i got a few bachmann ATSF stock cars from model expo. they run fine but i am a bit taken aback by the bright turquoise paint. i'm wondering if thsi is prototypical or if i should repaint the whole unit in mineral brown and re decal the whole thing... any help please
There was a topic on one of these fora a while back about 'Diamonds in the rough'. It had to do with certain freight cars made by lower end manufacturers that had incorrect paint schemes, lousy trucks, too much paint--you get the idea. The point of it was that once you stripped the slathered on, incorrect paint from it and took off those clunky trucks with the wheels that had no flange on one side and several millimetres on the other, you had a car that ranged from 'not bad' to 'very nice'. All that it required was a proper paint job, correct decals, maybe a detail part here-and-there that was less clunky or more to scale and finally MT trucks/couplers to make it a nice car. Several posters offered their candidates. I do not run stock cars, so I do not know much about their painting, but I can say that I have never seen a photograph of a Jade Green ATSF stock car. I have heard of Jade Green NYCS stock cars, but I have never seen a photograph of one of those, either. Assuming that all of the cars that you bought were ATSF, you might want to change the numbers on all but one of them, anyhow. my experience with the Bachpersonn freight cars is that they do tend to slather on the paint on certain freight cars. Some, but not all. I do not know about the stock cars. What I would do in your place is to get decent colour photographs of them and work from there. If you have several that show mineral red, strip the cars, buy the paint and the decal sheets (assuming that someone makes them for ATSF stock cars) and go to work. If you can find any that are Jade Green, you may only have to erase the numbers on all but one, re-number with the decals and finish with the clearcoat of your choice. Do not try to get away with changing just one digit. Manufacturers of models and manufacturers of decal sheets can never agree on lettering size. Even if one number is off by just a few millimetres, you will notice it and be unhappy with it.
I looked at the pix of Bachmann's HO and N scale Santa Fe stockcars. Neither of them resemble any of the cars in Ellington's definitive book "Stock Cars of the Santa Fe Railway." I have not seen any plastic mass-produced N scale cars that resemble any Santa Fe stockcar. Only the Pecos River Brass model does...and it is outside my budget. No criticism of PRB there. Santa Fe stockcars have four panels on each side of the center door, whereas the Bachmann car has three. Santa Fe stockcars with the heavy "Z-bar" framing used on many railroad's stockcars generally had wooden ends, whereas the Bachmann car has a fairly modern steel end. Looks a bit like a Pullman Standard PS-1 type steel end. The Santa Fe stockcars that had steel ends were rebuilds of "panel-side" boxcars. They had steel ends with narrower corrugations, an old Dreadnaught style. The car ends, whether steel or wood, had small drover end doors so cowboys could crawl into the cars from the roof and tend cattle. The Bachmann car looks as if it was made using a standard boxcar end. I know there are several model manufacturers who have turned out green Santa Fe stockcars and I know of no prototype Santa Fe FREIGHT stockcar. My pet theory about the green Santa Fe stockcars is that Lionel made an O-gauge orange "operating cattle car". Later on, a HORSE car was manfactured, I don't remember whether by Lionel or by a competitor. In order to make the car different from the widely-sold operating cattle car, it had horses and was a different color. Now Santa Fe DID have cars used in passenger trains to handle thoroughbred racehorses. The cars lookedly generally like baggage cars and were Pullman or coach green. Some toy manufacturer asked a railroader what color horse cars were, and the railroader answered "green" and the toymaker assumed he should market a green stock car. Just my pet theory. If you wanted to ignore the structural details of the car which are not Santa Fe prototype, you could paint it mineral brown and letter it with Microscale Decals set #9, or one or two other Santa Fe "general freight" lettering sets. If I had one of these cars, I would probably letter it for some other railroad. Someday I hope to scratchbuild an ATSF stockcar or 2 or 3. Kenneth L. Anthony, Santa Vaca & Santa Fe Rwy (N scale), Corpus Christi TX
I was putting away my collection of Hallmark Lionel tree ornaments today and sure enough, I have a miniature ATSF stock car painted green and called a "Horse Car."
Funny you should mention this, I was putting mine away too and while I don't have the horse car, these posed for a new picture.
Funny you should mention this, I was putting mine away too and while I don't have the horse car, these posed for a new picture. The Horse Car is about half again as small as the "N Scale" orniments. In the smaller size I have the "General" with tender, a Lionel box car and the tiny green stock car. In the larger size like you show, I think I have pretty much the whole collection.
