{"id":4160,"date":"2025-07-08T15:30:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/?p=4160"},"modified":"2026-02-24T16:39:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T23:39:39","slug":"three-freight-cars-from-the-belline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/?p=4160","title":{"rendered":"Three freight cars from the Belline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Not too long ago I picked up these three vintage models, all decorated (very simply) as Belline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who was the builder? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I have no idea. I’d like to imagine it was someone named Bell, but, writing this article I did a quick search. The word Belline relates to a set of 53 oracle cards that was published in 1961. I’m hoping just a coincidence? I’m thinking these cars were built before 1961, but you never know. For sure the road name does not have much of a railroad ring to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPDATE: <\/em><\/strong>I found a note in my list of updates to my book that the Belline was the personal road of an individual named Larry Bell. Whew!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utility flat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is probably the most interesting car of the group, it is a rarely seen Graceline or Transportation Models utility flat. The car looks like it might be heavy but it is not, the load is made of paper straws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This model and the other two don’t have car numbers or small lettering of any sort. A choice of the builder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gondolas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are also two gondolas. This first one was built up nicely using the Picard gondola body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This second one is based on the Ulrich HO “war emergency” gondola. This has been done a number of times in OO, this article showcasing a few more examples<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The model is semi-scale really, certainly under scale for OO. I replaced the trucks with the Tyco based trucks I use on my “underscale fleet” of cars<\/a>. Although I may switch it back to Scale-Craft trucks, as I’m not very likely to operate this model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonus: Another Ulrich based model<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With those cars was also this one by the same builder, but thankfully not lettered Belline. I touched up the paint and worked up from an alphabet set and scraps ATSF decals that are probably 85% correct. It is lightly weathered as well. Certainly much more plausible visually than the Belline cars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This car will see layout service for sure with the under scale models. I’ve got another under scale car ready to paint; when it is rolling I’ll likely switch the layout over to those models, which operate really nicely. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not too long ago I picked up these three vintage models, all decorated (very simply) as Belline. Who was the builder? I have no idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,21,15,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-graceline","category-ho-conversions","category-picard","category-transportation-models"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/americanootoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Belline-gon.jpg?fit=1544%2C838&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4160"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4329,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4160\/revisions\/4329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}