An uncommonly seen model by Nason is their gondola. Introduced in 1940, it took me a while to find even one of these. Then, in recent months, a windfall; I now have four!

My original PRR model is seen here with a new companion, a recent eBay find. Both were a bit beat up, and the new model was missing a couple things. For these I did a little restoration work on, as I found a paint that closely matched: Polyscale Oxide Red, which has carried over into the Testors line of Model Master paint as Oxide Red Flat. I have both, they are very close to the same thing, I’d rate it about a 95% match which is pretty good. For these models I used the Poly Scale paint, and used it to touch up anything that stuck out as raw unpainted material. The newer car (in the back) also got Scale-Craft end beams and vintage Kadee No. 4 couplers.

I had also obtained an example of the B&O version. This one came out well, flat black paint is easy to match and I like how the Selley cast ribs cover the printed rib lines, which was a mistake on the part of Nason really. Now I have a second model, which is seen in this photo as a project almost done. All I need to do now is paint it with a very steady hand. The original builder had left the car 85% done and unpainted. The biggest chore not done was putting the nails/pins on the top of the ribs. I was able to find matching nails and a new frame for the model.

The last photo is of the underside of the unpainted B&O model and an impostor! I had this Picard body sitting around and got inspired that it could be made into a car that would look similar to but better than the Nason model. I sealed the body well and followed up with a combination of Nason, Eastern, and Selley parts. It is ready for painting, a nice variation on the gondola theme.