It took some time, but I ended up completing eight of these Bachmann 52' 6" Greenville gondolas: six Conrail (class GE51C) and two Penn Central (class 829G). The cars received the following upgrades:
All - retaining valve on A end removed.
All - brakewheel removed and replaced with ratcheting hand brake obtained from
@bbussey (Bryan Bussey of Eastern Seaboard Models).
All - boxing glove couplers replaced with Accumates.
All - trucks replaced with BLMA 70 ton friction bearing trucks.
PC only - grab irons on sides removed and replaced with ladders per prototype.
The Conrail cars were painted with my custom mixture of SCII Conrail Oxide Red and the Penn Central cars were painted with SCII PC Green.
The Conrail cars were decalled with custom decals created by
@Jesse6669 (Jesse Svoboda) and Microscale U1 stencils.
The Penn Central cars were decalled with reporting marks and logo type from the ESM G32C decal set, demi-data was custom created by
@Jesse6669 (Jesse Svoboda) with Highball Graphics ACI tags and Microscale U1 stencils.
Overall, I am very pleased with how these turned out. They ended up turning into a labor of love due to the significant investment of money and time it took to create these. These will have to be weighted down with loads to get them to track as they are extremely light. Thank you.
Jeff
