There are certainly many great looking HO rolling stock ready to run and kits available. You can get a layout full of freight cars in no time. But I like to take some time to create unique cars to mix in. These are custom painted, weathered and detailed to fill in gaps or just get interesting models onto the layout that otherwise cannot be found on your hobby shop shelves. Here are some of the rolling stock projects I’ve worked on for the layout. I hope you find them interesting and pick up some useful for your projects.

Web page written and maintained by Mike McNamara

The Maine Central upgraded many of their 40' boxcars in the 1970s and some of these were painted in a dark green scheme with silver roofs and yellow lettering. This car is an old Front Range boxcar that was lettered with Dry Transfers from Greg Komar. These take a little different approach than decals (note the issue I had with the number on this side), but it worked well on this car that did not have a real good smooth finish after I painted it. This meant that I did not have to repaint the car. (Click on image for larger view)

The MEC had a small fleet of open hopper cars that were used for various purposes, including ballast extra trains that operated on the Mountain Division. I remember camping in the area when I was younger and talking with a railroad employee who was dropping ballast in the Crawford Notch area. They used a railroad tie chained behind the hopper doors, in front of the rear truck, to spread the ballast. I plan to use the gravel pit in Hardwick on the LVRC to generate loads for the ballast extra and then route them to the MEC via St. Johnsbury. My model is an Accurail hopper with Microscale decals. (Click on image for larger view)

This Maine Central boxcar started out as a Walthers undecorated waffle side boxcar. It has a Details West plug door that was cut down a bit to fit the opening better. It was painted with Polly Scale MEC paints with an aluminum roof. The deals are custom made by fellow MEC modeler Cam Green. (Click on image for larger view)

The Clarendon & Pittsford is a small railroad operating former D&H trackage in Vermont. It is part of the Vermont Railways System. In the late 1970's, they participated in the boxcar boom with these yellow 50' boxcars. My model is a simple MDC FMC 50' boxcar lettered with old Herald King decals. (Click on image for larger view)

As noted with the CNJ 40' boxcar below, I plan to have a few 40' boxcars living out the end of their days. By 1980, the change over to 50' boxcars was well underway. I cannot guarantee that this LV boxcar would have been in service as painted in 1980, but I really like this paint scheme too much not to have this car on the layout. The model is a 40' Accurail PS1 with Herald King decals. I used a KD brakewheel and roofwalk to upgrade the appearance. It is nice to get those decals I have had on a shelf for 20 years onto an operating model! (Click on image for larger view)

Did you ever have one of those projects that you start and then, for whatever reason, just never seem to get around to finishing? Sometimes there are valid reasons and then sometimes...Well, this North Stratford boxcar was painted Floquil Dark Green and lettered using Herald King decals back in 1986. Yikes! It was put in a box and then never completed for some reason. Well I finally got around to finishing it. The original doors were lost, so I found some replacements in the scrap box and painted them Polly Scale Dark Green, which matched pretty well. I dug up some trucks and dropped in P2K wheelsets to complete the assembly of the car. I used Bragdon chalk weathering to add some rust, dust and grime. I still lacks stirrups, but I need to pick up some more A-line stirrups, so, technically this car is still not totally done! But it can at least run on the railroad now. (Click on image for larger view)

This gondola started out as an undecorated Athearn car. I had some Lehigh Valley decals from Champ in my collection, so I painted the car and decaled it. Considering the LV was gone for over 4 years by the timeframe of my layout, I figured it was possible that a re-stencil could have occurred like the CR in white I added. This came from a leftover CR set. I weathered with paint and some chalk. A simple project with no extra details at all, but I really like this car, it has a prototype feel to it. (Click on image for larger view)

Last Update: July 13, 2010

This is an E&B Valley ACF 70 ton covered hopper with Champ WM decals. I remember when kit first came out 20+ years ago. It was a big deal, signaling a change in freight car modeling. I've assembled a few of these kits over the years and I still think they are fun. Although they were highly detailed at the time, they have of course been superseded by Kato, Bowser and Kadee models now. But I still feel a bit nostalgic for this kit. When I first bought one for about $5 and built it when I was a teenager, I felt like I had become a real model railroader, not just someone with a train set! (Click on image for larger view)

I completed this CNJ 40' boxcar. It started as a custom run car for the Mid-Eastern Region NMRA. I came across a prototype photo of the same car in 1982. I decided to replicate the car in the photo making it appropriate for my layout set in 1980. I wrote an article about it in the MER Local. The article is also online.

