De-ja Vu

A few weeks ago I came across an offering on ebay for a number of Walthers (TM) twin hoppers decorated for the DL&W. From the enlargement they looked spot on and were advertized as a special run by Accurate Finishing, Inc of Elburn, IL. I must have missed these when I was in my house designing and building period. Were any of you aware of them? In any case, I ordered 2. When they arrived I put them on the "To Do" shelf and figured I'd correctly detail them as a rainy day project. This past week provided a number of such days and I needed them all. I pulled out the two I had previously done for the article, the article itself and, referring to them for accuracy in detailing, I got to work.

The article appeared in the June-July issue of Prototype Modeler when Jim Six and Mike Schafer were editing. In rereading it I think it still holds up well. The DL&W cars were built in two 500 car series by ACF. The fellow from Accurate Finishing may have read my piece since one of the cars I received was numbered 87247. This matched in every way the Warren Garrick prototype photo Paul Gnash and Bob Fischer provided to me.

The basic model from Walthers (TM) is a PS-3 but comes close to the ACF cars. It's certainly the best starting point on the market that I'm aware of. There was a bit of subtracting, adding and detailing to be done but, that accurate lettering was easy to preserve. The only part I cheaped out on, that I did on the models built in the 80's, was to skip drilling out and adding all the drop steps. My OCD is as much a factor in my modeling as ever but, how many get to even this point now days? From the pictures you can see most of the changes made to the model and what it will look like finished.

Hopefully there's something here for all of you. There are now legions of modelers going to this extent with detail thanks to that "Band of Brothers" that got the Prototype Modeling approach going in the late 70's and early 80's Maybe you'll recognize a few names on the contacts list?

Best to all,

Wayne