Renewing Your Acquaintance. - A Covid Project - Updating USRA Boxcars.

Well,  I have been remiss in not posting for some time. That does not mean I have not been working, just not taking time to post. For that , I apologize.

 I have had a couple of Pac Limited USRA Outside braced boxcars for some time. I wanted to make them match PRR X-26's in the 1950's. 

Many of these cars had corrugated doors by this time

And, while my models had K brake systems, they had been converted to AB systems by the late 40' so I had to change that. 

They also had added grab irons on the car side as a safety upgrade in the '30's so that had to be added as well. Fortunately, Precision had cast grabs that matched what the Koreans used.

Some of the corrugated doors had been made up from the 4 foot doors on X-28's when they we converted to single door cars from door and a half automobile cars.  You can see the seam line on the door. So, we had to have one car like that. 

The additional grab on the side.

So, the first thing I did was to attack the brake system. I removed the K cylinder and saved the piston rod connecting tot he forward lever and chain. The top view shows the K and AB systems.

I made brass mounts for the AB components after sizing up the system and lining everything up. The mounts were high enough so the piping went over the center sill. You can see how prominent the reservoir was in the prototype photo. I used the different views in the photos to set the locations of the components.  The models are so well done that the conversion easily matched what the PRR did.

Here we have both cars with their new systems in place.

A closer look at the brake system.  It took a little time.

Now for the corrugated doors. The car was lower than the doors I had but the Intermountain 1937 AAR door was about one rib too high. So, using a jig, I cut the rib out of the bottom of the door which removed also most of the cast in radius bar for the door rollers. It also aligned the latch with the pawl on the car side. The rib count also matched. 

This shows the car with the new door versus the car as it came with the wood door. I had to unsolder the door stops to get the cast wood door off the car. That was a bit bothersome as they were soldered from inside! Then I had to solder them back without losing the small part. 

Here is a completed car with a fully detailed door and the new grab added. The door had two handles in the mid line of the door. I also added castings for the roller mechanisms at teh bottom of the door to match the PRR practice. These were Chooch castings. They nicely covered the mounts on the plastic door. 

Here are the two cars now done and ready for paint. If you look closely, you can see the scribed lines I added to the car with the salvaged door. Ready for the paint shop.