Thought I'd start it off today....
A couple of weeks ago as I crawled along Highway 401 (the Trans Canada Hwy through Toronto and the GTA) I was watching a CN freight go by....(The only advantage to 401 is that it runs right beside the double track mains of the CN and GO transit rails for about 20km's....)
Somewhere in the middle of a block of autoracks and cylinderical hoppers was a lone flat car; old and somewhat tired looking. In the center of the car; chained down, was a CN Scale Test car.
"What the heck is that doing there" I wondered as I fought the urge to fall asleep at the wheel doing 10 km's an hour.....a scale test car is..., well, "a car"...... it has wheels, brakes and can run on the rails quite well; thank you very much.... why's it "catching a ride" ?
After a few momments it occurred to me that it made more sense to transport a speed limited, rough riding car "to and fro" on a flat rather than limit the entire train to a lower speed and risk damaging a measurement device. Scale Test Cars must be moved about the system so this was logical.... and a modeling opportunity !
The CPR's very own scale test car on a flat.......
I used an Atlas Trainman flat car which I stripped and redecaled with correct markings for a CPR flat. The deck was weathered using the technique of painting deck boards alternating shades of grey and then overweathering.
The scale test car began life as a Micro Trains CSX-B&O car. I stripped the car, removed the wheesl and couplers and painted it black. I used CDS tramsfers to approximate the CPR markings ( there are too mnay markings on the prorortype that are way, way too small to reproduce so I "captured the spirit" of the markings..... After adding a brake wheel and painting the grabs, I weathered the car, re-installed the coulers and painted the wheels silver, grey and rust.
Scale ties were used for floor blocking boards and scale metal chain was used to tie the car down. The chain was glued to the underside of the car and then fed into the stake pockets. Cross chains were then added under tension. A few scrap pieces of wood and a skid completed the car. A final weather coat was added and the car was sealed.
The car runs very well as part of either an MOW consist or in the middle of a scheduled manifest freight; carrying a scale car to it's next destination to test the accuracy of CPR's scale tracks.
A unique flat car load to be sure !
I also have about 75% completed another resin shell 2200 series coach.....
What's ya'll been up to this week ?
