Springfield Terminal Car #10 continued

Trolley Boards: The next item is to add the trolley boards, trolley bases and hooks. Typical trolley boards are approx 1 foot wide, and the cleats that hold them to the roof are 2'' x 3'' x 29'' long. These have a small radius to contour them to the roof. These are usually placed onto the car roof ribs, which generally line up between the clearastory windows. Paint the cleats and trolley boards prior to assembly.

Lay out the trolley poles to help decide where the bases should be located. On this model, the pole wheel assembly is placed over the car end, so the wheel assembly of the pole is about even (vertically) with the end of the car bumper. After drilling the holes for the bases at each end, then make the boards and make some relief in them for the base post, and then glue these down to the roof onto the cleats.

Add the trolley hooks and insert the pole + bases, and set this aside. The trolley hooks should be slightly offset, so if you have two cars close together in your yard or carshop / carhouse, the poles do not hit each other. The offset should be the same direction for all your rolling stock.

Extra Window: Splicing the extra windows in. After removing the Bachmann combine car body from the basic frame, and doing the same to the Bachmann coach, carefully measure the window openings, and very carefully cut into the coach so that the wooden car side would meet up between the windows. Finish the cut just below the window ledge and then use an exacto knife to cut under the ledge. You want to keep the ledge under the window to use as a guide in lining up the window on the combine.

Carefully measure out and make and mark lines to follow on the combine. You might cut things a little short and gently cut and file to make the new window fit. Too big of an opening, and you’ll have some patch work to do. Once this is cut and the window fit, glue the windows in. You may have a little sanding and filing to do to make these look correct once installed. This is a good time to add some paint to the car shell, both inside and out.

CAR FRAME AND PLATFORMS

Option 1

Remove the screws that secure the car seats and floor. Set these aside.

In making the new car end platforms, the end bumper should be longer in distance than the car roof. In other words, if you measure the entire roof and the entire frame separately, the car frame should be longer then the roof section by approximately 1 scale foot or 6 scale inches at either end.

The floor of the new ends should be made of 1/16'' plywood. Use the car roof to draw an outline onto the plywood. (see photo). Once this section is cut out, carefully reduce the thickness of the plywood only where the original car platform remains. The car end platform should also be cut down and made square to the frame. The overall length of the original platform will be reduced. Cut the end (or forward) edge of the steps off. The steps remaining on the frame will hold the new steps in place.

Two notches were also cut into the underside of the original end beams so that two new framing knees could be added for overall strengthening of the platform area. Two small wooden stringers were added, approx 1/4'' x 1/4'' x 3.5'' for platform strength.

Option 2

LRP is currently working on producing resin car ends, plus a new floor section to add onto your Interurban Car. (See details LRP #011)

Seating: The seats. Remove the seat and floor section from the car. You will need to add two seats from the other car from which you removed the window. In this model, the seats should have a slight rake to them. The ones that come with the combine and coach are straight. Looking at the back side of the seats, estimate where the back and the seat cushion would meet, and cut a slot or actually a small wedge shape out. Press the seat back, backwards towards the cushion, add some glue once you have the seat back at an angle. You need to clamp these down while the glue sets up (or a heavy weight). Modifying the seats in this manner takes a while.

If your car is going to be running or operating in two directions, you may want to make one set of seats face the opposite direction. On this model, one set faces one way, the other side of the aisle, the other way. LRP will also be offering rattan (LRP #022) type seats soon, so you can replace all these molded seats with something nicer.

Trucks: This car originally had a Taylor truck under it. Presently, these are not available, so the option is to use LRP #012, the ALCO trucks. The original bolsters have been cut away, as the ALCO truck takes more room under the car. Building new carbody bolsters from wooden strips that run accross the body were made ( 3/4'' wide by 3/16''). Once the locations for the trucks are identified by being sure the trucks will have plenty of room to swing to clear the now present steps, these can be glued into place. Later the bolster plate can be centered and glued into place as well. The trucks can be secured to the car. Be sure they are secure, and that they cannot fall away while the car is being handled.

Next installment: car ends, couplers, steps and interior details.

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