"If you model any North American railroad, you model the Pennsy."-- Frank Peacock
There is no "weight" in the kit, leaving it far shy of the NMRA Recommended Practice weight of 5½ ounces, so I planned from the start to add weight, even if it meant giving up under-body detail. I need cars that can run empty.
The New River PRR lettering has a 16" diameter circle keystone logo, Pennsylvania is spelled out, and there are lines above and below the reporting marks. (The circle keystone on the actual gondola was larger, and one panel closer to the center of the car.) There is no lettering on the ends of the car. The printing on my sample was a bit crooked, (see the far end of the photo) and not as sharp as I've seen elsewhere; in fact it was hard to tell if the car number was 440576 or 440578. I used a scriber to make it end in 6.
No instructions came with the kit. My only guidance was two photos of G26 and G26a class cars in the PRR freight car photo album at Robert Schoenberg's excellent PRR web site.
Additional materials I used when building this car include:
As designed, the Eastern Car Works model sits much higher above its trucks than the real car, and the width of the coupler boxes would have made it unable to negotiate the 18-inch radius curves of my layout's interchange and industrial tracks. Some simple modifications to the truck bolster and coupler mounting will overcome these shortcomings.
The sections of this article which are indented like this are to explain things I did because of situations you may or may not face. I encourage you to learn from my mistakes.Before beginning the assembly, to prepare for raising the coupler in relation to the body of the car, remove about 1/32" from the part of the floor where the couplers were to be mounted, making them about even with the two rows of rivets that run down the center. Also remove about 1/32" from the end casting in the area above the coupler pockets.
Before assembling, note that the two car sides are not identical, nor are the two end castings. During assembly of the body, make sure the retainer valve (cast onto one of the sides near the top of the right-most panel) winds up next to the end casting with the recesses designed to take the brake wheel housing. As for the floor, I'm not sure which end is which; to me, it didn't matter.
Assemble the sides to the floor by placing the car upside down on a flat surface, with square blocks against the sides to keep the sides parallel with each other and at right angles to the floor (or at least symmetrical.) Make sure the ends of all the pieces line up before cementing.
Note that the drop ends have an inside and an outside. The outside has an overhang on the top, the inside doesn't. Check the pictures if you're not sure. Assemble the two ends and cement the end frames to the correct ends of the body.
File the top surface of the truck bolsters (that which attaches to the underside of the floor) until it is about ¼" from the face on which the truck rides, then cement the bolsters in place.
I stopped filing too soon, but was able to lower the face on which the truck rides by making a cutting tool from 0.125" ID (5/32" OD) brass tubing. This had the side benefit of lengthening the 1/8" pin that fits into the hole in the truck, which seemed to be on the short side. The tool left a ridge of uncut material around the outside of the face, which I removed with a hobby knife.The face on which the truck rides should be about 5/32" from the main surface of the bottom of the car floor. When the truck is that close to the body, the wheel flanges will rub on the nearby crossbraces cast into the bottom of the car floor. Remove these, four places.
My trucks required a washer to keep the head of the sheet metal screws from slipping through. I think the washers I used came with the couplers.
The extreme length of this 65' car makes it necessary for both the trucks and couplers to be able to swing more than usual (see photo), but rigidly-mounted draft gear (coupler pockets) wide enough to allow sufficient coupler swing interferes with truck swing. For this reason, I made both the coupler and the draft gear able to swing independently on the same axis.
I intended to have independent centering springs for the draft gear and couplers. In theory, as the curve of the track increased, pressure from the next car would pull the coupler aside until it touched the side of the draft gear and (if needed) push it aside as well. As the curve decreases, first the draft gear and then the coupler would return to their centered positions. As of this writing, I haven't come up with a workable plan that fits in the area available, but I'm learning.
The scratch-built draft gear is built loosely around the coupler's shank like a box. This box has an inside width of about 1/8" and an inside height that is just enough to allow the coupler to move freely from side to side.
The draft gear in this case is purely cosmetic, it doesn't carry any load, just provides something for the coupler to protrude from. Here's a drawing: (Coupler image used with permission of Kadee Quality Products.)
Cement the draft gear sides to the graft gear bottom, making sure the ends closest to the coupler's head line up. Try the coupler to be sure it will fit loosely in the box. Cement on the top, and let it set.
Once the cement has set, make sure the coupler can still move from side to side inside the draft gear, then enlarge the holes with a round needle file until they are large enough for the 0.125" tubing.
The two prototype photos mentioned above seem to show the draft gear (coupler pockets) extending farther from the body on the end with the brake wheel. This makes sense to me, due to the unconventional way the brake wheel housing is mounted. The extra clearance would help protect the wheel from the next car or its load. But the official PRR "car diagram" for the G26 doesn't show this, so it's up to you.On the other end, position the tube to allow about the draft gear to protrude only a few scale inches.On the end with the brake wheel, I positioned the tube (part G) so that about one scale foot of draft gear is visible when looking from the top.
Cement the tubes firmly in place on the underside of the floor, sighting along the underframe to be sure they line up with the truck bolsters.
When the cement has dried for several hours, trim the tube to length with a 1/8" or larger drill bit held in the hand. After trimming to length, deepen the hole in part G into the underside of the floor with a 1/16" (or #54) drill bit in a pin vise, working carefully until a bump begins to show on the floor of the car. If caught soon enough, this bump can be flattened and repainted.
Had the hole had broken through, I planned to cover it with a bit of scrap or dunnage "left over from the last load," but that wasn't the case. I deepened the truck bolster holes too, but I'm not sure I needed to.If you made the tool, use it to remove any excess melted plastic where the tube meets the floor.
File the points off the #1 × ¼" flathead sheet metal screws until they are about 7/32" long. If you run them through a piece of scrap first, they will be easier to hold.
After the pictures were taken, I removed the plastic centering
springs and
made new springs from some 0.008" diameter steel wire,
"cutting" it to size by
bending it back and forth several times until it broke. The
arms of the spring are parallel to the sides of the draft gear,
holding it centered. I cut a slot in the underframe with a
razor saw, and held the
wire in place with a plate of 0.010" styrene that is a little wider
than the end of the spring it covers. The sketch on the
left (not to scale!) illustrates the shape of the springs and how the
three pieces are oriented. The loops on the end are to keep
the ends from digging into the sides of the draft gear. If
these springs are too strong, I'll make new springs with a few
zig-zags in the arms.
I have temporarily "given up" on coupler centering, on the theory that the narrow draft gear will bring the couplers close enough.Happily, the "draft gear" is only screwed to the body, so it will be a simple matter to change it if a better design comes to mind. Whatever the design, you can see the springs must fit in a very narrow area.
I only got the total weight up to 4½ ounces, but not all my weights were as large as they could have been. It wasn't until later that I thought of making them exactly to size by pounding a 3/8" drive socketwrench socket down over them. Always wear safety goggles when misusing tools. Even Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor knows that!
If you don't use lead, it may be possible to add 3¼ ounces using steel weights cut from 3/8" square stock. There are other areas that can take weight too, and the low center of gravity helps.
added a flange around the draft gear,
and replaced that broken step with a plastic brush bristle.