I finally got to my final tank car project from the summer, fixing a few issues with this modern tank car built mostly from brass by Bill Johann.

From the side you can tell it is not a HO conversion, this is a large model of a prototype nearly 60’ long. Where it was worse for the wear over the years was the railing around the dome. I got it nearly back to the original configuration; when it came to me it was pretty much flattened out.

The other thing I did was very lightly fill in just a few chips. I was going to try to do this on the Trout built tank cars in the recent post, but I think the cure will look worse than the problem so I will leave those alone. In this case though, eliminating a few splotches of raw brass was the right call.

From the bottom you can see Johann worked over this model several times. I think one of the most interesting details are the trucks. He modified Lionel trucks to be roller bearing trucks with rotating axle ends. Half of the caps are missing at this point. The wheels are I believe Athearn Diesel wheels set up like S-C wheels. Oh, and he also built up a new, insulated bolster from plastic and metal. It was no small task to accomplish, and the resulting trucks roll quite well for his effort.

With that I’m done with tank cars for a while except for having some lined up to decal. Good projects for the fall.