Lionel 607 painted

This weekend, I finished painting the Lionel 607 passenger car. I choose a middle red colour and not the more typical burgundy red colour. So, this passenger car will look more like the MTH remake than the original, but I just like this colour more. Last week, I already painted everything, but there was this one hair of half an inch that had landed on the wet black glossy paint of the roof.
Therefore, I had to redo the whole roof, but now I shines without this one curly hair.

I decided to assemble the window-pane in the car body and to put the roof on, just to see how the final result will look. There is still a couple of things to do. The axles still have some rust and need to be treated again. The wheels need to be polished better, to get rid off the last bits of black sooth.
Additionally, the lamp holder is severely rusted and it will be difficult to get it in a better state, because of all the grooves. Perhaps I will replace it with a new part. Well the couplers were also gone, so it will get some new shining couplers as well. The brass tank lids have some rust grooves and although it is polished and it shines, these grooves remain visible. A testomony of age, I would reacon.

Some blokes asked for it, so here is an additional picture of the All Nation Line C&LE box trailer kit in finished condition, well all but the couplers.

Applying decals

The paint work in the trailer kit did have some flaws, so I decided to sand them off and spray paint again. The paint job turned out much better. Now, I am busy applying the 0 scale CL&E freight trailer decals, I obtained from Shoreline decals. They work easy and look good. Just need to figure out where to place them all, with the help of some old pictures of the original and the drawings from the Traction handbook. And then the last steps will come: a dull coat to blend the decals in and the scratch building of some couplers.

Painting the All nation line traction trailer

The weather is excellent for some spray painting in the garden. First the box trailer was primed with a neutral grey paint. Then the roof was spray coated with dull black and the body of the trailer was painted "Maroon". This is a typical American colour which you will not find easily in Europe, but fortunately there is the Japanese brand Tamiya that globalises paint colours and brings American colours to Europe. Well, I am reasonably happy with the result. Just need to dust the car next time I make a picture, because there is too much tree pollen in the air right now.

The box trailer starts to get shape

After a few more evenings the All Nation Line kit of the box trailer car is starting to get shape. The facia boards were glued on and the door posts were glued in.

This box trailer will get operating doors and hence I fiddled to get two brass U-profiles glued in the right position to make the doors slide. Some wood had to be removed in order to lower the U-profiles in position.

Finally, the roof was shaped and it got a more rounded of appearance with the help of a file, a bit of sanding paper and some persistence.

Progress on the box trailer car

These rainy evenings are good for building the All Nation Line kit of the box trailer car. I read the instructions and the hints of other wooden kit builders on the web and decided to build the undercarriage first. So I started with cutting the wood of the undercarriage and glue the bolsters in place. Then I formed the end filler blocks and glued them on. Then the queen posts and brake cilinder were glued on with epoxy glue. I followed Dan's advise and did not use the brass wire for the truss rods but used Nylon 0,5 mm wire instead, which I glued to the backside with epoxy. Then the turnbuckles were glued on the centre of the wires.
Then it was time to turn the car around and assemble the top parts. Since the undercarriage width was about 3 mm short of what the drawings indicated that it should be and also compared to the size of the other parts, I decided to glue 1.5 mm wooden spacers between the undercarriage and the scribed wooden side panels. The same was done with the blocks on the front and back side of the car. Well, I am happy that it starts to look like a train car now.
The level of the brake rigging and the door handles is not very high and I thinking about fiddling around with some paper and wood to scratch build that a bit better. Then the question is, how did the brake system of such a interurban freight car look like?

Starting of with the All Nation line box trailer kit

About one and a half years ago, I purchased an All Nation Line kit #A-110 for a C&LE box trailer. Initially the kit appeared complete, but a closer inspection learned that one of the four scribed wood side panels lacked. The lines of the scribed wood are very fine and roughly only 2 millimeters apart. The side panels are 3 millimeter thick and since this is a standard size in balsa wood, I used a piece of 3 mm balsa wood and tried to engrave fine lines in the balsa with a sharp hobby knive. I could not reach the detail level required; the lines were not straight and 2 mm apart was difficult with 1 mm incisions. So, I left that idea and started with fine paper strips glued with wood glue on a 3 mm balsa panel. Well, that did work. I got a good replicate of a scribed wood panel. After painting the lot with tuscan brown the differences between the original and the self-made panel will be hard to spot. Some photo's show the progress with the task of glueing the fine paper stripes.

Now I can finally start building the kit. Because of the beautiful original American toy-train-lingo, I copied the text of the original instructions underneath.


Instructions for C&LE Box trailer
Kit # A-110
1. Glue filler blocks at end of floor.
2. Shape roof and floor ends as shown, nail and glue end blocks to same.
3. Cut out door openings in scribed sides and glue to car body.
4. Glue scribed wood to end of car.
5. Glue facia boards at eaves to car as shown.
6. Form tinplate and drill holes for nut and washer castings. Pin to car and attach nut and washer castings as shown.
7. Drill 3/16" brass I beam so that it can be pinned to car. Solder Queen posts to beam and attach to car. Add .032 wire for truss rods and solder turnbuckle in place. Glue wood bolsters in place at this time.
8. Make doors from 1/16" scribed wood. Glue doors in place or if you wish, you can make an operating door. Glue 1/8" quarter round to sides as shown in drawing. Threshold is made from 5/32" strip wood.
9. Attach all hardware, such as handgrabs, steps, brake wheel and etc. as shown.
10. Paint car and attach Arch Bar Trucks.

Fortunately for me, there are two helpful internet sites with hints and tips on how to build wooden train car kits. Dan clearly advises to start with the underfloor details: the bolsters, brake rig and queen posts and to use Nylon wire in stead of Brass wire for the truss rods. And George Riley of the Railroad model craftsman also advises to start with the undercarriage and seal the wooden parts.

All-Nation Line #A-110

Last week a post war freight car kit in scale 0 arrived here and I am very pleased with it. The brand is "All-Nation Line" which was unknown to me, but several friends on the TCAMG forum explained me that it was a hobby shop in Chicago owned by Bob Colson that produced wooden-metal kits from the 40's up to the 70's of the last century. This kit has the first address (La Salle street) printed on the instructions and hence must originate from before 1961. Here in Europe such a kit is truely rare and it pleases me to share it with a wider audience.



The box itself is thick high quality folding carton with a dark-red top-paper of 7.5 x 7.5 x 31 cm size. The kit is mostly composed of wooden parts, of which one triplex wooden side panel is missing, but that can easily be remade (9.2 x 4.5 x 0.3 cm). The metal trucks have functional springs and several other details are also made from metal (feels like a tin alloy): brake wheel, brake cilinder, door handles, nut and washer casting, turnbuckle, steps...



The instructions are concise and contain some pretty American English train-words (eaves, facia boards, Queen pests, turnbuckle, etc.) ensuring that it will be an instructive kit for me.


The model is a 36' box trailer of the C&LE traction. Or in more plain English it is freight car of the interurban electrical tramway company named Cincinnaty and Lake Erie. This was a pretty amazing transport company that run high speed streetcars through most of Ohio and Indiana in the years of the great depression. The website of the Indiana Historical Society has an essay devoted to this company and it is a pleasure to read it. When passenger traffic declined they started to run also freight streetcars and this model is a freight car that would be pulled by an electrical engine or streetcar. Two old pictures from internet are included that show how the interurban freight car should look like when finished. More pictures can be found at for instance the Trolleystop and Don Ross website.