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Rutland Ry. RS-1 405 leads a milk train on the White River Division with a Sheffield Farms wooden 40' milk car first up. |
Sheffield Farms Milk Car Model
Built by John Blatherwick
Last year I purchased a few completed models from my late friend John Blatherwick's collection. A little about John first. I met John at the first CVRHS convention many years ago. We made a connection as we both had a great interest in the CV and Rutland Ry. Both of us also became involved with the CVRHS and RRHS writing and contributing at times. We both lived in Canada a two hour drive apart plus we had some mutual friends that John visited on a regular basis. These modellers and rail fans live near me. So over the years we spoke a lot of New England RRing. John had just retired as an Architect about the time we met. John also has a New England connection as his parents lived in Brattleboro, Vermont at one time.
John built a nice layout of northern Vermont including Swanton, Alburgh, plus one of my favourite locations which he built using features from Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, calling his town Brattlefalls. Unfortunately I never did get the chance to photograph his layout, only because he wanted a few spots to be totally done before we took the photos. That never came to be as he became ill a few years back and past away a year ago this month.
I was lucky to pick up some of his built and kit models that were sold from his estate. I recently was able to purchased a few more, mostly passenger cars. So from time to time I will cover John's models and what I have done to complete some of the unfinished projects.
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This is how John Blatherwick's milk car looked when I got it home. There had been some damage when his equipment was packed away. Two missing ladders and some stirrup steps needed replacing. I had already pulled out the grab irons so finer wire replacements could be added. |
The Sheffield milk car is one of the F&C early kits that are made as a solid block, not one of my favourite kind of kits to work on. Johns car was completed but had been damages with a few parts knocked off. I decided to update the car a bit, touch up the paint and add some weathering. This was all done in one afternoon and sure makes a difference. I took a photo before I started so you can compare this mini project.
I began by adding Kadee true scale #58 couples, some under body piping, bleed rods and chain. I changed out all the stirrups with Tichy #3045 double step stirrups. Two ladders did need adding from my parts box. The side grabs needed replacing with finer Tichy brass wire grabs.
The under body and roof got a coat of Floquil grimy black. The body paint condition was in good shape so only the ladder and grab irons needed some touch ups. This I did with Floquil coach green which seems to be a good match. I then added some weathering to finish the milk car off.
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The updates are done and the car is now operating on the White River Division. |
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John had added some of the under body details. I added additional chain and piping that could be see during operations. |
Sheffield Farms was a large company that later became Sealtest. Sheffield Farms in the late 1940's owned about 34 wooden 40 foot milk cars similar to this model. They also used and or leased a lot of GPEX cars during the same era which also where 40 foot cars. The Sheffield Farms milk cars are SFCX series, randomly numbered from 995 -1050. John Nenrich has found 34 car numbers in this series. John's car is numbered 1081 which is outside that group. Knowing John modelled from photos he must have found a car with that number. I left the car numbered as is on the model thinking I may find the photo John had used. If not I may change the number to one I have seen in photos at a later date.
So there you have it a quick update then back in service on my Rutland milk runs...George Dutka
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Brake end details. |
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The prototype. |