Vintage scratchbuilt, Winther

A MOW Combine by Winther

Today we have from the layout of OO pioneer Howard Winther this MOW (maintenance of way) car lettered for his home road.

 

The car itself looks to be totally scratchbuilt. The wheelsets might be commercial but I believe the trucks are homemade (I know of no obvious commercial match, and he clearly did make the trucks on other cars in this series) and it has his personal style of couplers as well. There are no obvious commercial parts to be sure. 

The paint job is not as sharp as on other models of his we have seen in this series. My guess is that it may actually be a car that was painted differently originally and then painted over into its present paint scheme. Note there is for example a bit of paint that overran onto the windows. This, in a way, is very typical of MOW cars as they would be cars that are older and downgraded from regular service, they would have had many layers of paint by the time they reached the end of their service life.

 

But also note again the neat hand lettering. The design of the car is very 19th century (note especially the roof) and would be of a type that could be seen in work train service in the 1930s or 40s, the era that he would have built this car. Thanks again to the Winther family for sharing these photos.