The Metropolitan West Side Company,
The Chicago & Oak Park (Lake St.) Company,
The South Side "L" Company, and
The Northwestern "L" (north side) Company.
The CRT was a "holding" company. This is explained on page 5 of "The Chicago 'L's' Great Steel Fleet ~The Baldies~". The reason I bring this matter up is, each of the operating companies had their own unique quarks when it came to the operation and appearance of their cars.
The reason it impacts you, the modeler, is you have to pay attention as to:
how and where the springs between the cars were mounted,
where the car number was displayed - car side and/or glass plates,
the use of auxiliary lights after dark,
did the name "Chicago Rapid Transit" appear on the letterboard,
the couplers used, and more.
While the CTA may have altered the appearance of the 4000 series of cars more than the CRT, it is these unique quarks when it came to the operation and appearance of the individual operating companies' cars that endears the CRT to me!
Other Holes
As mention in the prior post not all the locations where holes have to be drilled have a dimple (except for the holes mentioned in the prior post under the "Beware").
The items to receive a hole(s) include:
the windshield wiper,
the hand/foot grab irons to the roof,
the route/marker lamp locations, and
the headlight with mounting brackets.
In preparing my model I may have missed a hole or 2. They can still be drilled even after the model is painted.
Windshield Wipers - For the Plushies the windshield wiper was installed below and centered on the motorman's window. Your sharp, hobby awl can be used to make a small started hole.
Hand/Foot Grab Irons to the Roof - The Plushies had trolley poles. There had to be a way for an employee of the "L" to reach the top of the roof. Dimples for grab irons on the roof itself are provided but not for the curly-Q hand/foot grab irons on the car's ends to the left (looking at the end) of the center door frame.
Cincinnati Car Co. was crafty enough to use the rivets in the car's ends to install these grab irons. This is where your sharp, hobby awl really comes in handy to push off a rivet and make a hole in the epoxy. The location for the new dimples can be derived by either measuring distances or counting the rivets.
The curly Q hand/foot grab irons are easy to make. I'll show you later.
Route and Marker Lamps - For the holes for the route/marker lamp locations, I generally make the holes at the bottom of where the long narrow bracket holders are located on the body post of the car. We'll have to postpone any hole drilling for bulbs in the lamps until later.
Headlight and Brackets - My car is to be the lead car for a train routed through the subway. Therefore a headlight hole is required. Two other holes for the headlight bracket are required on both the front and rear center-end doors. Check photos for the locations of the brackets. More about the brackets later.
The CRT headlights were Crouse-Hinds with the small lens. This is a photo of my CRT headlight. My son was kind enough to make the large jack into which the headlight is "plugged". The wire coming out of my CRT home-made jack has an Edison plug to be "plugged" into house-hold current.
A Q-Car Co. B140 Lightweight Suburban Headlight brass casting was used. It's of the correct outside diameter. To give the headlight casting a smaller lens and a location for a bulb, a piece of 0.125" diameter brass tubing was used. To solder the piece of brass tubing in place, the tubing was slide into the hole in the casting all the way to the front of the casting. Then solder was used to fill in the gap between the tubing and the casting. The casting/tubing/solder object was placed in a lathe and the center of the tubing/solder was made flat with the surface of the casting. It could have been cut "in" just a bit as there was a lip around the edge of the prototype headlight. I didn't want to risk doing this.
A 16 v Miatronics bulb was inserted into the headlight with the glass showing up over the end of the casting just like the glass lens on the prototype. ACC was used to glue the bulb in place. The assembly was placed aside for future installation.
A hole large enough for the brass tube to extend through the end door was made. As for the brackets, since a Q-Car B140 headlight is being used, the B141 were used. The headlight comes with 1 bracket, 1 more bracket is needed for the rear door.
Items to Add to the Body Prior to Re-Primering
Q-Car included with the body the 2 trolley pole hold down brackets. If you do not have any, they can be gotten from Q-Car. They are part B151 or you can make your own from strip brass. ACC the hold down hooks on the trolley boards.
The final item is the roof mounted fuse box. For some reason ALL cars with trolley poles operated on the "L" had to have a roof mounted fuse box including ALL "L", NSL, and CA&E cars. This fuse box sits on 2 short legs and what looks like a hinge. The open end of the fuse box is facing over the roof of the car at the very edge of the roof board. The raised end of the box is near the centerline of the car. Should the fuse "blow", especially at night, the rider under where this fuse is located was in for a spectacular light show and sound!
Current Line Models has the C-270 Roof Fuse NS, CA&E soft metal casting set available. The set includes the fuse box plus 2 legs. The little pins on the legs fit into the holes in the back of the fuse box. Glue the legs to the box and then the assembly to the roof boards near the #1 end of the model.
Should the Current Line Models product no be available, you can used Q-Car CS059 Large Fuse Box and add the small hinge and legs. The photos below show how to do this.
This is the fuse box. Although it says "Large" the casting is small!
For the "hinge" looking bracket an index card was folded along one of the lines. The pencil mark is the amount to be cut out. Besides using index cards, I've used the card stock used with the part as part of the packaging.
The hinge looking bracket.
Two legs made from styrene strips are ACC'ed to the top. Note the bend in the styrene. The excess strips will be cut off prior to mounting. The red arrow points to the "hinge" looked bracket.
The roof mounted fuse ACC'ed to the roof boards.
You may be asking why other items are not being added now. If you look at color photos of the 4000's you'll notice almost all of the metal hardware - handrails, grab-irons, brackets, etc. are painted black. It's easier to paint the model the correct colors and not have to worry about masking off too much.
Plus, It's far easier to paint the parts to be painted black, to paint them black and installed them afterward than to try to paint them black after every thing has been painted the body colors. Also, if they had been added to the body prior to painting, these parts would be subject to 1 or more coats of primer. It's best to give them 1 light primer coat prior to painted them black than having some of the parts filled in with paint.
Finally the body comes with the utility vents installed. Sometimes the molds used to make the castings do not match-up as well as they should. Then the castings will have noticeable lines where the molds came together. With the castings already mounted, filing the castings may be difficult. Do the best job you can.
Now the body can be re-primered. When the primer is dry, attach the floor to the body with the 2 flat head screws provided.
The next post will be the striping of paint from a Q-Car epoxy body written by Carl Lantz.
Cheers,
Ed
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