D&H Cement Boxcar build

Looking forward to seeing the underbody; chutes and relocated brake system & all that "plumbing"....

@mwb posted:

Looking forward to seeing the underbody; chutes and relocated brake system & all that "plumbing"....

No doubt it’ll be spectacular!!….My man’s got the patience of Jobe!…..

Dave, ima quote Mario here,…..I hate you!!…just kidding!!….that’s awesome work as usual!!

Pat

Extremely interesting! Having grown up on the DL&W, I saw a lot of Lackawanna cement covered hoppers through Port Morris, NJ. As heavy as powered cement was/is, I can not imagine an outside braced boxcar being able to carry very much of it. Can't wait to view the finished project.

This does look extremely interesting, glad I decided to take a better look at the topic before doing anything else. Now it is just sit and wait for the next update.

What a neat build. Thanks for sharing!

I pretty much finalized the chassis. Below is a before and after. I just used the stock components and added one piece of wire. Truth be told. Not much can be seen when on the layout. I only have 2 out of the 4 chutes. They will get glued to the center sill and floor.

I had also considered using an MTH car for this project and may when I do a brown version. Doing a gray car. I just thought it was easier to start out with one. I actually like the lower door guide on the MTH one better detail wise. Haven’t really studied the cars end to see what’s involved changing the brake gear. Here’s the chute mocked up on an MTH car. Looking at the prototype pics. . The bottom of the chute is just below the truck journal box. Alan got all the details nailed as far as rivets and whatever that plate is on the front side.

The only what the heck moment came this afternoon. Figured I’d paint and weather the Andrews trucks. I always pop the brake shoes off as I like to paint the shoe itself brown. Been doing them that way for years. The car went for a test ride weeks ago after adding Kadee’s and rolled fine. After I reassembled the trucks. It would barely roll if at all. The Atlas brake shoes are plain and smooth on the back side with a little bit of added detail you can see looking through the truck frame. These trucks are the newer style with the narrower side frames and the frames are in a bit more. Removed the shoes and it rolled fine.  Finally after a lot of studying there is a slight offset in the mount. I guess it makes a difference with fast angle wheels. I flipped them around smooth side out and problem solved.

Dave, Very nice work!

Looking great Dave!

A word of caution with the decals - the Tichy decals for the black lettering on gray car have the wrong circle herald ("The Bridge Line to New England & Canada") as the graphics were based off the white lettering on brown car. A set with the correct herald for the gray car ("Century of Anthracite Service") is offered by Highball Graphics. Unfortunately didn't find this out until after finishing my own.

~Chris

Very interesting build.

Thank You Chris !  I bought the decals from Tichy as they also offered the car as an HO kit. I’ve seen a few photos of HO builds and the heralds are either different or placed at different ends of the car. Was never sure as which one was correct. Went to Highball Graphics site and found the set you mentioned. Been looking for a prototype photo of a gray version since I started the project and there it was. Only offered in HO but they will usually scale them to O if you request it. I’ve looked a lot at their decals. But usually click on O. So I’ve never noticed them.

Highball Graphics mentioned the gray cars were built in the mid 40’s. I went to the Bridge Line Historical society and they show those rd. numbers but they are listed as a steel hopper. But the dimensions match up with a boxcar.  The Mainline Modeler article references cars built in the 30’s in the 1700 series. Nothing mentioned on conversions. I’m guessing they just pulled random cars from service and converted them.

What I’ve come up with. The Tichy kit could be built either as a standard boxcar or you could add extra parts and make a cement car. The decals offered would be correct for a 30’s build in brown. The decals offered for the gray version  were just printed with black rather than white lettering.

As far as the herald. Chris, Tichy offers another set that has that herald with the Century of Anthracite Service that I had planned to use after seeing it on an HO build.

I had planned on getting the car lettered today. Now I armed with plenty more info. than I had. I guess at this point I’m going to have to come up with a story. I’ve already bought the decals. I just won’t have the correct number for a gray car. I’m going with what I have and my car was given a change of color to match the newer build.

Have you thought about weathering it?  I seldom suggest this, but for a cement car that is not gray it kind of makes sense.

Yes I usually weather everything. I’ve watched a You Tube video on weathering a steel cement hopper. Not quite the same. Around the hatches I’ll need some white effects probably done with chalks. Mostly on the hoppers your creating rust effects down the sides which this car being wood you wouldn’t see. The prototype photos in Mainline Modeler Magazine the cars were still pretty pristine.

