We’re back with the final installment of our look at the cars from the Secret Santa Rail Car Exchange I participated with in 2020. If you are just joining us, take a look at part one, two, and three of this series to catch up on the what, how, who, and why and see the cars you missed. We have some time.
Rail Car Secret Santa 2020 Part 1
Rail Car Secret Santa 2020 Part 2
Rail Car Secret Santa 2020 Part 3
Alright, let’s dig in to the next group of cars.
The mini builds: Mike and Scott H
The next two models are a bit of an oddball for this Secret Santa. There are micro scale train builds exchanged between Scott Hoffmeyer and Mike Bradley. Why micro, and why did they exchange gifts between them selves? Well, Mike and Scott H. came late to the party. They were not part of the original Secret Santa group organized in June of 2020 but are members of the same discord group we all talk on so followed along in reading about our madness. As the date for the big gift opening drew close, both Scott and Mike felt like they were missing out on some fun, so they hatched an evil plan. They desired to build and exchange micro trains with each other. Since they both live close enough to each other to meet up in person the plan was bound to fail. I mean succeed. They only made two rules for themselves.
- It must be a 2 wide train.
- They could only use parts they already had: no ordering parts.
Mini Christmas Train
Scott H’s build for Mike was a miniature version of his Christmas Train. It’s a little known fact that Scott hates trains and that he is a notorious rule breaker. So Scott’s mini train broke rule 2 with a locomotive that is definitely over the two wide limit.
Despite Scott’s blatant disregard for the rule he himself made, the train turned out pretty awesome.
Of course I’m just giving Scott H. a hard time since he declined to write anything about his build and just gave me permission to make up a bunch of stuff. Although most of what is said above is true, Scott really does hate trains.
Chicago Burlington and Quincy Train
Mike is a Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad fan, so his mini train of choice was a CB&Q covered hopper train. Obviously Mike can follow the rules better than Scott and stayed within the 2 wide gauge. The resulting model is pretty good for the size and easily recognizable. The locomotive is a six axle EMD and the covered hoppers are American Car & Foundry 2 bay cars.
The Pickle Car: Scott Roys gift for Cale
And now we get to the last car. This pickle car was built by Scott Roys as his gift to me. And before I let Scott R. loose with is his manifesto on building the car, I just wanted to say how happy I was to get this as my gift. Scott and I had talked briefly about pickle cars in the past, but I was not prepared for him to build me this gem. He knew the weird pickle car type was of interest to me though, and he really nailed it on this model. So thank you again Scott Roys, this car is one of my favorite cars in my fleet now. Now I just need to build some of those Hienz cars I keep dreaming about.
Now for some short words from Scott Roys.
Well, shoot, it’s December 7th and I am just starting the write-up requested for my Secret Santa participation. I just sent it out via FedEx so it should arrive in plenty of time for the 20 December opening event. I had intended to make notes as the process went along but, alas, that did not happen. What follows are the details as best I remember them with some prompting of photos I took along the way as well as discussion points on the Brick Train Depot Discord chat channel.
I’m not sure where to start so I’ll start with some “thanks-you’s” to those that donated various items and services to assist us in the process: Cale Leiphart and Cameron Miller for the sets of roller bearing trucks; Andy Mollman and OKBrickWorks for the excellent decal work; Cameron Miller, again, for decal graphic work and Chris Stone for organizing. The “payback” for donated wheelsets was this write-up on our particular model for a future BMR article.
We started discussing this back in May, as I recall, around the time that Brick World Chicago cancelled. Back then we still thought Covid would run its course quickly and we would all be joining up in DC for BrickFair, VA. Now it’s December and early 2021 shows are getting cancelled. Anyway, we decided the first BTD Discord discussion group Secret Santa would be limited to 16 participants, US only. With the virus wreaking havoc on international shipping (to include Canada) it did not seem feasible to include those folks in the party. Perhaps next year! Despite the initial excitement and some good-natured harassment, only 8 people felt that they had the time to participate. June was spent discussing finer points of the guidelines. It was decided that the models had to be 8-wide scale, cost around $100, include roller bearing trucks, and be an original freight MOC. The Kadee coupler conversions were not out yet so that did not enter the discussion. Chris Stone volunteered to be the organizer as he was not participating. That was a help for Cameron as he was participating and would not have to come up with some convoluted way of drawing names and not knowing who was building for him. So on 7 July, Chris drew the names and we all received our “lucky” receiver. I was thrilled and terrified to get the one and only, master builder and God-father of 1/48 scale Lego trains, Cale Leiphart. Where is my Dun-Dun-Dun sound file when I need it? Anyway, the good part of it was that Cale models the same era as I do (1940-50’s, the steam transition era) so anything I built, I could (and did) make one for myself. I would not have been as excited if I was doing something of the modern era which I find big, boxy, and boring. The only thing interesting about modern cars is the graffiti! Now, now, put down the pitch forks and torches. So, I started the process of selecting a model that was unique and Eastern in origin.
