A Narrow Guage Flat Car

The finished flat is at the packaging plant siding. The deck was given a well used look.

 Recycling rolling stock

Last spring while Peter Mumby was sorting out some of his model RR equipment he gave me a HOn3 flat that was well built but in need of some work and cleaning. I was not sure at first what I would do with it as I do have a collection of HOn30" but this car was a little larger in size and would not fit in. When I finished my White River Packaging, a Railway Design Associate kit I used one of my HOn30 flats in the photos. I thought that maybe this HOn3 car would work as a permanent addition to the diorama if I changed out the trucks. When I set the flat in the scene it looked right. So the upgrade began.

The trucks are removed and N scale trucks are ready to be installed. A few side pockets need to be added and stirrups on the other side will be applied before painting.

 My plans were to turn the car into a HOn30 flat. I began by giving the car a good brushing to remove all the dust. N scale couplers are mounted to the body so I just removed the trucks and replaced them with a set of N scale trucks without couplers. The car was missing two stirrups and a couple of side pockets. I had similar pockets in my parts box that I used and two new A-Line stirrups.
 
The under body was painted Floquil Grimy black and the sides are bush painted Floquil caboose red. On the deck I decided to give it some distressing to get the well worn look. I used my hobby knife scoring each board numerous times. I then went back over the same boards with the back of the blade to spread some of the gouges out more. I gave the deck a coat of Floquil grime followed by some streaks of roof brown while still wet. I added steaks of Floquil Flow-Stain pine. This all blends together as it drys.  I brushed various colours of Bragdon Weathering along the deck to finish it off...George Dutka

The flat is spotted at White River Packaging Co. and fits in nicely. Note the old time truck at the loading dock. A few posts back I covered my truck conversions. This is the truck in the photo not painted at that time. Now finished it was painted grimy black with old silver headlights. The cab roof was just chalk brushed red along with the tire spokes. The interior got a touch of green chalk. This gave an interesting amount of colour to the vehicle.