Okay, so I get this Caboose Hobbies gift card from my parents for Christmas. So, what on earth could I possibly want at Caboose Hobbies?

Well, after much deliberation (okay, about 10 seconds), I left the store with one of Bachmann's 1:20.3 box cars. I wasn't quite sure what--exactly--I was going to do with it, as it really didn't look much like an EBT box car. My first thought was to letter it for the Tuscarora Valley, since little is known about their box cars, and photos are relatively scarce. I don't think any of their box cars were quite as large as this, nor as "refined." (Most of the TVRR's freight equipment came second-hand, and was on the "rustic" side of the equation. I could easily letter it for my Tuscarora Railroad, since that's a freelance road, but I'd prefer to stick with my storyline of the TRR owning only locomotives, and just using the EBT's rolling stock. Could it pass as an EBT car? Having already scratchbuilt an EBT 2nd generation car, I was anxious to get it home and compare the two cars just in case something could work.



The stock Bachmann car coupled to my scratchbuilt EBT 2nd generation box car shows them to be surprisingly similar in size.

The Bachmann car is just slightly lower than the EBT car.

The wide overhang of the roof makes the Bachmann car appear a fair amount wider than the EBT car, though the carbodies themselves are virtually identical in width.

What I saw surprised me. The two cars are almost identical in length, width, and height, with the B'mann car being just slightly lower (around 1/8") and shorter (around 3/8", and ever so slightly wider (around 1/16"). Their primary physical features such as the fascia board over the door and end trusses were surprisingly similar. Yet there were some strong differences, too. The end door isn't prototypical, and the end trusses--while similar--aren't exact. All these features could be remedied in the workshop, but ultimately the two cars would still not quite be exact twins due to the inherent size differences. So I got to wondering how plausible it would be if the EBT had one car--perhaps the first of a batch--that was slightly different from the rest.

The answer came--oddly--from the EBT's steel cars, which were built only a year after the EBT started building the wood cars. In looking photos of the door hardware, some of the hardware used was dead-nuts identical to that which is modeled on the Bachmann car. The EBT had a long habit of copying existing designs and buying hardware from existing suppliers. Who's to say the EBT didn't "borrow" the design of an existing box car, buy the hardware, then refine their own design with subsequent cars? Certainly a car that was just "slightly" off from the others would be justifiable.

Also, by a strange twist, I numbered my first car #150, thinking the EBT started there and worked up. That wasn't the case. They were numbered as replacements for the older 1st generation cars, as such were not done sequentially, but as the old cars were pulled and scrapped. #150 was built in 1912, but at least 10 other cars were built the previous year. With that, the project quickly gained speed to transforming the car to an EBT car, as opposed to just making some minor mods and repainting it.

Changes
The most notable change to the car comes in the ladders. The EBT cars (and for some reason a number of eastern railroads) didn't use "typical" grab irons for the ladders, rather they built, well, ladders. Presumably the sides of the ladder would keep the crews' feet from sliding off in inclement weather.

The stock rungs were yanked out and the cast-on nut/bolt detail directly above were ground off. New ladder sides were made from styrene, and glued over the original holes (so I wouldn't have to fill them.) New rungs were bent from copper wire. These are held in place with Atlas track nails. Unfortunately, Atlas seems to have changed suppliers for their track nails, and the heads are a bit wider and slightly flatter than the old ones. On the flip side, the new nails' shanks have "ribs" pressed in that help them hold position. Since I just press-fit the nails into the side of the car, this extra grip proved quite advantageous.

I left the grab irons on the roof alone. The EBT car had wood platforms on the roof, but I opted to leave them off. It's believed the first 2nd generation cars had wood roofs like this, but got metal lining on subsequent maintenance. The steel cars built in 1913 all had metal lining on top of wood roofs. Presumably the wood platforms on the corners of the roofs would allow for better footing, so it's possible that the original wood roof cars did not have the platforms. (The 1st generation cars lacked them.) This photo shows the top of the brake platform, too. The brake staff was shortened around 3/4".

Also shown in this photo is how I cut around 1/8" off the sides of the roof, reducing the overhang. I then went through with a saw and cut the ends of the boards to give them a bit more definition.

The narrowed roof is much closer to the EBT car.

The narrowing of the roof is evident where the door begins, and the roof extended to cover the door hanging hardware. I also added NBW castings similar in size to Bachmann's molded details to enhance the look. I also sanded the fascia board with 60 grit sandpaper to give it some wood grain--something overlooked by the folks at Bachmann. The vertical styrene strip takes the place of the cast-iron door stop hardware that came on the car. The holes where these castings fit into the car were filled with putty.

I  cut board ends and punched nail holes into the roof walk to give that a bit more life. I still need to dress the sides up a bit, but will do that when I take the car apart for painting.


On the underside, I removed the air brake mechanisms, as these cars were originally built without them. (The EBT was busy fighting the government on safety appliances at this point, making the ill-founded case that they were exempt.)


I installed Kadee #820 couplers to the car, and added draft gear timbers to the outside to complete the look.


I needed to add a bit of filler to the end block on the car just above the coupler. This end block also needed to be roughed up with sandpaper to give it some wood grain. Another "oops" on Bachmann's part.


The finished car, ready for a trip to the paint shop. It's got a very similar appearance to the original 2nd generation car--so close that if they were not together in a train, you'd think they were twins. Had I not already built the first car, I would very likely have gone the extra steps on the Bachmann car to make it exactly like the EBT's cars (plugged the end door and changed the end trusses.) At the same time, history tells us that the EBT was very good at adapting cars for various uses, as we're finding photos of 1st generation cars with end doors and other features we thought didn't exist. Whose to say they didn't cut an end door in some of the early 2nd generation cars?

Painting will have to wait until the temperatures warm up a bit. I prefer to paint in the garage with the door open, and sub-freezing temperatures tend to make that just a bit problematic, if not just uncomfortable.

Later,

K