As most of you know, milk traffic is important on Dividing Creek, just as it was on the Rutland, B&M, D&H, New York Central and other railroads. The majority of DC’s milk traffic goes to Borden. My late father worked for Borden’s Pioneer Ice Cream Division for over 40 years, so, needless to say, I’m a Borden fan.
A couple of months ago, Carl came to an operating session and presented me with a box and “Here, see what you can do with this”. Inside was a butter-dish milk car-white with black lettering for Borden. To the best of my knowledge the car is a pretty old Cannonball Car Shops plastic kit. At one time, Cannonball bought out Kurtz-Kraft and at some point became partnered with Red Ball. Kurtz-Kraft, as information, was one of the pioneers in injection molded plastic kits, notably the PS-1 boxcar.
I don’t ever recall seeing a color photo of the red butter-dish milk car, but descriptions indicate they were a red-orange. Carl suggested NH Socony Red, which is currently manufactured by an Arizona firm-Tru Paint. Apparently, they’ve taken up the old AccuPaint line. Socony Red it is.
The original car had the center fin, which I removed, filled the groove and sanded everything smooth. When all this was dry, I primed the car.
Because I was unable to take the car apart, I masked the body and painted the frame black. After that was dry, more masking and Socony Red paint on the body.
Prior to painting, I added Detail Associates eye-bolts. After all the paint was dry, I added corner grab irons, hand-rails around the car and a new brake wheel. Fortunately, I had a set of Champ yellow decals for this car. As I added the decals, it dawned on me that Champ got it wrong. The decal set indicates a 12000 gallon car, while these cars were actually only had a capacity of 6000 gallons. Oh well.
The original car had regular freight car trucks which I replaced with Tichy Commonwealth express car truck. Then I found they would not swivel–they were too far into the under frame. A couple of experiments later, I settled on adding .030 styrene shims and Athearn bolsters from some Athearn underframes I had around. Things still weren’t quite right, so I ended up using Kadee #22 underset couplers.
This car was both fun and a challenge. Thanks, Carl.
Don Howd
