As a knowledgeable freight car historian and excellent modeler, Montford Switzer is a frequent and engaging speaker at prototype meets. He backs up his talks with a large number of HO scale mod- els in the display room, too. This year at STL/Collinsville was no exception, but the models had steel wheels with rubber tires, not steel wheels with flanges. You see, Mont is also well-versed in mo- tor transportation and has often done seminars on trucking. Why not? It has been the family business since 1996. He is conversant with the subject as a modeler, as well. Take, for example, the HO scale, blue Mack B-61 and its tank. Mont says it is “restored to the appearance of the fleet as it appeared in 1960 ifSwitzer Tank Lines had been in business then.” Then he smiles. We are modelers. We
understand. The cab is a resin Chief Models logging truck tractor cut down to standard highway length with A-Line mirrors and a few added details. The tank is an old Ulrich, reworked. Today’s Switzer Tank Lines fleet includes good-looking Freightliners and, yes, a handsome B-61 in dark blue. Things you don’t think about: the circa-1958 Standard Oil tanker has a C-series Ford tractor with a gas engine. Thirty years ago the oil companies could afford that since they owned the refineries and gas was cheap; diesel trucks (lower operating cost) are used now. Finally, ready-mix trucks used to look like this. The HO model is an Athearn Kenworth cut down, and the drum is a good model of a Challenge-Cook mixer Mont found on a Mercedes truck in a hobby shop scrap box.
The freight car movement has always involved taking kits and adding prototype-specific details, as John Alaniva did with his HO scale TTWX 978903 model. An Accurail kit, it has new scratchbuilt brake rigging, Details West No. TH1007 (orange) and TH 1013 (black) trailer hitches, Reboxx code 88 wheelsets and new paint and lettering, plus Kadee No. 46 couplers. The trailers are from At- hearn. John’s information card noted that the car is correctly numbered for Bethlehem-built cars and that he used the Fallen Flags website for photo research. Mike Boyce brought some Mid- western favorites to Collinsville, including CNW 860, a modified
For years Doug Taylor’s name has been associated with EBT mod- eling and operating sessions in the Kansas City area, so what were all those Central Vermont locos doing on the table by his name? Doug said he spent a lot of time in New England when he was in graduate school and was an engineer on the Mt. Washington Cog Ry. for a few summers. He inherited some Central Vermont models, then saw an article about rebuilding a Bachmann 2-8-0 to CV proto- type in MR, and it rekindled an old interest. You won’t easily find a Bachmann 2-8-0 under M-3a No. 451 but one is (was?) there. The boiler was totally stripped, the cab rebuilt with a new roof, the 63″
Kato GP35. He added the “torpedo tube” air tanks (Details West), filled in the larger fuel tanks, added the flashing dome light, m.u. hoses, plow pilots and lots of jewelry. The trucks have modified journal boxes to match photos. This model and its companion, CNW 836, started out as undecorated Kato locos. Both have A- Line sunshades (“Those are the nice ones,” Mike said.); 836’s de- tails are similar to the 860’s. CNW’s traditional diesels stand out since they seldom had dynamic brakes. The 824 in the back- ground came painted but has been renumbered and received a new herald on the cab. Those Milwaukee units are Mike’s, too.
drivers replaced with imported 57″ ones from Greenway (which had to be bored out for 3mm axles and fitted with new crankpins from Bowser), and then the detailing began with brass castings and wire. The tender was scratchbuilt from styrene with Archer rivets. (The latter are now a much-appreciated staple in the hobby. Thanks, Archer!) The exposed feedwater heater on the smokebox front is distinctive, “very CV” though other roads used them. Class N-5 No. 470 is also a Bachmann rebuild. All the detail was removed from the boiler, the cab roof re-shaped, a new pilot fabricated, and the front end redetailed. That’s not all, but that’s what it took to get a CV N-5.
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