A boxcar

Here we are then everyone. You will remember how I wrote before I went on holiday about the ease of constructing a boxcar. Well its time for some photographic proof...

Its about 14mm long 3mm wide and 4mm high and is meant to represent an excess height boxcar. Of course you won't know its an excess height car unless you see it against a regular height car...

Still these are very easy to make, the toughest part being the filing out of the grooves of some embossed styrene to make the distinctive ends.

It looks a bit crude but its the first car I made and you're looking at it several times actual size.

But wait there's more to come.

More progress I can't photograph (boxcar part 2)

I have a grand total of 4 boxcars on the go now. They really are simplicity itself to put together. I cut these "bodies" to length from a section of styrene strip in a NWSL chopper, made the ends from the grooved sheet with the grooves filed out, cut them to size and glued them to the "bodies".

These simple techniques produced something that really was starting to look like a boxcar so I took the plunge and added doors.

Yes, doors.

Well when I say doors it's more of a piece of .25mm styrene cut into 3.5mm squares and placed where the door would be. But in 1:1,000 scale it looks like a door.

I'll try and post a picture before I head away to Yosemite for a long weekend over the labour day weekend.

It's all rather crazy really (box car part one)

You'll have to believe me on this one. Some of this stuff is really difficult to photograph, so if I say I've done this take my word for it for the moment, OK?

What would you think would be the easiest thing to build in 1:1,000 scale?

A boxcar perhaps?

Thats pretty much what I thought too. So it seemed a pretty good idea to have a go at building a few. Because if I'm going to build a nano freight train, I'm going to need a few. A little bit of research on the internet garnered me a set of drawings and dimensions for a Gunderson excess height car. Excess height cars. I like them. So a great project for a first boxcar model.

A boxcar then. Sections of 3.2 x 4mm styrene strip cut to length.

BUT. (there always has to be a "but" doesn't there) take a look at these railbox pictures notice how distinctive the end is this is typical of all modern boxcar ends. Strips of evergreen are plain ended, so how to re-create it? I remembered something I'd done in T scale with the worlds first T scale freight car the ribbing on the sides was created by finding a sheet of styrene of whatever pattern cut to gondola height size and length and topped off with a thin strip of styrene. It might not be "to scale" but it looks the part. So a similar idea was in order for the ends of the boxcar. I found the narrowest V groove sheeting I had and then widened out the grooves to give the right sort of effect. (You will now understand why photography of this is difficult...)

Surprisingly this was not a difficult task and enough sheet for several boxcars was created in a matter of minutes. As I write this the ends are glued to sides ready to be trimmed when the glue has set firmly. I'm quietly confident that my 1:1,000 scale boxcars will look quite good when finished.