What got me started on this project was I updated a group of Scale-Craft tank cars with K type brake cylinders, using my own soft metal reproduction castings of Eastern OO parts. But K brakes were banned from interchange service in 1953, so there was a need/desire to rework several cars with the more modern AB brakes – especially as the brakes are so visible on these models.

I have used HO AB brake parts many times, but they are of course underscale. This is where Jeff’s OO came to the rescue, on Shapeways. Very recently he added 10 pack of AB brake parts scaled up for OO (seen in this recent article), and I wanted to use them for this upgrade.

As mentioned in part I, I used the arrangement of tanks and valves seen on a Union Pacific tank car built by Jimi Trout. The advantage was I could use the post on the air tank to go in the mounting pad for the original Scale-Craft brake details (if you can call them “details”). The other parts were cut off flush from his sprue material and glued on with super glue.

I painted them with Tamiya paint after applying them to the car, and the finished results are below. The cars with the AB brake sets have a different look than the cars I did with K type brakes, and with these positive results I have a few more cars I will be working toward upgrading in the coming months.

Return to part I