I had a couple ideas at the time but can only remember one which was some kind of depressed-center flatcar with a cool load on it. Penn Central had several different styles but I did not find one I liked. I am very grateful for this as I recently learned that Cale has already built one and it has an inventive way to swivel the double trucks. Note to self: look through your receiver’s Flickr page to see what you should NOT build! Somehow during this time, I came across the book, Pickle and Vinegar Makers of the Midwest by David Leider. I am fairly sure I got it from Ron’s Books which has one of the best selections of train books anywhere.
For a while, I had been looking for information on the Heinz Pickle cars. I thought perhaps this book may have the information that I was looking for and that it might have a model worth researching. The book was solid gold with a wealth of information about the industry and a big chapter on transportation of pickles and vinegar. It did have lots of information on the Heinz Industry, which I scanned through briefly and, in so doing, missed a rather important detail. Much of the pickle industry was centered around the Chicago area due to the fact that the best cucumber growing region was in the lower Michigan and the Illinois/Wisconsin border area. I assumed that this was true of Heinz also but later came to find out that their home base of operation was in Pittsburgh, PA! This would have fit Cale’s interest in eastern railroad perfectly and would have offered several cool modeling options. But back to the story of this pickle car. As I continued to scan through the book, I came to section on a smaller pickle packer named L. C. Forman based out of Pittsford, NY. The company had up to three rail cars between 1917 and 1960. Bingo! What is more, there were scale drawings with dimensions and cross-sections on page 133. I was set!
The LCFX2 car for the Forman Company is preserved at the New York Museum of Transportation. It is 49 feet, 7 inches long, 10 foot 5 inches wide and 10 foot, 10 inches tall. Converted to Lego dimensions, the car should be 40 studs, however, my model ended up being 36 studs long. This was due to how the car construction evolved over time. Four more studs could easily be added but the final result still looks “balanced”. The prototype is painted silver with a black under-carriage. Of course, silver is not a widely used Lego color so the next best option was Light Blue Grey. While I am very pleased with the end result, it kind of looks like a MOW (maintenance of way) car.
There were three features that I wanted to capture as realistically as possible: the 4 barrels, the cross tie-rods and the “openness” of the ends and ladders.
The barrels were the first challenge I tackled. I did not photograph my first attempt which I was pretty happy with. The core was three 6×6 round plates with 1×1 bracket pieces stuck in the holes (vice the space between the holes like a normal Lego clutch.) These parts could swivel and lined up very closely with edge of the round plate.
Per the picture, I could get eight of them to line up around the plate perimeter. I was able to attach a 1×4 tile to the bracket. I put a rubber band around these tiles and then filled in the gaps with more tiles. The end result was a decent cylinder design that I could make to various lengths in the future. However, it was not really the correct size for the model but at the time, I had no other ideas. The 8×8 round plate was too big as the tiles around the edge would have stuck out past the 8 wide flat car portion. With the vats too small, I downsized the car to fit but that did not look good either. After an embarrassingly long time, it finally dawned on me that Lego makes other round things called “rims”. Insert facepalm emoji here. Lego classifies all their tire rims by diameter and thickness. A little research on Bricklink revealed the perfect size; part # 55817, Viking Wagon Wheel with a 55mm diameter and 21mm width. Thankfully, they are fairly common, cheap and come in awesome purple! The width turned out to be exactly right as it was slightly under the length of the 1×3 tile which is 24 mm long. This become important when I needed the shorter length the clear the beams holding up the roof in between the tanks. In addition to the wheels, I went looking for some Lego rubber bands that would be critical to holding the tiles against the wheel and simulate the iron bands around the tank. While I could stretch most any rubber band around a tank, small ones would break causing all the tiles to fall off. I was able to source a bunch of part # x138, Rubber Band Extra-Large, which work very well. Once I had all my parts collected, it was time to build tanks. I quickly learned that trying to get tiles to stay put during the building process was difficult to say the least. At the suggestion of my ever patient, brilliant and understanding spouse, I cheated here a bit and put a stripe of double-sided tape around the perimeter of the wheel.
