This HO model was kitbashed from a La Belle kit. Pittsburgh Railways car 3619 (opposite below) was the prototype for the author’s model. MODEL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
Kitbashing a Pittsburgh Railways interurban car
This HO scale project began with a La Belle Sacramento Northern car kit/Bob Dietrich T
he Pittsburgh Railways Compa- ny 3600-series heavy interurban cars were acquired from the
Jewett Car Company in 1910. They ran on the Washington and Charleroi in- terurban services in western Pennsyl- vania until being retired and scrapped by 1928. They were imposing, classic looking cars from the golden age of electric interurban operation. I long have wanted to build a model
of a 3600-series car. Among my un- built car kits was a La Belle Sacramen- to Northern car that measured out to be the correct size but the doors and windows were incorrect. The SN win- dows were squared off, while the PRCo. windows were arched. Forming the windows myself would be a challenge; even using brass templates it would be difficult getting them all exactly the same and properly spaced. I located a few La Belle coaches with arched win- dows but the newer kits now all have cast metal windows; I wanted to stick with wood. The idea and the kit sat on the shelf
for several years. Recently I became aware of a local laser cutting firm (Ea-
52
gle Laser) that was willing to take on a small job at a very reasonable price; I was in business. The car sides and ends just had to be laid out on a computer. This sounded simple enough since I spent my entire working life working
RMC/Dremel Kitbashing Award........
on computers, but there were a couple problems. There were no plans avail- able for these PRCo. cars, so I worked from photos and produced a Power- Point®
rendering for multi-layered
sides and ends. When I presented this to the laser guy he handed it back with instructions to make a line drawing with a product like Corel Draw®
. I found free software on the web and
started to learn, but it wasn’t easy. Be- sides new software I had to learn new terminology like vectors and arcs. Even- tually, I got the computer output cor- rect, took it back to Eagle Laser and he cut my sides and ends, all perfect except for the mistakes I made in the software. One of the photos shows the cut-out
A minimum of $100 and a Dremel Rotary Tool Kit with a variable-speed Multi-Pro rotary tool, flex shaft attach- ment and accessories are awarded to the monthly win- ners of the RMC/DREMEL KITBASHING AWARD. Entries must consist of at least two photos (5″×7″ or 8″×10″ prints or two color slides; more may be included) and a short text. Models must use at least 50% commercial components; unused entries may be held for BOOMER TRAIL.
parts along with the original La Belle side. The inner wall is cut from ¹₆₄″ ply- wood while outer side is ¹₃₂″ Northeast- ern scribed siding. Since the scribed sid- ing sheets come in 3″ widths I had to splice two pieces together to get seven windows. As I started examining the cut pieces I realized that one of the ¹₆₄″ inner walls was unnecessary and would only serve to make the sides thicker, some- thing the car didn’t need. Not wanting to
JANUARY 2012
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