One car not seen often is the Eastern OO gondola car, first produced in 1948. This is the best of the steel prototype gondolas produced in American OO in conventional materials, the Schorr brass import car being the one that was actually the best of the type.

This particular car was among the items I won from the Morlok auction was a in lot that included two partially built up Eastern OO gondola cars and a third, similar car partially built up on a Picard body. I was able to finish up the first of these recently and have a second nearly finished, also seen in the photos.

I have sides for several options on these and the two that I was most interested to build up were the Rock Island and T&P versions of this car. I elected to build the T&P car first as I had another project that also needed the same flat black paint. The sides and the rest of the car match pretty well and I love how there is no additional decal work required.

There is not too much to note on the construction except to say that I trimmed the sides carefully with a new X-Acto knife and steel straight edge and touched up the edges with flat black paint. For glue I used Elmers carpenters glue as it was handy. The sides were clamped on using pieces of floor stock covered with plastic wrap to keep pressure even. This second photo shows the Rock Island car ready for painting and the sides that will soon grace this car as well.

UPDATE: The final photo is of the completed Rock Island car. It was brush painted (prior to applying the sides) with Floquil Tuscan to best match the sides.