The Delaware and Hudson rostered these waffle side boxcars. My model started as an undecorated MDC #1800 kit. I don't believe the prototype had a flat roof however. I painted the kit yellow with black ends and a silver roof. I used a brush to simulate some yellow overspray on the roof. The decals are Herald King set B-343. I added KD wheels, A-Line flat wire stirrups and DA coupler cut levers. Oversprays of rust and dust complete the model. (Click on image for larger view)

I built this 40' PS Hycube boxcar from a Hi-Tech Details undecorated kit. Walthers catalog still lists the car, but no longer as an undecorated model. The kit goes together very nicely. It is a slight departure from other plastic kits in that all parts are flat pieces, the walls, ends, roof and floor. But assembly was easy and the car really looks nice. I did add Plano etched metal footboards above each KD coupler as well as coupler cut levers. I painted the car with Polly Scale D&RGW Freight Car Red, a really nice looking color. The ends are black with a white panel at each top end for the excess height warning. The decals are from Microscale set MC-4311 made specifically for this car. The car was in service moving appliances. It may never have come through Vermont, but it will on my railroad! (Click on image for larger view)

This is a Central Vermont 50' boxcar I started a while ago and have finally pulled it out and finished it. The CV had 5 of these boxcars in white with green lettering at the end of their 50000 series, which were painted blue with white lettering. The last 5 were originally in special service so they received this different scheme. The boxcar is an Accurail #5600 undecorated kit I painted white with black ends. The decals are Herald King B-151. I added KD wheelsets, A-Line flat wire stirrups and Detail Associates coupler cut levers. On each end there is a molded on end platform. I cut a piece of Detail Associates roofwalk material to size and glued it atop these molded on pieces to better simulate the end platforms. The model was lightly weatherd with dust and rust. (Click on image for larger view)

I've always liked the large lettering on the Seattle,Spokane & Pacific freight cars. I had a CDS dry transfer set (#136) in my collection for a while. I decided to put the lettering on a 40' Front Range car I had painted a while back. After completing the lettering, I oversprayed the car lightly with boxcar red paint and then diluted black paint. I think it helps blend in the lettering and weather the car a bit. Dry transfers can be fun, but you need to make sure you get the transfer exactly where you want it before starting because you won't be able to move it later like you can with a decal. (Click on image for larger view)

Two CP Rail 40' boxcars were recently completed. These started as MDC 40' Modern Boxcars that I painted Polly Scale Signal Red. The decals are Herald King set B-1, no longer produced, but ones I've had in my collection for many years. Microscale makes a set that can be used. Even though 50' boxcars were the standard by 1980, these 40 footers continued to travel all over New England, with their bright red color jumping out of the scenery. I thought I would change it up and show you an in progress photo. (Click on image for larger view)

The Delaware & South Park is the fictional railroad for my friend and fellow modeler Ron Baile. I came across a set of his decals in my collection and decided to do a car with them. Ron is modeling the 1950s and 1960s (earlier than my time period) so I decided to do a "what if" for the "future" of the D&SP. I chose a 50' Front Range combination door boxcar because I had no other plans for it and it was already assembled. My story goes that the D&SP bought some used Great Northern boxcars from the BN after the merger and decided to stick with a blue color as many railroads got more colorful in the 1970s. This was a fun project with a neat story! (Click on image for larger view)

