Hi Martin,
Thanks for sharing this with us. I think you've done an awesome job on these, especially for your first attempt. I love the old Maxi cars too and I wanted some so bad, I decided to cut into an MTH premier twinstack set. Once I cut into the first set and saw that it's alot easier than I expected, I found another set to make a different road name.
I wanted to do the blue Maersk scheme first, then DTTX, BNSF like yours and the ex-Maersk cars when they went to the Santa Fe. I was lucky to find two five car sets, because the MTH sets are very hard to find now. I haven't tried to cut into an Atlas set yet, but I know it will require a little more time and effort with them being diecast bulkheads, but I'll get around too it.
Here's a few pics of one of the cars with the side panels cut to the proper height on both ends. Still needs a little sanding and fine tuning, but I'm pleased with how it looks now.
Attached to another end car that still has a rough side panel cut with a pair of rail nippers. The cross member needs to be modified and the side panels cut to match the already finished car on the right. sorry for the blurry pic.
Coupled to a Skillfingers stand alone car made out of styrene. I purchased the Skillfingers car to use as an example for building my own Thrall cars from styrene.
Coupled to an K-line spine car set. I'm trying to do more intermodal also.
I was hoping some manufacturer would do a set of these too, or the thrall all 40 foot cars or the 40 foot end cars with the 45 foot intermediate cars. Maxi IV's, 53and 57 foot spines wouldn't hurt either.
I certainly like what you're doing and I think I can safely say that you'll get better as you continue to build these, again, especially with this being your first attempt. Thanks for posting!
Travis