This immensely assisted with the construction but also served as a safety measure. If the rubber bands break, the tiles will stay put and not ruin the decals of which there are 6-8 per barrel. Note that the wheel is installed studs down on the axle to create a prefect 4 stud spacing between the deck and the roof of the car. The rubber bands were a bit of a challenge to install so that they were not twisted and were horizontal on the tank. It took some careful work with tweezers to make this happen.
The corner ladders were worked throughout the building process. I didn’t want the stack of 1×2 plates with handle featured on most hopper builds – too bulky and easy to knock out of alignment with the one-stud connection. One option was to use part # 35480, plate modified 1×2 rounded with 2 open studs as steps with 3mm hose as the vertical support. This worked great for my Rio Grande extended cab caboose but didn’t look good for this application. I next tried various robot arms and liked the look of the straight arm with the offset hands. At first, the off-set hands were a detractor since you can only have one side rail and the other end just has to “float”. As the build progressed and I finalized the corner post design, the off-set hands turned out to be perfect for the model. On the car sides, the ladder assembly is held in place with just one 1×1 with clip on the bottom frame. On the ends is a clip on both the top and bottom. On all ladders the edge to the corner is not secured as the hands are parallel to the floor. Each hand holds a short piece of tubing cut to the proper length to complete the grab-iron look.
The last critical detail was the cross-bracing. This detail evolved quite a bit during the building. I experimented with several options using string and 3mm tubing and a combination of the two.
The first option I tried was simply trapping thread-like string under a stud connection. This worked well but was too “fine” to have the visual impact I was looking for. Also, it was impossible to cut the string next to the connection point and not have some distracting fuzz sticking out. Next, I tried using the 3mm tubing. Visually, this was too bulky and was troublesome where they crossed.
I tried various ways of securing the tubing and came up with a couple interesting techniques, but none proved adequate for this application.
After eliminating these options, I turned to thicker string. I did use official Lego string which is called “String, Cord Medium Thickness”. The part number for “length, undetermined” is x77c. It also comes in lengths of 30, 35, 36.5, 50, 75, 100 and 125 cm so you also search for part #x77ccXX. The medium cord had the right look but was too thick to jam under a stud connection. After some experimenting, I resorted to slicing and dicing to get what I wanted. I pulled the lever off a hinge base and used a Dremel tool to carefully grind out some material.
This was necessary to hold a knot on the end of the string. After some of the knots slipped apart, I used a grill lighter to slightly melt them so they would stay intact. Tying the knots to the right length was also a challenge. I constructed a simple jig using some open stud 1×1 round plates with a short piece of 3mm tubing stuck in the hole. These were placed 15 studs apart on a plate which was very close to the length I needed for six of the eight cross-braces needed. The two braces that end at the bottom of the ladder on the right side of the car are about one stud shorter.
Some final notes. The flat car portion was heavily inspired by BMRs 53-foot, 70 ton flat car model. This portion went through many changes along the way as the length changed several times along with the underside details. I was happy to work in a black paint roller in the underside details. At one point, I attempted to make the center beam a single stud wide but that led to lots of spacing weirdness so that idea was tabled for another time. The posts are not fixed to the floor. They “hang” from attachment points on the roof. The only connection between the floor and roof are the 4 axles that go through the tanks.
Once assembled though, it is a surprisingly sturdy model. The roof is a little fragile for my liking but there was not room for a hinge piece to create the desired sloping. Also, I did not attempt to make vat doors that were openable
All in all, this was an interesting and fun experience. This is my only second true “scratch – built” model and I am very pleased with the final result. I am certainly looking forward to the next year’s event!
The End
So that’s the cars from our Rail Car Secret Santa Exchange in 2020. As this article is being published, we are gathering for the first session gift opening video call for the 2021 Secret Santa. Yes there are two openings this year. With 18 participants total it was impossible for all of us to schedule to be able to make it for one call, so we split it up this year.
We hope you enjoyed this look at the cars from 2020, and I’m hoping that I don’t have to wait so long to write about the cars from this year. Hint hint guys.
From all of us, have a happy holiday!