S SCL
Seaboard Coast Line
This 1985 Carstens Classic is a pictoral history of the Seaboard Coast Line focused on Florida!
tention to appearances, particularly the hunkered down look of all Maine two foot equipment, a realistic free- lanced model can be had that will ful- fill the needs of any two footer enthusi- ast in ¹/₄₈ scale. The kit consists of a number of parts
Black and yellow SCL locomotives arrived with the 1967 merger of Atlantic Coast Line with the
Seaboard Air Line railroad. From phosphates to Florida orange
juice, from long passenger runs and special circus moves to a diverse fleet of diesels; You’ll
enjoy 116 pages of quality black and white photography.
made from a variety of materials. The roof is cast from resin and includes the letterboards and has the typical Laco- nia profile. The letterboards are notched for the baggage doors and there is rib- bing detail on the underside. The car- body sides and ends must be laminated together from a resin impregnated ma- terial and the outer layer has nicely done detail embossed or etched into the surface. These and the one piece under- frame and flooring are laser-cut and there is little if any difficulty in remov- ing these parts from their frets. Portland Locomotive Works recom- mends a type of 3M®
spray adhesive for
laminating the sides and ends together. I was leery of this process, never having used this type of glue. I followed the in- structions, however, and the jigs, includ- ed in the kit, made the assembly simple and accurate. This is a very well thought-out exercise and the parts fit the jigs perfectly. Don’t use too much of the spray adhesive or it will leak around the edges. There are numerous other small
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parts including pre-cut quarter round trim for the doors and sides, cast metal detail fittings and a set of brass cast- ings for the end railings and beams. The doors are from the same material as the sides and ends, the sills for doors and windows are laser-cut card- stock and the steps and platforms are to be constructed from lasered wood parts. Trucks and couplers are not in- cluded but I’ll address this later. I began construction of the kit by laminating the sides and ends, and as I said, this process was precise and quick. I had already decided to perma- nently join the body and underframe, so I then assembled the body parts to- gether, using five minute epoxy. A vari- ety of weights and clamps were utilized to keep the ends and sides in good posi- tion. Be sure to maintain 90 degree an- gle relationships between these seg- ments. The epoxy gives a bit of maneuvering time, but be sure not to get this glue on your fingers or tools
and thus on the model parts. The next step was to glue the scribed flooring and the laser-cut underframe together. These parts have very thin fretwork around them which is easily removed. Once both of these assem- blies have set, and after staining the frame members and underside of the floor with an alcohol and india ink so- lution, fit the body and underframe to- gether. Once it is snugly fit and every- thing is correctly positioned, run a layer of thin cyanoacrylate around the inside to fasten it all in place. The underframe is laser-etched to provide locations for the needle beams and bolsters and here I ran into a bit of a glitch. The cast metal bolsters have nice detail and are easily drilled and/or tapped for truck mounting screws. However, the indentations to fit be- tween the frame sills do not match the sill spacing. This can be remedied with some careful trimming and filing of the castings using rail nippers and fine files. However, I chose a different route. Veteran two foot modelers might have the same option depending on the depth of their spare parts bin. I had a set of cast brass bolsters from, I be- lieve, a long-time supplier named Bob Werner. These parts fit the underframe perfectly and after tapping them to ac- cept Kadee mounting screws and using gun blackener to color them, I glued them in place. For those who will use this car on an
On2 layout, Coronado Scale Models of- fers a set of trucks modeled on genuine Maine two-foot equipment. Others like myself who model the two footers in On30 have the option of using those Coronado trucks with 33″ HO gauge wheelsets. But, as I have done on all of my other passenger rolling stock, Walthers offers an HO passenger truck (No. 933-1077) that is very similar in di- mension and appearance to the prototype trucks, rolls well and has variable bol- sters to permit the lowering of the car- body to get that low slung appearance. I had a pair of the adapted Coronado
parts that I had used under another combine. I removed them, replaced them with a set of the Walthers trucks and test-installed them on the Monson car. I also used a conical Dremel bit to grind away the intermediate sills in four spots on each end to allow greater
APRIL 2014
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