McKeen Car in O Scale

What a delightful project!

As I live near the route of the Woodstock and Sycamore Traction Company, I have a copy of this book - "The Woodstock and Sycamore Traction Company", by Wm. E. Robertson, 1985 and recommend it as quite a labor of love, covering in depth the short history of a truly benighted interurban that ran in the early part of the last century between several small rural farm towns with two (or was it three) McKeen cars.

The Woodstock and Sycamore looks like one of those, "Everybody else is doing it, why can't we?"  roads to nowhere (one once ran behind my old house; roadbed is now a power line.).  The W&S never got to traction.  Ken Harpin just mailed me in a corrected shell for the McKeen.  THANKS!  I have already decided what I will do with the incorrect one...using one of those birney chassis from the shop in Montoursville, if l still have one, will add a bulldog Mack front and have a Mack McKeen rail bus.

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@colorado hirailer: That's a neat idea with the McKeen bus, I'm happy to hear you can get some use out of the extra part. There's a photo of an actual McKeen-bodied depot hack on Page 4 of this article if you want some ideas: http://utahrails.net/pdf/Keilty_McKeen.pdf

The big problem with roof details is that every McKeen I've ever seen has different vents so you have to decorate to your prototypical preference! If the vents you need are hard to find, I could make up some parts for you. I'm imagining offering a McKeen "Accessory Kit" with a couple dozen vents in the $20 neighborhood.

I looked around at some of the McKeen photos I have bookmarked and tried to categorize what I saw. It appears that there's one type of vent that's kind of a dome with a slot underneath and another that's kind of a right-angled duct. I spun up some simple 3D models for you to check out. These are about 1/4" wide and 3/8" tall with the peg.

After 3 weeks of nonstop printing I have filled out and shipped 5 of the initial 7 orders for McKeen cars and trailers. The remaining two orders (for @RoyBoy and @prrhorseshoecurve) are about 85% and 35% done respectively. I'm hoping to ship the remaining McKeens by the end of next week and then start taking reservations for new kit designs sometime in March.

@Trainguy Ken posted:

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I think I have both types of these vents and some types yet in my traction parts bins.  White metal castings - some might be old Walthers so Scale City Design may stock them now.

Interesting article - trolley overhead pole powered McKeen car - that I had not seen before!  Does open possibilities as I have poles and trucks that I can convert for that purpose.

I finished the hardest task ..getting McKeen truck frames to fit Beep trucks (took some creative engineering!).  Next major task will be extending Beep frame/chassis to accept assembled 70' body.  So first l next need to assemble body.  What can be used to fill the body's printing swirls before sanding...auto body filler, or?

@colorado hirailer posted:

I finished the hardest task ..getting McKeen truck frames to fit Beep trucks (took some creative engineering!).  Next major task will be extending Beep frame/chassis to accept assembled 70' body.  So first l next need to assemble body.  What can be used to fill the body's printing swirls before sanding...auto body filler, or?

Filling in some widows and moving the freight doors using something the call green stuff . I comes in a roll Its a flat Blue and yellow, it mixes to a med green and I put it in place, I tackle the roof Sat.

@Dave Koehler posted:

...something they call green stuff . I comes in a roll Its a flat Blue and yellow, it mixes to a med green...

Very popular here in Michigan for lots of modelers!

You see, University of Michigan's colors are Maize (Yellow) and Blue.  Michigan State's are Green and White.

Spartans enjoy this part of modeling...kneading (with passion!) the blue/yellow and having it turn green.

Sort of like last year's football game in East Lansing.

Sooooo satisfying.

I'm thinking of something like a thicker sanding sealer that can be brushed on and is compatible with this plastic. Need to assemble body before modifying chassis.  I do plan to add one door to driver's side. Most of the photos, and that McKeen provided paper weight show a flat roof vent different from the standing ones pictured above   I will root through Walther's passenger car kits to see if they have anything similar.  Style of these vents and location seems to follow no order.

Okay! I borrowed a brass Precision Scale McKeen, an O scale #22 .V&T.  (Yes, l had to give it back), and it isn't for sale, but does it have the detail!!  Here are some photo,  with emphasis on the roof

@Dave Koehler posted:

Filling in some widows ...........

Living dangerously!!!

i am making an acrylic base to fit the wheels and motor. I will likely add the interior seating and engineer cab.

