E&B Valley Pullman 8600 Class Build

I got some new kits (see the Recent HO Purchases thread), and this will document the building of one of them. I finished the kit already, but I will do a daily installment as if I was building this in real time. Overall, I think the kit was great. I like the finished product a lot.

The 8600 class was ordered by the New Haven after World War 2. They lasted into Penn Central and were taken out of service by MBTA in 1988. They were delivered in Hunter Green, but were later repainted into a more McGinnis-friendly paint scheme. Around this time, the side skirting came off and the step covers removed. I built mine in orange, but prior to de-skirting. (Partly because I wasn't too confident on the underbody detail.) Becuase this is "out of my era" and more of a model for the fun of it, I would rather spend my money on this, instead of the Rapido one. Beware: the trucks are pretty bad. The side frames have little definition, and the bolster isn't flat on the sides, so you have to build it by balancing the side frames between the axles and the widest point on the bolster.

I got the unlettered version, so I de-sprued the painted parts and went to strip the paint off. Other than flooding the utility room, this step went without issue. Here is a picture of the kit parts. Some of the underbody parts have already been assembled. I added grab irons and some basic piping later. It included plastic wheelsets, but I was fine with using them, since I don't like having to get wheels. The truck sideframes can be seen above the car sides. One truck is test built. By this time, I was not having a lot of fun with them.

This seems to be a good exposition, so I'll stop here for today. Even though it seems like this will be the worst project ever, it gets better.

 

The trucks came on a sprue with the numberboards. Whoever made the kit made the trucks too.

 

E&B made the trucks, they later went to Eastern Car Works who expanded the line of trucks that were offered, and they are now sadly gone.

Supposedly the dies are in a container somewhere in New Jersey for the trucks and the old Eastern Car Works Cars (Some descended from E&B Valley)

Rick Jesionowski

 

After all the parts were cut out, I got to work on the underbody. The main frame should be more of a fish belly appearance, rather than a flat freight car-like beam. I used pictures of the Rapido car for a lot of this build. The tanks and valves aren't exactly perfect. The kit comes with detail parts for a Pullman stainless steel car, and a second generic detail set. There was a lot of leftover parts, including about an entire underframe, a second set of diaphragms, and a lot of roof vents. Looks like I'll have some parts for another project. The second picture shows some of the piping. I have the train line, and a few other pipes. The steam line will be added later. After becoming frustrated with the pipes snapping off, I glued paper strips to act as retaining straps on some sections. They stayed glued on after that.

 

There are a few ways that people have constructed the car; some left the roof removable, and some left the floor removable. My roof was warped, so I glued the sides together to hold the roof straight. The roof on the prototype was welded, but the model has numerous rivets. I didn't care that much, so I left them on. The sides have a small channel to hold the floor in place, although I did do some sanding so it was easier to remove. This picture shows the steam line that was not in the other underbody pictures. It hangs down from the bottom of the car and runs along the center sill. There is also a small U shaped part that diverts from the main pipe. That second detail set came to save me: one of the step wells was missing from the kit. The extra detail sprue had some different ones for what looks like a heavyweight car, but I trimmed it to fit in. There were no molded on grab irons, so I didn't have to do any filing. I drilled out holes for the door handrails and the end steps. The picture doesn't show it, but I also bent some corner stirrups. The roof vents are not completely correct. They should be stretched more toward the apex of the roof, instead of being square. The model came with longer ones, but the arc molded in the bottom is the wrong way, the part was designed to lie horizontal, instead of vertical. There is also a small round vent over the bathroom end of the car that is cut off from that picture.

 

I forgot to update, but here is what comes next. Most of the assembly is done, so it goes off to the paint shop. I put the smaller parts on the back of a piece of tape so the airbrush does not blow them away. The shell gets a coat of aluminum, and once that is dry, the roof and floor get painted over in black. (The delivery green scheme also had a green roof) After unmasking, I touched up some areas that didn't get painted. The tape stuck around the truck wells, so they did not get a full coat of black. After these colors dryed, I came back and painted the window stripe. It looks too red, but that's what you get for mixing your own paint. The same picture shows the window gaskets that I painted in as well. The stakes were high on this part, because I couldn't get any black on the orange/red. There were a few spots where it did, but most of it is fine.

 

When these kits first came out I found that the sides and frame had to be ground down otherwise the car appeared to be torqued. Kind of like it had been in a train derailment and rolled over.

After the fun I had with mine...........you won't find me buying another one.

Glad to see you are making it work.

 

The sides are not completely straight. In the last picture, you can see a sprue piece glued across to hold them together so they don't bow out in the middle. The ends still are slightly narrower than the middle, so I had to sand the floor into a bit of an ellipse. It is not really noticeable when the model is together and on the tracks, so that is good.

 

Nice work and progress on what sounds to be a difficult build. Looking forward to seeing it progress and thanks for posting.

 

It has been a few days since I added here last, so here are some final assembly and completed model photos. The diaphragms were plastic, so I lightly glued them on with CA, so it would be possible to remove if I wanted to upgrade to rubber ones. There are also end gates. The interiors should be a two-tone grey, but I just did one color. The only things I know about the colors of the interior comes from a post on another forum. An interesting thing they said was the door at the smoking end of the car was blue, but red at the bathroom end of the car. I made the bathroom walls from brown paper. It is about the same color as the walls in the Rapido car. I cut a gap in the window strip, so the wall could be flush with the car side. The car door windows also have to be cut from the main part, since the vestibule wall would make a one piece window insert impossible. Here are the dreaded trucks, completed:
The couplers were originally truck mounted, but I body mounted them. If they stayed truck mounted the steps could not be added, so the truck could have room to move. I still need decals, so the numberboards and name plates, etc. are not glued on. Here are some pictures of the completed car: