Rich Yoder’s Bx-6 Panel Side Boxcar and Sk-2 Stock Cars
I just finished up my 6 Rich Yoder Santa Fe freight cars and put them in service, 1 Bx-3 panel side boxcar, 3 Bx-6 panel side boxcars, and 2 Sk-2 stock cars. I’ve included photos of one Bx-6 and one Sk-2 to show what I did to improve the fine models Yoder produced.
First of all, the cars were way too shiny and the roofs of the boxcars were jet black and shiny and all the trucks were black.
For some reason, one of the boxcars also had a black underbody.
As delivered, the Bx-3 and 6 series cars did, indeed, have black underbodies, trucks, and roofs.
However, by my timeframe of 1947-1951, ATSF had repainted the trucks and underbodies mineral red and the boxcar roofs had antiskid black stuff applied, which looked dark gray.
Hence, I had to mask off and re-spray the boxcar roofs dark grimy black, then repainted the one underbody and all the trucks mineral red. ATSF rebuilt many of the Bx-3 and Bx-6 boxcars into Sk-2 stock cars, which were all mineral red.
I made up decals for the servicing stencils on the ends of the air tanks and reporting marks on the frames of the trucks.
FYI for you non-ATSF guys: The ATSF had a thing about mounting their air reservoir tanks perpendicular to the rails instead of parallel to them as most railroads did.
Rich Yoder got this detail right, and the air tank stencil goes on the end of the air tank. After adding the extra lettering, I added liberal amounts of dirt, grease and oil where I deemed appropriate.
By the late 40s, these cars were definitely not in pristine shape. I should have taken an as built shiny photo for comparison I guess. It’s hard to imagine just how shiny and pristine they were before I worked them over.