Here, after more than a year, is my East Broad Top coach #12. A fairly drastic modification of the Accucraft Jackson & Sharp Fn3 coach.
The prototype was acquired by EBT from the Au Sable & Northern - in fact, Kevin found a couple of photos of it while in operation there.
In WWII, the Navy in Hawaii needed some 3’ gauge equipment to move men and machinery around Honolulu, so they went shopping, and from the EBT they bought 4 coaches. After the war the equipment has all declared surplus and it was scrapped. In 1947, some railroad fans happened upon the scrap line and took a few photos, which were published in the Friends of EBT magazine, Timber Transfer. This photo turned out to be the best photo of coach #12 that we found. Even though the author of the piece was unable to identify it, the curved ends and window frames give it away.
Coach #12 is 44’ long, some 3’ approx longer than an Accucraft Jackson & Sharp coach (“J&S”). It has 14 windows, whereas the J&S has only 12 and a toilet compartment wall. It just happened that I had an old J&S coach side lying on the bench, from an earlier conversion, and also some frame and roof pieces from EBT Baggage #29, which had to be shortened to scale length. The latter coach was a board-and-batten type, as was coach #20, so I had some idea what it would take to make a model from the J&S with lots of added styrene.
So I figured, why not cut off the blank and add 2 windows from the old coach side? No reason, and finally, last summer, I got started. I stripped down the new coach and fed it through the table saw, along with the old side.
Here’s the sides under construction.
The coach is board-and-batten, without the vertical siding that the J&S exhibits. In addition, it has those curves on the upper window frame, so I had Alan Friedland at Great American Locomotion cut me some new frames in 0.5mm styrene.
This is a test of the new window frame. Alan and I debated the radius of the curve - he wanted it bigger, and I think he was right. From any distance, you can hardly see the curve.
I made a small jig that fits over the battens around the window and to hold the battens in place while the glue dries. A strip of 0.5mm black styrene covers the old vertical siding, and smaller strips fit between the windows. A long strip covers the top windows to make the letterboard. Small bits of styrene were necessary to fill the gap at the top of the window under the letterboard.
The frame was cut with the gaps in different locations. Most of the frame is a U-section so you can slip a strip of plastic in the U and glue it to set the frame to the new length. I attached the reworked sides back to the ends using the original J&S screws and tabs (one of which was still intact on each end,) and fiddled with the frame until it fit inside the ends + sides.
After gluing, I extended the tie rods (with brass tube and rod,) and relocated the queen posts to a sensible location, slightly further apart than it used to be. The tie rods needed judicious re-bending. A sheet of aluminum was cut to replace the old steel floor which was now too short. ( I find the steel floor is overkill - the brass trucks add quite enough weight.)
Speaking of trucks, before I even started the body, I removed the trucks and, as usual, drilled out the axle boxes for some small ball bearings, removed the plastic body supporter, and smoothed down the bolster so the truck would let the body sit much lower than before.
Here’s the completed frame after painting with flat black primer. There’s a 9V battery in the middle, held on with a brass strap, that feeds the interior lights through a new push-button switch. I later added another light to the roof array, as the length extension made it seem necessary. The couplers are Accu 1/32nd scale versions, to match the EBT 3/4 size couplers.
The ends had similar battens added, and a couple of windows cut into the end.
The cut-off top of the end is to facilitate conversion to a removable roof. I prefer to solidly glue the sides and ends to the frame, so a means of getting inside in an emergency is needed. [Like when you accidentally push a window in and have to take off the roof to re-glue it in place!]
Here’s the end from the inside, with two square tubes screwed and glued to the end, and a couple of countersunk screws bolting the top piece to the end. Not pretty, but functional and difficult to spot once the roof is in place.
Having painted the sides and ends and adding the dry transfer lettering, I glued the frame and bodywork together.
The curved roof ends were interesting. I looked around the bench and found a Philadelphia Cheese pot lid was about the right curve, so I made a jig to help me draw the curve.
After cutting it approximately to the curve (with the table saw) I sanded it own and took off the remaining lip inside, plus I sanded the end of the roof to flatten it a little. Then I glued a strip of styrene under the end so it would wrap around the curved corners. (I should have waited - the strip got in the way of the rest of the roof processes, as it projected below the roof. It would have been better to do it last.) You can also see the small length of dowel that I use to fill the hole where the chimney used to fit. This coach seems to have no roof appendages at all.
Anyway, back to the table saw and I cut the roof sides and clerestorey at different points. The pieces of roof left over from the baggage were 1.25" long, and this coach is 1.75 longer, so there was still a gap. The two halves of the roof were held together by long (6") strips of 1/4" square tube glued into the underside. [After removing any paint - difficult to do on these coaches. Accucraft must use bullet-proof or temperature-proof stuff.]
The extra 1/2" was filled with layers of thin styrene and sanded down to match the profile. The windows in the clerestory were re-framed with small bits of styrene where the cut had been made. Fortunately this coach had a different configuration of windows and vents at the center, so I was able to place two vents side by side. The photos didn’t give me any details of what the ventilators looked like, so I used some 1/4" styrene and sanded down the corners. The molded grills were painted flat black to represent windows covered with screens. The vents went in the actual window openings, with a small strip holding them in place.
(You can also see the two covered holes where countersunk screws hold the tops of the ends to the roof. Putty was used to fill them.)
The roof was covered using Kevin’s method, with aluminum duct tape. The trick is to draw some lines on the roof at the right spacing, so you can overlap each layer. Rubbing the tape with a wooden stick makes it flatten down.
And that was it. A bit of masking to let me paint the clerestory sides green and the roof black. Any inconsistencies in the roof tape are prototypical (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
The photos were take after I had thoroughly covered the whole coach with a layer of 50% dark grey acrylic paint. It takes the shine off and makes the whole thing look very dull and old.
