Central Vermont RPO #35

CV RPO #35 sits in front of the Waterbury station

  A New Passenger Car For The Green Mountain....by Don Janes

  While I was in Arizona this winter I purchased a Bethlehem Car Works kit of a Central Vermont. RPO.  I had always wanted to build this kit so when I saw it on Ebay I placed a bid on it and won.  With the Covid 19 virus spreading fast we headed home early and while in self quarantine decided it was a good time to build the kit.

The kit was produced for Central Hobby Supply.  Here you can see the kit # and car class.

     

This photo shows the components that make up the kit.

        Photos of these cars are rare but after doing some research in "The Canadian National Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment" by John Riddell I found that six of these cars were built by American Car and Foundry in 1924/25 for the Central Vermont. The cars were owned by CN and lease to the CV from their built date. They were originally in the 30 series on the CV.  Cars that went back to CN were eventually renumbered 74817- 74822.  I am not sure if they all went back to CN eventually but there is a picture in the book of  CN 74818 which was originally CV 38. It was a 1967 photo painted in the CN 1954 passenger scheme.  I have only seen photos of #35 in CV colors so am assuming the rest were returned to CN at some point.

     The kit was fun to build and I am pleased with the final outcome.  I did follow the instructions pretty much. I did add some extra details not included in the kit.  The instructions were pretty vague as far as underbody detail goes so I had to work from the few photos I had and guess at how some of the underbody parts were laid out.

This is what I came up with for detailing the underbody.

      The kit was missing the decals so I emailed John Green at Bethlehem Car Works and he was kind enough to mail me a set. I was surprised he had them as this is a very old kit. The body was painted with Trucolour CN Green and the roof, ends and underbody wee a mixture of Floquil Grimy Black and Engine Black. The wafer heralds are from  a New England Rail Service Central Vermont decal set for steam engines.

Here are a couple of views of the finished car.

This close-up of the mail end of the car shows the mail catcher, steam lines and brake wheel.