@mwb posted:

Living dangerously!!!

I try!

using this to create the interior. note the section for children, where they can color!

This might be common knowledge, but I just saw the McKeen Motor Car catalogued by MTH, 2011 Vol II. In 4 flavors - Virginia & Truckee, PRR, UP, and the old Norfolk Southern Railway. Too bad they were cancelled.

Hopefully I can post my first pic's on  tue. still sanding and filling!

Have been raiding hardware stores for miles around to find right O-rings to rim the round windows.  They exist, but few are in stock.  Hope most of my body sanding is done, as well as sawing on Beep frame, which has to be extended. Wiring will have to be spliced and extended, too.

Some progress?? made in assembling this McKeen kit, with surgery required on body and Beep chassis.  Here are a couple of photos, with more work required.

Not using 0-rings for the porthole windows as I modeled the portholes.

This will be printed in three pieces until I own a larger printer.

Again, instead of O-rings you could ask Dave to print the porthole frames that can be slipped into the openings.. It's a simple print, I can't do that for you because i don't have Dave's model.

Adding rivets and metal folds to the roof. I will use the metal fold edges to conceal the printed pieces.

I'm finally starting to assemble my own 70-ft McKeen car this weekend. I started with a motley assortment of repaired and extra parts. I had a perfect set of prototype parts but whenever one of my customer's sets had a misprint I would swap in one of mine. I was able to make up a full set just from repairing some "factory seconds".

After a little filing down I brought the parts in the garage and sprayed them all with 2 full coats of Rustoleum 2x. I'm going with a red and gold Cuyamaca scheme since that's what I decorated my McKeen mail trailer for last year.

Here's the result of the painting process. Once the paint is fully set I will apply some homemade decals to finish it up. A good coat of Rustoleum Matte Clear should cut down the glossiness and smooth the surface for the final look.

Now that I'm caught up on orders I'm finally working on new projects. I want to make a 55ft McKeen to accompany the 70ft one. I have this K-Line Budd car that I picked up last month that I thought would make a suitable chassis.

The 55ft model prints in only 2 pieces with about 40 hours of total printer time. I realized immediate after printing the set (40 hours in) that I had forgotten to model the headlight. D'oh! I might experiment with putting the headlight on the roof like this UP McKeen had.

The K-Line Budd doesn't have as many usable mounting holes as the Railking Doodlebug but there's enough to do the job. I added little tabs that touch the frame on the inside to provide extra points of contact.

Here's what the 55ft design looks like right now with the headlight and driver's door where they should be.

Hope everyone's having a nice weekend!

I'm very excited to announce that my personal McKeen Car is finally finished!

While I was waiting for the paint on the body to dry I put together the electronics on the Doodlebug chassis. For this build I added TMCC and sounds with an ERR Cruise Commander board and a Gas-Electric Railsounds board. This was my first installation of an ERR sound board in one of my projects. I was able to reuse the old Protosound 1 speaker since it's the same resistance and power rating as the ERR one. The installation was pretty simple with just one LED headlight and I got the chassis running satisfactorily by itself.

My homemade decals don't photograph well but you can just about see the text on the nose of my McKeen. The whole reason why I went with Cuyamaca is because their McKeens served an area called "Narragansett". I went to college near the "original" Narragansett in Rhode Island so the thought of another one amuses me!

Last night I sprayed the body with a thin coat of Rustoleum Matte Clear and it was dry enough to handle by the morning. 3D printed trains look a lot better with glass inside so I cut up a plastic food carton and filled in the windows. This time I used HVAC foil tape to hold the strips of plastic in place. It's very sticky and grabs well onto the ABS so the windows should stay in place. I'm going to use this for all of my future builds instead of rubber cement and packing tape.

I put the McKeen together with the matching mail trailer and started walking it through the paces. Through the track switches, up the gradient and into the downtown circle on my layout!

For those of you who are curious, the 70ft McKeen does have quite a bit of overhang on O31. The Doodlebug chassis handles the curves well but like most O Scale trains, it looks better on wider radii. I'm hoping that the 55ft McKeen that's under development will have a bit less overhang.

Here's the obligatory video for you. Volume warning ahead-- that horn is piercingly loud!

Well done. Thanks for posting.