Grandt Line  NBW castings that I painted a aged rust color. These were held in place with a small drop of glue. I have several of these On30 tank cars that I did in the same manner. I think they turned out well. Till next time......

Modified On30 tank car