Boston Elevated, 8 Window, Closed
Car
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Concept: To
create a turn of the century (the other one) Boston Elevated
Railway, 8 window closed car.
Using the photos in the “Streetcars
of Boston”, Vol#1, by O.R. Cummings, several similar
versions were selected. This model is being fashioned after one
of them.
Products used:
Bachmann Closed Cars - 2 each
Disassembly
There are several clips along the inner
letterboard edge that hold on the car roof. Carefully pry or
pull apart, by hand, the upper edges of the letterboard, and as
you do, it should seem like the roof is now separating from the
main car body. Carefully lift up on the roof section. Remove
the metal rods holding up the straps for the standees your car
will carry. Paint the straps a dark brown or red for a leather
color.
Remove that ugly plastic structure where
the coupler is under or in front of the dashes.
The two Bachmann closed streetcars are
cut, basically each in half, and spliced together. This is not
quite as difficult as it might seem. Getting the roof to line
up is a bit trickier. Be patient. You will want to make many,
many test fits before gluing either the bodies or the roof
together. This includes getting the upper windows in the roof
sections to appear to be spaced the same. Frankly, on this
model the roof is spliced twice, as there was a major goof up,
trying to salvage as much of the roof as possible for another
project.
Once you have the roof spliced together
and it fits onto the car body shell nicely (well, as best as
one can!). Then splice the trolley boards together and figure
out the center of the car (mine only has one trolley pole),
pre-drill the holes to accept the trolley base
Save the seats, and splice these later.
Paint these a tan color to represent the cane. Add some black
strips across the width to show some separation of the lower
cushions.
Click the forward icon below to continue
with the Boston Elevated model.
This is the model to date, still in
progress. Still requires trucks, motors and interior work.
© Light Rail Products
