Building Buffalo Bill Advance Cars CRAFTSMAN/Don Ball, photographs by the author
Car No. 1 The adverti sing cars were rolling billboards and every square foot of side was used for tout- ing the show’s features. Each of these cars had two diff erent lett ering schemes designed to att ract att enti on wher- ever they went. The roof on this car is an MDC duckbill roof modifi ed by the use of drywall com- pound.
Car No. 3 Members of Buff alo Bill’s adverti sing department pose for the camera, circa the 1890s. This car was the “emergency car,” which responded quickly to a parti cular area if management decreed that more bills needed to be posted. Un- like cars 1 and 2, which traveled with regular passenger trains, car 3 would be att ached to the fi rst train going their way even if it was a string of stock cars.
Cowboys, Indians, sharpshoot- ers, and lots of excitement — all part of the 19th Century Wild West show that brought thrills to towns all over the country, most traveling by rail. Before the show, however, came the advance cars bearing crews who pasted colorful posters over every vacant build- ing side in the neighborhood. The colorful cars served as rolling billboards occupying a prominent spot in the local rail yard, exciting the locals about the fun sure to ar- rive in a couple of weeks. Back in the 1990s, I became interested in these cars when I read The Circus Moves by Rail and saw that Vintage Reproduc- tions offered dry transfers for two of the Buffalo Bill cars. The book had some photos of the cars, but
not good ones. I scratchbuilt two of the cars using the VR transfers (“Buffalo Bill’s Advance Cars,” Railroad Model Craftsman, March 1995). Fast-forward to the 21st Cen-
tury. Unbeknownst to me, fellow modeler John Ott in California had read my article and subse- quently found builder’s photos of these cars plus one of another Buffalo Bill car. John noticed the prototype lettering was consider- ably more complicated than the dry transfers I had used and set out to create new artwork. A ter- rific model builder, John is also adept at graphic illustrations us- ing Adobe Photoshop and Illus- trator. He prints car sides on card stock that are so realistic you can’t tell them from convention-
ally constructed models. John’s website (
www.ottgallery.com) and his Buffalo Bill cars came to my attention, and I arranged to meet him. He graciously allowed me to use his artwork to build revised cars.
My scratchbuilt cars, No. 1 and No. 2, used MDC passen- ger car floors and roofs, Ever- green styrene sidings, plus some old Westwood windows and car ends (Grandt Line parts could also be used). End railings were by Cal-Scale. The MDC duckbill roof used on Car No. 1 had an unusual profile with grooves or valleys where none would usually be found. I filled in the grooves in the roof with drywall compound and sanded them smooth. I modi- fied the more conventional roof on Car No. 2 by sanding the ends to create the arched ends and the turned-down look of the let- terboard so often found on these cars.
Using styrene strips, I built up the baggage doors on Car No. 2. “Possum bellies” — used to store supplies and tools — appear be- neath each car, which I modeled using scribed styrene. Car No. 1 is equipped with standard four- wheel passenger trucks, while
74 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
BUFFALO BILL CARS
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