# Challenge 2011 -- Mik's



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

What would you build with this miscellaneous junk?









for the record, that's half a Bachmann baggage car, a boogered up B'mann freight car frame, a Kalamazoo coach roof, and a set of Barber trucks of dubious parentage.... Plus some stripwood.


Frame and floor re-made to match the length of the roof (27 feet in 1/24)









So what th hayul could it possibly be?


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

No guesses? Does the baby poo green help? 









How about a table and some pigeon holes? 









Test fitting the roof... does it vaguely look like anything now?


----------



## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Mik; 

I'm guessing that it is a really short RPO. Am I in the ball park? 

Yours, 
David Meashey


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

RPO/mail car is what it is.... and it's not 'short', it's "fun size"









It was the only roof I had - If anybody wants a couple B'mann B&O coach carcasses (no roofs or trucks), or some floors (bases and seat sections) backchannel me, I have 'em available for trade


----------



## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Mik; 

This is a tidbit of trivia I learned about RPOs at the Virginia Museum of Transportation here in Roanoke. If the RPO clerks had all their mail sorted, they were allowed to rest as the train continued on its route. Frequently they would lie down on the filled mail sacks to rest. And that is where the term "sack time" came from. 

The car is looking good. I think I found all the parts I need for my car, but still need to work out a few details concerning its "engineering." 

Yours, 
David Meashey


----------



## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

I believe the RPO end of the car had to be "blind," no door to allow access to the car from the rest of the train... 

Robert


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the info, Robert! That explains the car end pix I've seen. Does anybody know what year would that rule have taken effect? 

By 1960 it probably would have been relegated to MoW service as a tool car like so many others did. That's the look I'm eventually going for. Would they have cut a door in the end for that? 

Anyway, I had to get #3 into the mail to go to her new home in France TODAY, so I had to take the car out unfinished, along with my unfinished milk car for some photos before she went.


----------



## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Don't know if the following will be of any use to you, but you can take a look and decide for yourself and then download a copy if you wish. Description and folio of car can be found on page 5 and continues.

D&RGW RR - Baggage-RPO Car #624 / Tool Car X3339 PDF[/b]


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

While I am waiting on some parts for the mail car to arrive, I decided to work on the milk car -- what better to go in the Hotshot with the Mail car? ... like bread n butter. 

Anyway, I started with a B'mann 20 foot express boxcar lettered for the Pennsylvania Union Line. It was short enough for what I wanted to do -- and more importantly, it was here. 









Then dug around until I found some pix of a New York Central wood milk cars in my files. 

















Okay... We have a prototype, sort of. We'll just ignore the passenger trucks and fishbelly frame, for now. 
The narrow end platform, handrail, and evaporator piping were easy enough. 









Step and an extra grab were easy too. It will get reefer doors when I find cheap enough ones.-- at the moment they seem to want as much for the 4 doors as a whole car! 









A quicky paint job with 'straw' and 'brown oxide', and renumber to #669 by the simple expediency of painting over the final 9. I left the "Pennsylvania" for now because the decals I have are white 









I think the car end looks pretty good. Yes, I need to add the train lines yet, and switch over to double hooks on the couplers. The Barber trucks will get fitted with Ozark leaf springs and the "roller bearings" carved off and replaced with plain bearing lube doors 









Still, not too awful bad for maybe 2 hours total of farting around on a snowy day.


----------



## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

It also helps explain why the mail clerks would sleep in the RPO rather than heading to a nice comfortable coach seat! I'm pretty sure that the rule was in effect during the entire duration of mail service on the railroads. 

Here's some good pics of other RPOs: 

http://www.spec2000.net/rr_site_pages/rr_ngdrg1.htm


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Not 'always', Mail cars prior to 1900? could have both platforms and end doors, or just platforms. I know that the PO passed a bunch of rules in 1912 and more in 1920 trying to 'encourage' the RRs to change over to all steel mail cars, but I don't know the specifics of those other than the increased crash strength
UP#1 was blind










this 1870 one wasn't










1880 hard to tell












But then, even some heavyweights weren't 'blind', so?????












So what is "right"?


Iz y'all as cornfuzled as I am?




I'll blank the end off tonight since it probably should be, but I don't have enough plastic rail to do the reinforcing on both ends.... and I'm loathe to cut up perfectly good brass rail just for that.


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Blind end.... I think the Grande painted them black? Might do that just to help hide the coffee stirrers 









Side view, it needs handrails, steps, brake wheels, the inverted v-shaped gutters above the doors, and the smokejack yet, plus decals and weathering.


----------



## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

It's hard to tell on that Heavyweight, some of them had a blind end with a vestibule in place. They just had a blank end. Others just had the door permanently disabled or locked. 

