Fire Car Kitbash

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Hi All, Hope you are all have a great holiday season!

Instead if the usual fixit post I thought I would share a kitbash of a fire car I made for the logging RR on one one of my layouts from days gone by. I really liked the Bachmann large scale log cars and so I bought five of them for my fictitious Cuivre River Lumber Company RR which connected to my fictitious Missouri Western RY.  The Cuivre River is an actual river near our family farm in Missouri. It was named by the French settlers back in the day.   

The cars were great but additional equipment was necessary and a fire car was one of them on my want list.  Looking at the Bachmann LS Tank Car, I decided I could make my own fire car from various parts. I decided my fire car should be a shorty car so I started by shortening a Bachmann Flat car by slicing out a section with a razor saw and gluing the two end pieces together.  I then took a tank car tank and really shortened  it so a work platform could be created on one end of the car.  I used stripwood and plastic siding to make the work platform on top of the car and the wood toolbox/ pump house on the end platform of the car.  I painted the deck of the faltcar to simulate wood along with the other wooden parts. I cut up some decals I had in my used decal pile. I used plastic tubing for the piping and wire painted black for hoses and added all the details along with Rex the fire dog and it was good to go.  This was not meant to be a contest model, but good enough to look good from 6 feet away


https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dnqmwqlpf13xlevqw9cum/Fire-car-5-edited.jpg?
rlkey=hpdmfr2r1dy75jr4kxmtu70pn&st=wby4r2v2&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6oz961h7b47sdyrtvr4m6/fire-car-2.jpg?rlkey=0avm3rhopuh7mvovsjk8c006b&st=yc5eus6l&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3tsza6j43tziwezyl0ljf/fire-car-3-edited.jpg?rlkey=oe6ml25mbp5heo4rlzekk4pmu&st=lj5fzzmc&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wq67695i6fzukdxly01di/Fire-car-1.jpg?rlkey=hr7kk38u9y42tvzwvcc2p1vc6&st=koyb0r9h&dl=0

I was pretty happy about how it turned out, and then realized I needed a logging caboose.  Well I was ever a fan of bobber cabooses, and it had to be short.  So an eight wheel shorty standard caboose with a cupola was the new objective.   Hummm.  If there is any interest I will do a post on how I kitbashed my shorty caboose using Bachmann LS products. 

Best wishses to all!

Loco Bill

[A Trainman]

Good job Bill.

Adam