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Santa Fe? N scale? These models looked familiar to me. Are these John Sing’s? Yes and yes. John has been an active participant in Bay Area NMRA and California RPM meets for a long time, and he recently moved to Florida. Naturally, attending Prototype Rails was on his “to do” list. John reworked the Life-Like E6 A-B-A models to have close coupling and also upgraded the detailing on them. The weathering is particularly nice; take a closer look. Right out of the box, the Minitrix U30CG rightfully got mixed reviews. It also had “po- tential.” Well, more than that in the right hands. Number 403 is a heavily reworked Minitrix shell on a Kato U30C chassis with new wire handrails (again, take a closer look—this is an N scale model but has better handrails than some HO ones), correct details and a new cast resin fuel tank. The shell was stripped and repainted. Decals are from Microscale.


John also brought a five-unit set of AT&SF SD40’s from Kato’s 1994 run to show that “in-depth rebuilding skills aren’t necessary” to do prototype-specific modeling. He said that attention to detail and a few basic skills come first. The weathering is Bragdon dry powders, which do not need an overspray. (The units were first sprayed with Model Master flat finish.) After that came dry brush- ing, washes; he says to just follow photos.


RPM’s draw heavily from their local areas, so regional prototypes tend to dominate the display tables. SCL 859542 is a “dry rock” car for shipping partially processed phos- phate-bearing rock from Bone Valley in central Florida (theme parks aren’t the only in- dustry in that part of the state—the open pit mines, dragline stripping shovels, slurry pipes and plants producing a component of fertilizer, phosphoric acid and related chem- icals were there well before “The Mouse”). These cars are unique to the area, and Ron Lutton is building a string of them in HO scale. The model is a modified resin kit from Fu- naro & Camerlengo with full brake rigging based on the cars at the Florida Railroad Mu- seum in Parrish/Willow. He added the extended draft gear to represent the rotating cou- plers and the hold down pads required for rotary dumping, and made the roof “work,” that is hinged and capable of tipping to either side. This was done with wire hooks and hinge pins. The fact that is a “flat kit” made the project a bit more managable, but it was still a lot of work. The hatches open, too. One more thing needs to be explained, because at first it looks funny. Some cars lose a hatch or two when being dumped or whenever, and crews just take clear plastic sheet and cover the opening so the load does not get wet. Ron has simulated this with the clear liquid window-making material sold at hobby shops. (Is the duct tape next?) This is an SCL class U-12 car, “flip top” to the crews, and the load is fine sand with a color wash. The etched-metal running boards are from Plano.


Though a Florida resident today, Ron Lut- ton worked for Penn Central in Minerva, Ohio, at one time. Among the power as- signed there was this pair of former NYC GP9’s, 7325 and 7327. The long hood was forward on the NYC Geeps of the period, which was not unusual. Ron added the nose bells, changed the stacks, moved the horns and added a few other items to undecorated Atlas HO scale models. He says it wasn’t a lot of work. They were painted with Floquil lacquer-based paint and lettered with Microscale decals. Most of the weathering was done with Bragdon self-adhesive powders. The models are equipped with DCC sound decoders.


At one time watermellon cars were used to move various kinds of mellons, which did not need icing, to the Northeast from Flori- da, Georgia and the Carolinas, following the crops north. Boxcars with slatted doors, the cars usually had a full door, too. Craig Zeni built his HO model from a Smokey Moun- tain Model Works kit, a special run from the CofG Historical Society. You can always use another boxcar, and his major rebuild- ing of a BLI car (new running boards straight grabs, A-Line steps, etc.) yielded this DL&W car. Finally, in the special kit cat- egory, Stan Rydarowicz showed his resin parts for rebuilding a Ribside Cars Milwau- kee Road boxcar into an express car.


RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 93


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