Don't forget the mail slot! 

http://www.csrmf.org/visitor-inform...-car-no-42 

Check out the photo of the armed mail clerk:

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirrpho...ervice.htm

BTW, this is kind of interesting: 

http://sh1.webring.com/people/bk/king5021/Railroad/ShortStories1.html#RailQuiz1942 

Robert


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Since, according to the rules, begging is allowed. I find myself in need of the following items: 
1. about 3" x 4" piece of that plastic 'grating' with the square holes, like they used to use for fluorescent light covers in suspended ceilings... to make a wall of pigeon holes 
2. some undyed linen type fabric to make about half a dozen mail sacks 
3. lettering - specifically "US Mail Railway Post Office", Normally I would just have Stan print them, but it would put me way over budget, so??? 

Ain't it great when you suddenly realize you need really weird stuff?


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Some progress to show: I decided to summat try to work from this photo for adding details. Even though it's not a model of a D&RGW car. Since it was for use by the US government a lot of things would be more or less 'standard' on RPOs throughout the country. 









First I added vents in place of about half the clerestory lights, handrails and steps. the green clerestory glass is Bachmann. I worried about them being too dark on the black plastic, so I put silver paint behind them... I shouldn't have bothered, now they nearly glow under fluorescent lights or flash. I'll have to wash them with grime or something. 









Added the rain gutters and the bar across the mail door. The plastic sprue pieces I used for those are just too fat. They'll get replaced as soon as I find a bit of wire. Since decals for "U. S. MAIL RAILWAY POST OFFICE" would put me over budget, it's being presented as a MoW tool car recycled from an RPO after the end of mail service. The .030" bars on the windows I fully expect to go AWOL the first time the car is run. 









Next up is the undercarriage. Backwards of what most folks would do, but I had been debating on how to do it. I finally decided that it would be an older wood car rebuilt on a steel frame as an attempt to comply with the 1912 law without going to the expense of buying a steel car.... on that note, if you look at the Grande car, you'll see it has sheetmetal panels about a foot tall along the bottom edge - possibly because the body started to rot out. I'll probably add that feature as well, once I figure an easy way. I'm thinking aluminum furnace tape might do it?


----------



## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm impressed! NICE looking car, and the premise is solid. You could heat and "stretch" the sprue to make it thinner, the way we used to make antennas for model airplanes. 

Robert


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

This post is for those who have wondered about my (admittedly) odd choice to use Barber trucks. And even stranger refusal of your kind offers to send me 'proper' passenger ones. I submit the following rationale (excuses?) for my eccentric behavior. 
1. In the spirit of the challenge -- They were here. 

2. They are entirely the wrong era for anything else on the AV. 

3. Due to the short car length, the longer passenger trucks would have interfered even more with my plans for passenger type brakes. 









4. I had a vague idea of how to alter them to look more like passenger trucks. In that vein the Barbers were visited tonight by the Commonwealth fairy, and a strange transmongrelfication began to take place. 









Okay, they look funny at the moment -- Try to reserve judgment until they've been sanded, more details added, and painted.


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Barberwealth trucks? 









They look OK from a short distance - yes, I moved the fishbelly sills in towards the middle


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Well the RPO turned tool car finis! -- or at least as much as it's going to get... 





































To reproduce that chalky old paint look I wanted, I took the Pullman green color and added an equal part of light grey, then a drop of dish liquid and diluted it with regular tap water. Then I added a bit MORE grey and water to do the roof. Once it was all dry, I "buffed", for lack of a better term, the car sides with a dry paper towel to bring out some of the under colors... and last was some "licorice" craft paint and a thin brush to do the fresh(er) "tar" on the roof seams




Material List: 
1- Bachmann baggage car body - had 
1- B'mann baggage car floor - had 
4- B'mann " " doors - had 
3- B'mann " " dividers - had 
1- B'mann passenger car stove - had 
1- Kalamazoo coach roof - had 
1- strip of B'mann clerestory lights - had 
1- Lionel smokejack - had 
10- LGB grab irons - $9 
2- ? Barber freight trucks - had 
4- ? metal wheelsets - traded for 
2- LGB passenger car brake detail - had 
Coffee Stirrers - free from gas station 
1/4" x 1/4" stripwood - 39c 
1/4" x 3/8" stripwood - had 
1/16" x 1" stripwood - had 

total for this piece: $9.39


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

I had a "Eureka!" moment with the doors. They open inward, and didn't have to work.... soooooo 









And finished.... I figured that by 1960 milk service would have ended at least a decade earlier. - and cars used for storage usually don't get washed very often. 









Now all I need is a flat with low sides for a dandy work train! --- AND, I think I have all the parts for it....


----------



## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

Mik said:


> Now all I need is a flat with low sides for a dandy work train! --- AND, I think I have all the parts....
> 
> Well.... As usual, I was wrong... I didn't have all the parts. Just this much of it


----------

