Figure 15 Figure 15: An unmodified Red Caboose X29 with 10 side panels. Figure 16: The new eight panel rivet pattern made with Archer rivets on the Red Caboose model creating a Reading XMt class boxcar. were dimensionally similar to the ARA all-steel boxcar design. The Pennsylvania Railroad X29 has the same dimensions as the ARA car and models are available in HO and O scale but with a plate roof and other details specified by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The biggest difference between the X29 and the ARA car is the number of side panels. The X29 has ten while the Reading and NYC cars (as well as those of other railroads) have eight panels. The X29 models are easily converted to either New York Central or Reading cars using rivets decals. Reading Company’s first all-steel boxcars, in class XMt, were built in two
Page 35 • Issue 11-08 • Aug 2011
groups. American Car and Foundry built cars with corrugated ends, but the Standard Steel Car Co. built cars numbered in group 100500 to 100999 with flat plate ends like the X29 models. These cars had drop rungs instead of ladders, but I have not been able to verify which the New York Central Lot 504B cars had. Reading class XMu cars were slightly newer and their interior was 8” taller. Otherwise they were similar to X29 cars. The New York Central usually ordered freight cars in lots of thousands, but there were just 100 cars in Lot 504B. Red Caboose made an excellent HO kit, now available ready-to-run from Intermountain. I was in touch with
• Adding Realistic Rivets, page 9
Figure 16 Red Caboose, and they have a limited number of parts which they are willing to make up as kits on request. There was also a Train Miniature ARA all-steel boxcar often called an X29. These cars had a standing seam roof unlike the plain steel plate roof of the X29. These cars are now available from Walthers in a three pack of built up cars. Atlas has a well detailed O scale X29 car. I began work on the Red Caboose car which comes decorated for the Reading and also as a 1924 PRR X29. Any of the Red Caboose models with plate ends can be used for this project. I sanded down the rivets from the car sides being careful to avoid removing the rivets on the ends and top edge of the sides. Once the rivets were sanded off I saw the manufacturer simulated
the pattern of overlapping steel side sheets by thickening the car side at one edge of each panel in a series of little “ramps” (figure 14). I realized it would be a lot of work to sand the sides flat, so I began the project again with a Walthers (ex Train Miniature) “X29” model with a standing seam roof, similar to the Reading and New York Central cars. Since this model was first produced nearly forty years ago and has molded on details, I figured the sides would be flat, making easy to remove the rivets. Unfortunately, Train Miniature also simulated the overlapping panel ”ramp” design. I ended doing a lot of sanding since I made several cars. In hindsight, instead of sanding down the “ramps” simulating the overlapping side sheets of the car, it might have been easier to cut out and replace the car sides with sheet styrene.
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