Southern All-Door boxcar - O scale brass scratchbuild

[DanielB]

Howdy y'all,

 

Some of you may remember my attempt to build an N scale Southern Railway All-door boxcar, a 1961 version with roll-up doors.

 

Since my move to O scale, I've decided to make a new version.

 

After building a few Intermountain boxcar kits and experiencing issues with their running due to their light weight, I decided to eliminate that issue from the start by building the car from 0.5mm brass sheet.

 

I'm using a Quality Craft Models Thrall All-door car kit - or more specifically the plans included within - to get the dimensions in scale, but I'm also using reference photographs of the Southern cars to ensure the unique aspects of the design are captured correctly.

 

Link to the prototype car:

http://www.garlic.com/~tomd/railforums/alldoorbox1.jpg

 

And my progress so far. I'm currently waiting on some square brass tube to arrive to get the basic frame assembled.

 

[mikjd]

Those Quality Craft kits are very useful for the scale drawings included, even if you don't fancy building a wooden bodied steel boxcar!    Apart from the Thrall cars I've also got some of the B&O's unique 'Canstock' cars and the Railbox 50'ish cars.

 

As for weight, I use wooden offcuts for boxcars, if you want open doors then you can disguise the block using an overlay.

[DanielB]

This evening I've been doing some noodle scratching on figuring out how to... a) build the support posts for the roller doors, b) allow them to hinge outwards and c) secure them at the top of the car, and d) allow them to slide from one end of the car to the other - all of which are per the prototype Pullman Standard built cars.

 

Hopefully this'll make some sort of sense!