Freight Car Friday

 Happy New Year folks! I am sure we can all agree that we are hoping for a much better 2021 and that the world ends up in a much better place than it was during most of last year. Todays freight car spot light is on converted Bachmann On30 18 foot flat cars. These flat cars were released by Bachmann several years ago and it wasn't long afterwards that several manufactures started developing and releasing conversion kits in various formats. I decide to convert a couple that I had into side dump hoppers using a kit by  Train Troll   The kit comes with all the laser cut pieces to convert 2 of the Bachmann flats - (the flats come as a 2 pack as well). It took me a week of evenings to complete the models from start to finish. I followed the well explained instructions and prior to assembly, I lightly stained the laser cut wood parts using a mixture of India ink and alcohol. The hardware parts (hinges, levers, etc) are all of the peel and stick variety  - I used flat black camo type paint to paint these prior to assembly as well. Even though the hardware parts are peel and stick, I used a small amount of white craft glue to ensure that they would stay in place.  The flatcars themselves were weathered by a friend of mine prior to mounting the hopper bodies to them. I liked the end result and ended up buying 2 more packs of both the flatcars and the hoppers so I could have a small unit train to be pulled by one of my small Whitcomb diesels. I often take these cars to run at Train shows as part of the On30 modular group that I belong to. One of the things I like about On30 is that the smaller manufacturers' have been good to bring out kits to modify existing On30 rolling stock into something unique - fun stuff!!. Till next time....

Side dump Hoppers

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