N Scale roots - cast resin vehicles

There was a time when very few mass produced motor vehicles were offered in N Scale and most of those were models of European prototypes.  Because of the small size, cast resin vehicle models were practical and several smaller manufacturers developed cast resin kits for the N Scale market.  I had purchased and built my share of these in the 1990's.

As time went on some great ready to run plastic and metal N Scale vehicles became available and my box of yet to be finished cast resin kits got neglected.  Every one in a while I get the itch to pull one or more of those old kits out and finish them.     Recently I finished two more kits to create some trucks I wanted for the layout.

I chose this Lineside Models cast resin kit to make a Western Pacific Maintenance of Way truck.  In the past I have had some problem with wheels coming off when just attached with adhesive so I made axles for these which should give them a bit more support.  I used the metal front wheels that came with the kit and some cast resin wheels I had for the rear.

The yellow I painted this model with was not much different than the raw casting.  The windshield and window were painted gunmetal, the tires weathered black and the hubs engine black.  The Western Pacific decals were from nscalekits.com and the license plates from Microscale.

As even in my earliest layout era this early 1960's model would have been in service for quite a few years it got a good amount of weathering.  From my details bin I found a barrel and a stack of ties and then glued together a stack of scrap code 55 rail for a load.

The second vehicle project was using the back end of a Cars N Scale fuel truck and mating with with a cab from an Athearn Ford C cab tractor.  This makes the model fit more closely to my earliest layout era plus I like the detail on the Athearn model.  That 54 Mack cab from the resin kit is great too and I'll use it somewhere, someday.

So here is the finished fuel truck that will serve the diesel distributor in the 70's - 82 era.   I am working on some other trucks that better fit different layout eras but I won't have to use the TomyTec model of an Isuzu milk truck as a stand in anymore.

First Showcase Miniatures MoW truck

I have had this kit for a few months and just recently finished it.  I have done a few GHQ white metal vehicles in the past but this is my first vehicle from Showcase Miniatures.  They do seem to offer the best variety of Maintenance of Way (Mow) vehicles in N Scale and I may add a few more over time for my different railroads and layout eras.

For my first one I got kit # 41 which is a boom truck built on an International truck frame. Each of these kits comes in a plastic box like this one.

Here are the parts that were in the package.  There are extra parts for the boom and outriggers to build in either an in use or stored position.  The smaller parts needed to be cut from a common base and very little filing was needed to clean up flash.

I often like to work on models from a reference prototype photo.  The closest photo I could find on the internet was this one.  It is not really the same configuration but still helps with how to do lights, stripes, and other details. 

I use mostly Acrylic paints these days but on metal vehicle kits I like enamels as the Acrylic seems to chip off too easily with handling.  For the white body I used the same paint that I use for locomotive hand rails.  Testors racing finish is quite durable but the brush needs to be cleaned with enamel thinner, mineral spirits won't do.  The frame and tires were done with Floquil enamels.

Once the main components of the truck were assembled and a few of the detail parts added, it was time of decals.

I used decals from circuscitydecals.com.  This set included some yellow stripes similar to those in the reference photo.

And here is the finished model after applying the decals and a spray of Dulcote.  Because this is a high rail vehicle with the extended front bumper I added some guide posts with .020 brass wire in pilot holes that appeared to be there for this purpose.

A Hi-Rail truck from an Atlas Ford F150

The starting point for this project was a white Atlas Ford F150 pickup.  Several years ago I had purchased several of these to decal as U-Haul rental trucks after making the decals for them.  I had also made cast resin truck mounted tool boxes to fit these models.

The truck's major components come apart easily enough as shown in this photo.  The front bumper removed leaves a gap that can be used for a replacement extended bumper.

An extended replacement front bumper was made from scrap styrene.  Crude rail wheels with axles were made from scraps of styrene rod and tube.  The front guide posts are .020 brass rod stock.

 A rotary beacon was modeled using styrene rod and tube scraps.   I was able to get some MoW truck sized decals from Peter at www.nscalekits.com.  They don't have them in their catalog but if you contact them they will make them for you.

The tool box was painted aluminum color and attached to the bed with E6000 adhesive and the truck re-assembled.   Here it is on one of the service roads on the layout.  I plan to do another one with "wheels down" to display as a high rail on the rails.

The signal maintainer's van

Lately I have been getting interested in MOW (Maintenance Of Way) vehicles for the layout and was looking at some photos on the Internet for some ideas.

It had not occurred to me that maintenance of way workers would use vans as well as trucks but after seeing this photo of what was described as a signals maintainers vehicle I got an idea.

Several years ago I had decorated some Lineside models cast resin kits of a Ford van to model one I was using as a work vehicle at the time.  They were just plain white so they would only need decals.

I acquired several sets of MoW vehicle decals from nscalekits.com

As this is a late 90's era Ford van, I used the UP decals for this one.  With these decals I plan to add more MoW vehicles of various types for the SP, UP, and WP railroads and matching the different eras of the layout.

Building a 1970's era SP MOW boom truck

Working on those drop bottom dump trucks got me to thinking about adding some Maintenance Of Way trucks to the layout.  Then seeing this photo of an old SP boom truck on a truck collectors website inspired me to try to create something like this in N scale.

As a starting point I used one of the Athearn C cab tractors that I had.  The cab was removed and the frame was cut into 3 pieces.  All three pieces were then glued to a .125 square tube with CA.

The back side of the cab was carved out as shown in this photo so it would fit on over the square tube.

This is what the model looked like with all of the pieces finished but before painting.  Scraps of styrene, steel wire, and aluminum tubing were all used to construct the boom, bed, and shelter.

The cab, shelter, bed, and boom were each individually air brushed before  assembly on the chassis.  The smallest SP decals I had were from the Microscale bridge set but I hope to soon have some smaller ones.

Some weathering and a few items thrown into the bed.  The boom cable is some black thread, some small copper wire rolled up and painted rust simulates a coil of cable, and some small chain piled up and held with CA holds down the end of the boom cable.

This was my first MOW vehicle project but I do plan more.