Milwaukee Road Passenger Car Project

[Tom L]

Thanks.  Please buy some to help me pay for the stupidly expensive book of plans I needed in order to create it. 

Take my money, Please!  It would be my pleasure, this and a post war 1205 might be a must have for me as well

I would be in for a ribbed sided version of the branch line coach, should you get to it at some point.

I will send you a blank check

Tom L
Wellington CO

[Sokramiketes]

Thanks.  Please buy some to help me pay for the stupidly expensive book of plans I needed in order to create it. 

OK! 

Are you selling prints or want to sell the STL's so I can print at home?

[Jim Starbuck]

Thanks.  Please buy some to help me pay for the stupidly expensive book of plans I needed in order to create it. 

I’m in!
Let me know when you’re in production. I’m wanting to build a ‘42 Afternoon Hiawatha, a Midwest Hi and likely a ‘39 train along with some assorted cars like 2700.

Jim

[chessie system fan]

Thank you all! It'd be good to at least break even at some point.    Mike, I plan to print them myself. 

The main obstacle to releasing these for sale so far is the steps. I don't see a way to get around etched metal ones.  Printed ones will be too thick and fragile.  I've held off designing those parts until I had designed enough cars to gauge what I needed on the frets.  I'm nearly at that point. I'll share my work on that once I do a little more research, hopefully in a week or so.  I'm not sure yet what the etching price per car will be.

Right now, my thinking, for the cars I've done so far, is a prewar set with all grabs and steps possibly needed for any one car (so if you have, say, a parlor, there will be a mail hook extra on the fret, etc.) and one similar set for postwar-modified cars.  The alternative is multiple fret types for all the various cars I've done. Or perhaps a baggage/RPO/Tip-Top-Tap set (with both periods covered), a coach/parlor/obs prewar set, and a coach/parlor/obs postwar set. But I'm open to suggestions.

[chessie system fan]

I did some work this evening on the 1937 Tip-Top-Tap car etching.  There's obviously lots more to do, but here's what I have so far.  Every detail is accounted for (which was the important part), but I didn't care about efficient arranging.  That will come later. And half-etching fold lines are not drawn yet.



I had to make an important design choice.  The steps on the prototypes are much thicker than the grab irons and that left two options:

1. Make two separate frets.  One thin one for grabs and a thick one for steps.  But this has drawbacks.  For one, it would up the cost.  But just as importantly, on some cars the steps were bolted to the outside.  Here's a postwar modified baggage car.

Milwaukee Road MOW X-459, Ex-baggage 2006, ex-1200 - Underbody View by J.L. Nelson, on Flickr

I don't see a way to mount a thick step like that.  So that leaves the other option.

2. Make folding steps like Trainworx does with their ladders and grabs.  That way, pins on the steps can fit into slots on the outside of the shell for those baggage and Tap cars.  And for the rest of the cars, the angle is already there (like in my drawing above). 

The downside is that the step part will stick out a little bit from the support part, and that's not prototypical.  You can't win them all, I guess. 

[chessie system fan]

I just noticed something. After going to all the effort to design a 1939 truck, it turns out that the old Minitrix GSC 41-N is so embarrassingly underscale and squinched that it's more or less accurate for the Milwaukee truck! The detail is just a little flat, but the truck wheelbase is correct.  Go figure.  I don't know if I'll use it for my cars, but it's a backup option.

http://www.spookshow.net/trucks/trucks.php 

[AlbertSpor]

Aaron, reviving this thread. Are you going to do the 1942 Nystrom truck? http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1837866
Thanks
Albert Spor

[chessie system fan]

Eventually!  I have the blueprints for it.  A little peer pressure to actually do them wouldn't hurt.   About how many trucks could you use? 

I haven't worked on this project since last fall, but I plan to get back at it fairly soon. But some ESM 36" wheels for the truck projects arrived last week. And I recently purchased some of the Anycubic ABS-type resin pro 2 to try printing steps, trucks, and maybe handrails.   Those three items are the holdup to finishing the cars I've done so far. 

[AlbertSpor]

Aaron, at least 6 of the 1942 trucks, as well as some 1939's.
No hurry for me, as it will most likely be awhile before I will need.
Thanks
Albert Spor

[chessie system fan]

After a long break, I've come back to this project.

I've finished the 1934 branchline car.  The holdup was the handrails.  But after seeing what others have done now with printing fine parts in resin, I'm going to give that a try and see how it does.



And I'm almost finished with the 1939 RPO!  The main thing left to draw is the "boat" underneath the car.



It feels great to be working on these cars again. We'll see how fast I can do the rest of the 1939 train now. 

[Sokramiketes]

Go Aaron, Go Aaron, Go!

[Pizzaparty]

You can count me in for a set! (That’s if you decide to sell)

What was the logic behind the branch line car?

[Peter Amling]

You can count me in for a set! (That’s if you decide to sell)

I'm in for a set of cars as well whenever that is.

[chessie system fan]

I'll certainly keep everyone informed of my progress for anyone who wants any cars.

I finished drawing the boat this afternoon.

[chessie system fan]

Another car done!  This one is the 1939 Express - Tip Top Tap, cars 153-156.