Note the addition of cars in the 125,000 and 103,000 series. Once the Bowser 100 ton cars and the BLI H2A cars became available, I had to add expand the series to accommodated these cars. A quick check of the numbering series for the C&O's vast hopper car fleet revealed that cars were numbered in a variety of series. So adding the 103,000 and 125,000 series certainly seemed plausible.
As part of my renewed focus on building hopper cars for the layout, I took a tally of how many had been completed. There were just under 100 cars that had been painted and lettered for the home road. It occurred to me that I could memorialize a milestone by numbering the 100th car as XX100. And while I was at it, I may as well number the 99th car. So below are numbers 125100 and 125099 at Hollister Yard in North Pierce, WV.
In the picture below, 125100 is rolling east on the Sand Fork Shifter headed for one of the tipples along the Sand Fork Branch.
And in this last shot, we catch 125099 crossing White Oak Creek Trestle, having been loaded earlier in the day at Consolidated Coal Tipple #4 at the end of the Sand Fork Branch.
I sure hope it doesn't take as long to get to #'s 199 and 200 as it did to get to these two...
Fantastic looking hoppers, Tom! What's your technique for the rusty interiors?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dan. It's actually the combination of two techniques- one that I learned from Robby Vaughn and one that I picked up from Anthony Hardy. The base coat of rust comes from Sophisticated Finishes' Rust Antiquing Set. It comes with a bottle of iron metallic surface paint and a bottle of rust antiquing solution. You apply the paint, let it dry, and then brush on the antiquing solution. The solution actually oxidizes the iron in the paint and produces rust. Robby Vaughn came up with this idea, and it works great. Once this step is complete, I pour coal dust into the bottom of the car and then tip it out one side. Then repeat, tipping the coal out the other side. This leaves coal dust in the bottom of the car and along the sides in random patterns. This neat little trick was Anthony's idea and it adds just the right amount of leftover coal inside the car.
DeleteTom