Railwire Modeling Challenge 2014:
Tank Car Sanding Tower
This intriguing challenge was inspired by a sanding tower made from part of an old tank car. I used Bing Maps to provide additional views of the prototype.
The fact that it was never painted over provided the starting point: a UTLX tank car, which had been made by Micro-Trains. I happened to have one of these cars on hand, and had no aversion to chopping it up for the sake of entering the challenge.
My first step was to fill in all of the slots and holes in the bottom part of the tanker. Then I carved the unused half of the tank to fill in the dome opening. I made the legs from Evergreen I-beam, with plain styrene gussets.
I happened to find a cast metal bin (part of a dust collector kit, as I recall), and made the rest of the details from various bits and pieces of styrene and brass wire stock. Hoses were made from very fine wire. And a piece of etched brass ladder finished it off.
The model now has a home on the White
River & Northern VIII.
