Bachmann open end combine upgrade

[Trainman203]

Shortlines often ran limited passenger service with a combine car on the end of a freight. Some short lines used open end combines right up into the 1960's.

Bachmann's open end combine is a good candidate for such service ...... Although mine is actually an old AHM one , now being offered by the Bach Man, that someone gave me in poor condition.  Being the type that gives a dog a home, I took it to fix up.

It had a well detailed body, but since it is a train set car, the plastic handrails and truss rods were made oversized to be durable.  I replaced the truss rods with old guitar string wire, keeping the queen posts, and made new end handrails from the same wire. I was going to replace the molded on end handrails but decided to leave them alone.  I put Intermountain wheelsets in the trucks which let them sit lower and lose the high-water-pants look that the stock wheels gave.

I painted the body Pullman green and the rest of the car dark grey, and put it in service on my mixed train, the Midland Limited, high speed service at 20 mph behind a decapod.  I still will put shades in the windows and a smoke jack.

Here is the original car:

http://shop.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=5832

And here is the Midland Limited:

[Trainman203]

I have bought an MDC palace car combine on eBay.  It's at my friend's point shop.  He's got an air brush.  I am going to leave it a truss rod car.

[electrical whiz kid]

Wayne;
While stationed TDY in SEA in 67, I had received an issue of MR and in it was one very interesting letter to Linn Westcott about "that plastic Pullman".  Looking at your model I am reminded of that article, and the chuckle I got out if it back then.  It seems that the "purists" in the hobby were putting up a king-sized squawk about the 'abomination' of plastic  in what 'should have been' a wood kit...
Rich C.

[electrical whiz kid]

Wayne;
Yep; the wood scribes are deep in scribed siding; but  something I stumbled upon quite recently (yes, I still do the wood thing sometimes .  I have some LaBelle, and old Ambroid kits; in fact, I just got around to building those Great Northern express reefers-for some reason, they always really grabbed me.  And you know what-they came out GREAT!  I think what has enhanced that is the availability of top quality car parts, and good trucks,  as well as smaller couplers than the #5s.  I guess there is always going to be a certain "romance" to them for me.)...
But I digress...  What I found was that using a good squared piece of milled hard material-like aluminum tightly wrapped with about 400-grit, you sand down the wood so that if you were to look at the "boards" via the end, they would actually look flat; this gives it a really finished look; now a coat of sanding sealer (shellac would do), and sand it down with the same paper, and this stuff really starts looking good.  I like shellac as a sanding sealer like  bulls eye.

Rich C. 

[Trainman203]

Eastbound Midland Limited with upgraded Bachmann Combine leaving Thunder Grove.  Westbound Midland Limited stopped at Hattie's Hotel (station in Thunder Grove).

[rogertra]

Nice work on the passenger cars guys.

I need a combine for my mixed, trains 84/85 between Farnham and St. Hyacinthe and you've given me some good ideas.

Cheers

Roger T.

[J3a-614]

Wooden cars often ran even later; there is at least one photograph of a train being switched at Jersey City on the Erie, in th1940s, with a truss rodded baggage car.

Both Western Maryland and the Virginian still had wooden baggage cars with steel frames in service when their passenger services ended in the 1950s.

Some steel frame converstions still had truss rods, very often only two instead of the four common to wooden frames.

Truss rodded, or at least wooden, cars lasted a long time in Canada.  In fact, there was a horrific accident--afraid I don't know the location right off--which involved a head-on collision between a train standing in a station and an excursion train made up of wooden cars trailed by two steel heavyweights.  Cause of the collision was apparently an engineer confused by lighting conditions; he was running into a setting sun, and apparently missed a block occupancy signal and mistook a green train order signal for his permission to run at speed.

This accident, which occured in 1947, was a terrible replay of a wreck from the 19th century.  All the wooden cars telescoped between the heavy tender ahead of them and the two steel cars behind them.  The wooden cars also were still lighted by gas, and the tanks ruptured and set the wreckage on fire.  The fire even spread to a grain elevator that was full of grain, and that went up like a torch. 

There were a lot of fatalities in that wreck.

All that was left of the cars were their trucks, jammed together like disconnect log trucks.

[Bill Baker]

You guys are truly artists and a blessing to our hobby.  I wish I had one tenth the talent you all have.  Keep up the good work and post those pictures.

Bill