Central Concrete, Joplin

Yes, I will get back to my favorites, freight cars, I just got on a kick of modeling vehicles for industries along the line. This is the Central Concrete (completely fictitious) fleet for the Joplin location.

#1Number 1 is a stock, or at least mostly stock Mini-Lindy kit. Out of production for a couple decades anyway, but a reasonably close model of a White WA-22. I added the tail light, mud flaps, mirror, ladder, controls, hose and shovel. The decals I printed myself. For the cement dust weathering, I used the real thing.

#2 This unit got its inspiration from this Hot Wheel model. It was obviously out of scale, as are most Hot Wheels and Matchbox pieces. The cab need shortened and the fenders had to be narrowed. The cement barrel and back section are from a Mini-Lindy kit. Besides the same added details as #1, I scratch built the tires using styrene tube and used some pearl stick-on pieces from the scrap booking section at Hobby Lobby for the headlights.

#3
Unit #3 started out as a Life-Like cement mixer, but really the only usable part was the back half. The cab was too new for the 1949 era I am modeling and the wheels and tires are way

under size for most uses (more on that next time). I married the Life-Like rear portion to the Mini-Lindy cab left over from #2. I used the Mini-Lindy wheels and tires and added the same details as #'s 1 and 2, although with these low angle pictures you cannot see the shovel and hose. You will also note that I have added era appropriate license plates on all my vehicles. There are several web sites that have real license plates that can be edited to work for any scale. In HO scale, they are really to small to read, at least they are when printed on my printer.

Next time, more concrete trucks, #'s 4, 5, & 6 lettered for their Springdale, AR location.

I really have to get off this vehicle kick and get back to modeling a railroad

Dale Kerns Construction Pickup

Yes, I agree, in real life it would be a sin to cut up a Studebaker truck, but it could have happen. This is one of the re-released Stony Mountain Studebaker pickup truck kits with the bed cut off and a Classic Metal Works bed attached. FWIW, this is a 1937-39 model. When I worked for Dale 30+ years ago, he had a old faded service bed truck similar to this, but not a Studebaker.

Easy Ed Koehler Pickup

Speaking of 30+ years ago. At Pittburg State, my construction instructor was Ed Koehler, affectionatly known as Easy Ed. Certainly one of the people I learned more from than most. This is a Wheel Works all metal kit. A real pain to put together, but it has nice detail. This is a 1934 Ford.

Next up, the Central Concrete Fleet. I am in the process of kitbashing 9 different cement mixers. Three for each major city along the Kansas City, Fort Smith and Gulf HO model railroad. FWIW, niether Kansas City or Fort Smith are to be modeled, but I will have some cement mixers lettered for the Fort Smith Center Concrete location. The other two locations will be Joplin and Springdale.

November HO modeling

Pulpwood car, converted from old stock car

This is based on a prototype from the Maine Central. This is not meant to be a copy, I just got the idea from some Maine Central pictures and drawing in an old NMRA magazine. This started out as a Bachman stock car. I cut two sections our of each side, the spliced them back together as one section to put in the middle where the door was originally. Obviously, I also cut off the roof. I have not added any underbody detail yet, but at this point, not including applying the decals, it only took about 2-1/2 hours to get it to this point. I printed the decals on white decal paper, which I would not do again. Clear would have blended in better to the white background. I also need to add some data decals.

Roundhouse Metal Kit

This old kit from the 1960's arrived in pieces mixed with lots of other parts. I actually found all the parts scattered between a couple of boxes I had received. I was able to match the paint color and complete the kit. It had been assembled previously, so I had to do some modification to the coupler boxes to bring them up to spec.

Gertrude

How is that for a car number? 5,261,884. I don't recall ever seeing one that long, but this was numbered in honor of my grandmother on my mother side, and the car road number is here date of birth, and no, I don't believe she drank wine at all. Family folk lore has it that some of the Sardou clan in France makes wine. I can't find any evidence of that, but I really like these European cars. I Americanize them a little with a brake stand and decals.

LTL Dry bulk containers

I have two cars like this and had to make a road number change on this one in order to be able to run them both at the same time. I used some Solveset to remove the old number and printed out some decals for new numbers. Did a little weathering and called it good enough.

Linde Tank Cars

A couple LifeLike tanks that I renumbered like the car above, but this time I needed to renumber two cars. There was a Linde plant down in Neosho, so I have several Linde cars on my roster.

Diamond Chemical Tank Car

This was an old Ready-to-Run car, but I added some decals, as the manufacturer left off some the details. The car came with no road number markings, no data and the "Caustic Soda", and the plant location below that were not on the model. Also I added warning signs decals.

That is enough for now. Back to laundry and some more modeling. Some day I may actually do some scenery.