More Projects

At left is the Railway Recollections Sandy River/Billerica & Bedford box car A kit. I need to finish the decals, add some crates to the interior, add end railings, couplers and weather it. This is a very nice, easy-to-assemble kit with many possibilities. It can be built as B&B box car A; Sandy River box car A without windows in the side doors; or Sandy River box car A with windows in the side doors. I added the interior sheathing on the wall and the interior panels on the far side door.
This next kit is Mount Blue's new HOn30 offering, a laser-cut Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes 28 foot box car kit. I posted pictures of this in November. Now I've finally have some progress to show. This kit can be built into box cars numbers 87-94 and 96-99. Several were for sale at the last Springfield, Massachusetts train show and they were all sold out. This is an excellent kit. The parts fit together well and some are adhesive-backed so the builder just peels the paper off the back and sticks it to the model. While the manufacturer suggests details to use, none are included so that the builder can use details to his liking. I already had half of the details needed to build this and only had to order grab irons and queen posts. I could have bent my own grabs, but past experience has taught me that buying preformed grabs saves me wasted wire, time and frustration. Since the holes for grabs and nbw castings are predrilled (laser-cut?) at lot of drilling(and time) is eliminated. I also like the laser-cut roof panels that simulate the tin panels used on Maine two-foot box cars. I recommend this kit for the joy of assembly and pleasure the completed model will bring as you watch it on your pike.

And I do occasionally finish projects and I promise to post them when I do. I will never promise to work on only one project until it is finished. This is a hobby and I do as I please. In the immortal words of Ben & Jerry: "If it's not fun why do it?"