This Delaware & Hudson gondola started out as an undecorated MDC "Modern" Gondola. It is fairly accurate as is. I painted the model with AccuFlex acrylic, my only successful acrylic paint job so far. I have otherwise had problems with paint splattering. The nice thing is that I was able to letter this gon the same evening I painted it. I used a Herald King set G-340 for the lettering. KD wheels and couplers and a Detail Associates coupler cut lever completed the model. Now the load is a little unusual. I followed an article published in the July 1997 NMRA Bulletin about modeling scrap iron loads. Metal ingots are made from recycled steel and loaded into gondolas. Following the article, I used Acini De Peppe style pasta fastened to a styrene rectangle the shape of the car. CA glue was used to keep the pasta from expanding with a water-based glue. I put a piece of plastic wrap in the car, put the styrene piece on it and then loaded the pasta on it in successive layers, building it up. When done and thoroughly dry,I removed the load carefully and pulled away the plastic wrap. Now the load drops right in the car. Warning: It takes a lot of CA glue, so I used cheaper stuff from the grocery store, not the hobbyshop CA glue. I painted the load Polly Scale Gun Metal and dusted it with coats of Rust. I don't think the load is prototypical for a D&H gondola, but I think it looks neat! And I have plenty of pasta left for more cars. (Click on images for larger view)

This Denver, Rio Grande & Western boxcar is simply a Details West BC-605 kit that I used a brush and paint washes to weather. It was nice to try something without an airbrush and I like the results. I added he usual KD wheels and DA coupler cut levers, plus some additional weight. A small piece of paper on the door's tack board implies a higher level of detailing. (Click on image for larger view)

In 1982, the state of New York and the Delaware & Hudson set out to rebuild 200 50' PS-1 boxcars. These cars received a unique I Love NY paint scheme and DHNY reporting marks. There is more info on these cars in the Jeff English Feb. 1987 Model Railroader article. I have Herald King decals for this car, but have not attempted a model yet. One day I came across an E&C special run kit #9006 in the clearance basket at my hobby shop. It was for a DHNY car. The paint job was pretty good with just some fuzziness on the diagonal line. I decided to pick it up at the sale price. I assembled the kit as is, only adding KD wheels, DA coupler cut levers and replacing the cast stirrups with DA stirrups. The kit has a nice extended draft gear underframe. I painted the trucks, wheels and couplers only, leaving the car as is in a relatively new, clean look. It is a real standout. (Click on image for larger view)

Recently I went through all my unbuilt kits and sorted out things I really did not need. Wrong time period, not likely to use, etc. I donated these to the local NJ NMRA Division for their raffle. With what was left I went on a mini-marathon, building about a dozen or so of these freight car kits. I covered this on my blog, at mainecentral.blogspot.com, and you can get some more detail there. Sometimes it is good to just build what you got. You already paid for them so save some money and sit down and have some fun!

The LVRC operated passenger excursions using coaches. Compared to pictures I have, these Hornby 4 wheel truck 70’ cars look pretty close. I could only get decorated cars, so I got two in dark green and then removed the lettering. Using a lettering set I then made them Lamoille Valley cars. Now I can add passenger excursions into my operating sessions! (Click on image for larger view)

The Canadian Pacific had fleet of unique what they called “slab side” covered hoppers. These showed up in many LVRC pictures as they moved from an on-line customer up to Canada. I had started building a pair of Sylvan resin kits when True Line Trains announced RTR models for these. Here is one in the basic CP scheme with some modest weathering. I still have those resin kits, painted and awaiting decals, so they will join these, but these are really far superior in looks. (Click on image for larger view)

After the St. J & LC and prior to the startup of the LVRC, a new railroad called the Vermont Northern operated the covered bridge route for about 3 years. They had a series of IPD boxcars roaming the coumtry earning revenue. My model is a simple MDC FMC boxcar painted yellow with a sliver roof and Herald King decals with a MicroScale ACI and U-1 labels. (Click on image for larger view)

In the process of sorting my freight cars I came across a couple of Athearn Blue Box kits. These were for the 5-unit Impack TOFC cars, a kit no longer offered by Athearn. I originally picked these up in 1989 on a ski trip to Colorado which included a stop at Caboose Hobbies in Denver. What to do with these? They are too cool not to  keep, so I built them up, adding weight where I could and replacing the wheelsets with KD 28” metal wheels. For trailers I used the newer Athearn 40’ offerings in a variety of road names, including St. johnsbury, SP, B&M, VTR and others. I have two 5 car sets, so it makes a pretty nice size train. I figure I will add a TOFC run through on the CP line between Montreal and E. Deerfield, MA. Not that this train existed, but it could have... (Click on images for larger view)

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