The build video I watched the HO build on I believe was a series called The White River Line. Many segments on building a layout but a few car builds along the way.  The modeler went really heavy on the weathering. But he built the car for his home road not the D&H.

I did find out. That later in life these cars served in sand service for locomotives. So they probably never left D&H rails. But I’m kind of stuck in the late 40’s so I’ll stick with the cement theme.

A progress report. I had 4 things that needed to be done on the conversion. The last was re routing an airline. You actually need to grind off the molded one in the diecast chassis for the chutes to fit flush. The prototype was routed around the chutes on the outside of the car. I made up some brackets out of brass stock. An eyelet is used to rout a piece of spring wire. The brackets mount to the chassis with 2mm screws. In reality they hung off the car sides on brackets. You see this detail on some modeled coal hoppers.

The body is decaled and cleared.

Wow!  It looks great, Dave!!

Wow is an understatement! …..you’re hired Dave, ….you start tomorrow….😀..looks amazing!

Pat

Just curious as to how much these cars may have roamed?  Stayed close to home or went anywhere?

I found an article by Ed Bommer on B&O cement boxcars.  Here's the link https://oscalecentral.com/samp...ement-hopper-boxcar/

I'm under the impression that these were homebuilt by the roads that ran them.

Jan

Should have some pictures tomorrow of the car complete and ready for service.

Gray, to answer your question. I really don’t know. From what I’ve read. Often times cement was carried bagged in boxcars. Thinking about it. The last thing you wanted was a torn bag and it would be handled multiple times. I figured they started hauling it this way was less prone to damage and the cement would be bagged at a distribution center.  I started watching D&H videos on You Tube hoping to try and spot one. They tended to focus more on the motive power than the consist.
  I just stumbled across across a pic. of one in Bob Nimke’s books on the Rutland that I loosely model. The D&H had a few connections with the Rutland. It seems at a diamond at Rouse’s Point in N.Y. which is near the Canadian border. A D&H steamer hit a Rutland train. The main casualty on the Rutland train is a D&H cement boxcar. I can’t make out the rd. number. You can make out Cement Car on the door, the air line routed on the outside of the car is there, and you can make out the hatches. The car is painted in the brown scheme and the photo is dated 1941. What makes me happy is that the car was on a Rutland train.

Finished up for now. After viewing the picture that Chris led me to. The trucks need to be painted gray. It will also give the car a little more pop looks wise. I had already painted and weathered these with grimy black.  I’ll just dig up another pair to do in gray. I gave it  an ever so light dusting of dirt. I’m not sure how yet I’m going to weather around the hatches with spilled cement. I’ll experiment on some scrap pieces.
I’m not quite  prototypically correct. The cars built in the 30’s were brown and were in the 1700 series. They converted about 30 cars. I’m guessing by the decal set their original numbers remained. In the 40’s they built another batch. These were gray and numbered in the 1600’s. The one picture I found of the gray prototype was on Highball Graphics site. The dump chutes aren’t the same as the earlier cars. I wanted a gray car seeing my whole fleet is boxcar brown or red.  So I kind of took some liberties and went with the 30’s version with a new paint job. I’m sure going to gray hid much of the white that would be seen on a brown car from spills. The one in service picture I found of a brown version. You could see a bit of white on the sides but the car was still in good shape cosmetically.

A big Thank You to AlanRail for doing the printed parts for me. It wouldn’t have happened without his help. There was really not much hands on modeling work in the project as far as cutting and splicing.  Other than modifying the brake gear. Most everything was just added to what was there. Most of the work involved was the research to get it close to right as far as details.

The car looks great Dave. A nice addition to the fleet.

Bob

Outstanding work, Dave!  Thanks for sharing it with us.

Phenomenal.

Would the trucks actually be painted gray or would they be covered with cement dust?

Jan

Jan, I’ve only come across the one photo on Highball Graphics decal site. It’s on page 2 for D&H cars. It’s a black and white photo and the car looks fairly new. The trucks seem to match the body color and just look to uniformed in color to be dust.
There’s a few HO models with pictures on the internet. They usually seem to get the details right.  But they are a mix of decals used and the trucks themselves. I’ve only seen them with Andrews trucks but some shown have Bettendorfs. I know many roads paint there trucks to match the car when new. Clearly the prototype photos in Mainline Modeler of the brown version. The trucks are darker than the body. So I’m guessing they are black.