MOW Rolling Stock

I just picked up one of the Micro Trains gondolas painted up in silver for ATSF MW. (Great car but it looks too new. Any car pressed into MOW service would be near the end of its career, gons dont look this good in 6 months service.) Anyway, this fueled an idea that I have had in the back of my mind for some time now. I left the hobby shop with my new gon, and some ATSF MOW decals.

Here is the result of two evenings worth of modeling and some freight cars from my scrap bin.


The Micro Trains Gon


Flat for carrying MOW Machines


Tool Car (Peeling Paint revealing this reefer's former glory days)


Wheel Car (hey, that's what you can do with all those high flange macro trains wheels)

Hope you enjoy,

Brian

 

Brian,

Great job! I think a good MOW train like yours is a great way to add interest to a layout. I model BN and they commonly use their old green "roofwalk" boxcars for MOW service so I picked up one of the MT BN boxcars for cheap the other day, figuring it would be "close enough". Well, wouldn't you know but I came across a BNSF work train the other day that had almost a clone of my boxcar!! So, now I've got the same fever you had....much painting and weathering to do!!!! Anyway, keep up the good work!

 

Well done, Brian! I especially like the older weathered car and the effect of the old paint showing through. I'm working on a British outline breakdown train - crane, flat, assorted wagons. It's an interesting challenge.

 

I just returned from another round trip on the 1-1 scale railroad and wouldn't you know it I had an empty ATSF MW flat in my train. Car# ATSF 206200. It was very similar to the flat I built in the above picture, complete with rails on the deck, and tie down chains.

The wheels were just for the quick picture, I will probablly use low profile wheels, and modify them by adding roller bearing caps on the ends.

I hadn't shot the dullcote or weathered these with chalk yet. The decals were barely dry when the pics were taken.

I may build some Modern ATSF tank cars for disel service some day.

I have a Big Hook, but it does not fit my era. I would like to find a pile driver, or build one some day. Again, crew cars were pretty much dead in the early 90's, so I won't need one of those either, but the busses...hmmm, some n scale buses keep popping up on ebay.

Brian

 

There are companies that make wheelsets especially for flatcar loads. They're scale size with the bearings already on them. I'm not sure but I think it was Campbell Scale Models.

[ 22 February 2002, 04:36: Message edited by: RidgeRunner ]

 

All,
Talk about perfect timing....I went to my hobby shop today and picked up a copy of the Feb. 2002 RailModel Journal. There's an article in there by Don Augustine about a working N-Scale 13-car Welded Rail train!!! You guys have to check this out.....it is an awesome model to say the least. Plus the fact that it actually runs!!!

 

How have they modelled the rail in that article, I model HO and have pretty broad curves, but scale rail just doesn't bend enough to let the train go round curves...

Bowser does rail racks (in HO) for adding to flatcars, but it wouldn't look as good unloaded.

 

They made the rail using styrene strip laminated together to produce the shape of the rail. That sounds like pretty tedious work actually and they really didn't go into a lot of detail about how it was done. They did give the dimension of the styrene strip but I can't remember off the top of my head. The finished product (painted and weathered) looked really good though. I would recommend getting the mag if you can as the pictures are worth, well you know. There's also a good article on weathering RailBox cars. It's HO but weathering is weathering for the most part. (and no I don't have an affiliation with the magazine)