Light Gray on all the parts. A few patches of primer gray are vis- ible on the real No. 316, including large rectangles on the long hood (to cover some previous owner’s logos) and on one of the battery box doors. I masked these, then airbrushed the short hood, long hood and cab with a faded mix of Caboose Red and Reefer White. Letting that coat dry, I masked the stripe and cab sides before applying yet another color, this time a darker Guilford Gray. The masking was stripped off, and I used a fine brush to touch up the spots where paint had bled under the tape and to paint the number boards white. The frame and fuel tank also received a coat of Guilford Gray, while I gave the truck sideframes a coat of dark gray auto primer from a spray can. I let the paint dry completely before
using Microscale decals to give WIR No. 316 its identity. I applied white striping along the edges of the red stripe, white
sans-serif lettering to the cab and num- bers to the battery boxes, and black Railroad Roman digits in the number boards. Then, I sealed the paint and de- cals with a coat of Testors flat finish. I moved on next to the handrails.
With all the changes to the model so far, it seemed best to fabricate entirely new handrails from .019″ brass wire and Smokey Valley and Precision Scale stanchions (sets Smokey Valley 205 and PSC 39704). This combination gave me just enough of the long and short stanchions to do the job. Bending the handrails involved some guess- work and careful examination of pho- tos. After I finished installing them, I brush painted the handrails white and the stanchions Guilford Gray. I glued lengths of ³/₁₆″ dia. brass tub- ing behind the headlights on both ends, and secured headlight lenses (Detail Associates No. 1709) into their sockets with dots of white glue. Before
installing the tubes, I used pliers to squish one end of each into a slight oval shape to capture both lens ends. The brass tubing houses the headlight bulbs and ensures that light only es- capes through the lenses. Finally, I installed glass in the cab windows, and glued the cab and short hood permanently in place. Post-paint- ing details included installing A-Line (No. 29200) windshield wipers, attach- ing the m.u. hose castings to the pilots, and brush painting and gluing a small electrical cabinet (Details West No. 107) on the deck behind the cab. In keeping with the prototype, I applied a heavy coat of weathering to my version of 316 using dry-brushed paint and powdered pastels, sealed with more flat finish. For the final assembly, I installed a DCC decoder to control the locomotive. Wiring for the ditch lights and head- lights made for a minor rat’s nest, but I managed to squeeze it all inside the shell without binding the mechanism. At some point, I may add a speaker and DCC sound decoder, which will force me to re-route the wiring more neatly. With the shell on the frame, I placed a pair of Kadee No.58 couplers into the original Front Range coupler boxes and slipped them into the front and rear pi- lot slots. Once fastened to the frame, with 2-56 screws in place of the original plastic pins, the coupler boxes serve to lock the shell and frame together. As a post script, I noticed while writ-
Steam or diesel, shortline motive power has always been interesting, and WIR 316 keeps that tradition alive. The HO model uses an old Front Range kit as the base, along with scratchbuilt styrene and Cannon & Company parts. The extra height of the long hood shows up well in this pair of photos on the author’s HO scale W&IM theme layout.
ing this article several details I over- looked when I built the model. So now, my plans call for adding wind deflectors and sunshades to the cab windows, fabri- cating four of those oddball spark ar- restors for the exhaust stacks, and tuck- ing a shovel into the nose grab irons. This type of project is what I enjoy most about modeling: taking a basic model and turning it into something unique. I wonder, did the shop crews at Paducah feel the same way?
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
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