Trucks, Cabooses and Buildings, Oh My

And a bulldozer, bus and tank car.

Random model railroad items I have finished up in the last month.  

 First up, a couple Greg's Garage trailers that I custom lettered for the Atkins Pickle Company, of Atkins, AR.  I printed the decals myself, and made the art work from pictures.  The Moby Dills decal is from picture of a jar label.

This bulldozer is a Mercury Lit'l Toy with added detail.  I added the bolt detail to the blade and the control to the cockpit.  Obviously weathered it up so too.

Here we have an antique Red Ball kit, with cardboard sides, metal cast windows and ends, wood roof and floor.  I scratch built the end railings and used brass ladder stock. This is one of the few pieces of rolling stock I have lettered for my Kansas City, Fort Smith and Gulf railroad.  As a Drover caboose, it has passenger seats, and I installed seats, and have a few people sitting in them.  The pictures really aren't good enough to show them, but, believe me, they are there.

Like Greg's Garage solid resin models, Vulcan Hobbies made similar models.  I would really like to find more of the Vulcan Hobbies items, but they are relatively rare. This is a 1938 Dodge Airflow tractor, and

here, I have it pulling a Greg's Garage ribbed trailer.  The sign on the side of the trailer is retro Boulevard label, as Boulevard was not around in 1949, the year I model.

I made this tractor trailer to haul the half track concrete mixer I made last year.  The tractor is and Imex Peterbilt I painted and lettered, and the trailer was kitbashed from from a Maisto auto rack.  I made the decals myself.

I have got to start building more structures, or not.  This is a Design Preservation Model with added interior details, signs and the roof access was scratch built.  I should have gotten some good pictures of the interior and the door signs for the upstairs business.  There are two businesses upstairs, Scout Investigations, and

Jean Louise Finch, Attorney at Law.  Those refer to a book and movie, but I will leave it to you to figure out which one.  The signs were all made on the computer, and the Cook paint signs were based on photos edited in Photoshop.  This will be a corner building on my main street diorama.

I lettered this American Precision Models bus for the Missouri Pacific.  It looked like it was the right shade of blue, and so I made some decals and had me a MoPac bus.  Sure it ain't prototypical, but it captures the feeling.

I love tank cars, and this is a vintage Thomas Industries kit.  The kit had been assembled when I bought it, but only the metal tank wrapper was painted, as that is how the original kit was delivered.  I disassembled the kit and painted it per the original instructions.  FYI, if you ever need old kit instructions, try hoseeker.com, the site is amazing.

More HO scale model railroading next time.

A Freight car and a Caboose

For this entry I have a couple HO railroad cars I have finished.  

The first is a old Varney Ohio Seamless Tube car with loading rack.  These models were also sold as standard gondolas, without the loading rack, and with the rack as seen here

 I purchased this is well used condition, so it took some rebuilding of damage on the loading end, and some touch up on the paint....also a little weathering to hide some of the damage.  

Next up is a drover caboose.  A drover caboose is a caboose and a passenger car of sorts.  Drovers were the cowboys taken on cattle trains to care for and wrangle the cattle.  Particularly when the cattle had to be unloaded or taken out for scheduled breaks.

This is a old, really old, Red Ball paper side kit with metal cast details.  I added some interior details, but you really have to be looking to see the people sitting in their seats.    


Next up, I am working on a 144 square inch HON30 layout, and I have another bunch of details ordered from Shapeways.com.  Lots of details being printed.  It has been hard to find time to work on model railroading, as I have started my own manufacturers rep business, and time is at a premium right now.