B&M Operators

At last! The evolution of an old Hobbyline coach into Delaware & Hudson #223 is complete. I’ve included two photos of the final product. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little series, I certainly had fun working on the car and sending these progress reports to the website via Mike Tringali. Thanks, Mike.

I’ve heard from my local hobby shop–the Scalecoat thinner and handrails are in. Now I can start on changing the metal Hobbyline combine into a Dividing Creek car.

The next scheduled operating session at Harvey’s Essex & Lakeside is November 16. I would like D&H 226 and perhaps the combine to make their revenue debut that night.

Don Howd

This photo shows the coach shell after the decals and flat finish have been applied.

I did a lot of research to find what the D&H coaches looked like in the older Pullman green scheme. As you might imagine, there are loads of shots in the aluminum, blue and yellow paint and even some in the two-tone scheme, but apparently none in the Pullman green paint. However, I was able to find a diagram showing a coach the way I wanted to finish this one.

As Tai T’ung (thirteenth century Chinese philosopher) said “Were I to await perfection, my book would not be finished, so I have made shift to collect the fruits of my labor as I find them”

So I did the best I could with what I had.

Next step: clean up the trucks, add end gates, diaphragms and marker lights.

D&H #223 will soon be ready for service.

Don Howd

After I cleaned up the castings and primed them, the next step was to add grab irons to the end of the coach and hand rails at the sides of the doors. After drilling  (#79) and installing, the next step was painting. The coach body is Pullman green and the roof is grimy black. I added Cal-Scale brass steam traps to the underframe of the coach and painted it grimy black. After the paint was dry, Kadee couplers and Central Valley trucks went on. I checked to make sure the couplers were the right height, as well.

The trucks, of course, are pretty old and the foam in their box had deteriorated badly, so the trucks needed a lot of cleaning. In the enlarged photo, they look as if they could still use some additional cleaning. I’ll see to that before the next time.

There has been no further progress on the combination car. I do have the Scalecoat NYC paints, but need Scalecoat thinner. I also ran out of the 27″ vestibule hand rails, so work on that car needs to wait for my order to arrive.

See you next time.

Don Howd