Tag Archives: HO-scale

Kitbashing an HO Southern 1960s Bay Window Caboose – Part 2

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Southern bay window cab 22

In Part 1 of this 4-part series, I showed the modifications required for the body, windows, and steps. In part 2, I’ll dive into the roofs, bay windows, and underbody.

Roofs

  • Pressed panel roof (option 1). The “two-bulge” roof panel seems to have been less popular than the smooth roof, but I found at least a few examples that made me want to model it. As mentioned in part 1, this is a tough roof to find, and the only example I had from a Milwaukee Road horizontal rib boxcar kit was too wide. I decided it wouldn’t be too tough to model from styrene bits. From part 1, the roof was already smooth except for the panel … Read more →

Kitbashing an HO Southern 1960s Bay Window Caboose – Part 1

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Southern '60s era HO bay window caboose

Some railroads are blessed to have fairly accurate plastic caboose models, but unfortunately, the Southern Railway is not one of them. In HO scale, the choices are brass, a nice but complicated (and hard to find) resin kit, and a pretty substantial kitbash from a plastic kit. In this 4-part series, I’ll show you the steps to get a credible and fairly accurate model from an Athearn bay window kit. Warning, this project is not for the faint-of-heart! In fact, I think these are the most challenging models I’ve ever built (and I’ve scratchbuilt some cars and done major locomotive kitbashes). Even if you don’t go all-out, you can pick the steps that are most important to you, and while … Read more →

NC&StL Pikeville Branch, TN track plan HO

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NCSTL Pikeville Branch TN HO scale track plan
  • Size: 12′ x 12′
  • Scale: HO
  • Minimum Radius: 24″ 
  • Minimum Aisle Width: 30″ 
  • Designed by Dan Bourque

This track plan was a personal challenge to see whether a double-deck plan for a long branch line could be modeled in HO scale in a tight space of less than 12 x 12 feet. The subject is an area I hadn’t known much about before. I discovered it on an L&N coal mine map from 1966, and thanks to the great site historicaerials.com, I was able to explore topo maps and aerial photos from the late 1950s about a year after the branch transitioned from the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis (NC&StL) Railroad to the Louisville & Nashville. What I … Read more →

Modeling a 2-Bay Short-Taper Offset Hopper in HO Scale

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CG 55T Offset 14

HO-scale modelers are blessed with a lot of coal hopper models and kits to work with. One fairly common car that’s still tough to model is a 2-bay short-taper offset hopper. This car is distinct because of the smaller and more steep angles in the side sheets to get from the inside of the car to outside the ribs and the three thick rivet strips at the ends and center. This car was also longer than most 2-bay cars at 34′ versus the 33′ of a more common offset. Most people would be content to just use a 33′ car (and I don’t issue any judgment here), but I’m kind of a hopper nut, so…

Athearn made an old blue-box … Read more →

Weathering an Old Coal Hopper

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MON 50T hoppers HO scale

(Note: for a more complete, step-by-step process, read ARRM’s more recent article on weathering coal hoppers as well)

Coal hoppers endure some heavy use and exposure to the elements. The loading process and constant scraping of coal on the slope sheets and sides during unloading quickly wears these cars down and produces some neat weathering that begs to be modeled. Younger steel cars tend to show bare metal slick spots, especially on the slope sheets. These metal spots tend to show a bit of rust around the edges, but over time, the whole interior can turn to rust that continually regenerates through the loading and unloading process. Here’s my process for detailing and weathering old “rust bucket” hoppers using a … Read more →

BN Marias Pass, MT track plan HO

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BN Marias Pass - Lower HO scale track plan by Dan Bourque
  • Size: 18′ x 26′
  • Scale: HO
  • Minimum Radius: 28″ 
  • Minimum Aisle Width: 26″
  • Designed by Dan Bourque

This track plan is FAR from the Appalachians, but it captures an iconic piece of mountain railroading, the Burlington Northern’s route over the continental divide via the former Great Northern’s Marias Pass line across the Rockies near Glacier National Park, Montana. This route, the northernmost rail crossing of the continental divide in the US, is known for its snow sheds and incredible glacier-carved backdrops making it the perfect route for Amtrak’s “Empire Builder.”

The Layout

This track plan is designed to fit into a moderate-size basement complete with utility spaces and support poles. This is 50+ miles of railroad on the … Read more →