I try to work on things in groups and I was working on a group of three boxcars that expanded to five as the project went on.

First up is this car which turned out really well. The body is I think not commercial, actually, and the car itself was a basket case. I stripped it down, added Famoco ends and doors (the latter being reproductions by Temple Nieter that are a bit under sized), Eastern ladders, a Nason frame and trucks, and Nason Erie sides.

Part of what got me going on the entire project was that I found that Floquil ATSF Mineral Brown was a pretty close match for the sides. That one thing, matching paint, is what makes these cars. I brush painted them for control, in several coats.

Moving on, there are two more pair of cars. The first pair are SP cars, the vintage one in front being a actual Nason car that had been beautifully built up, it has a lot of extra details such as brake lines under the car, but it had fallen on hard times. After gluing the roof back on (!) I touched it up quite a bit and replaced a missing coupler. The car I made was the completion of one of a group of boxcars started long ago (the “boxcar project”) and I have slowly been working them over. Not visible in the photos, I used Nason frames and trucks on all the cars seen that I built up, along with vintage Kadee No. 4 couplers.

The last pair of cars also have NP sides. The vintage model in the rear is actually a Page car (the cheaper, under-brand Nason briefly promoted) with a solid block body. The car I completed is another of the same bodies used for my SP car. That builder had put Selley ends on the cars and had done roof ribs but let them go there, never completed them. I had to rework the roofs but with the added details and closely matching paint they came out well.

Note also I did not duplicate any car numbers. I still have a couple more of the “boxcar project” bodies, maybe this summer they too will emerge with Nason sides, before I run out of the Floquil paint….