Final Assembly

Now that the underframe, body, and roof sub-assemblies are complete, I just did a dry-fit to see how everything looked. As you can see in the next photo, I was surprised to find that the roof didn't fit properly. This is a well-design and executed kit, so I was surprised to find this problem at the end. I went back to look at the kit's photos of the model and studied them for a while. It is hard to see in the kit's photos, but I finally concluded that the top of the brass end wall is supposed to sit outside (or in front of) the roof's front/back edge.

What I concluded was that the vertical styrene parts needed to be sanded down. I placed the roof on the body, as shown in the next photo, and slowly moved it forward. It is supposed to slide over the vertical pieces and hit the brass wall. I just kept filing and trimming the pieces' tops until the roof was able to slide across them cleanly.

This photo shows the correct position of the roof. It is supposed to butt up against the brass wall. It is then effectively squeezed between the two brass walls. Now the fit was perfect.

I had previously posted on this web site that I had bought a pair of brass trucks that were made for this car. I tried for several days to deal with the fact that the brass trucks had shrunk during the manufacturing process, which meant that the critical distance between the truck's sideframes was too short to fit a standard set of wheels in it. I finally just gave up. I also noticed one day that the caboose trucks that American Models carries are a lot closer match to the prototype cabin cars photos I had seen. I ordered a pair of those. They also provide the ability to pick up track power through the wheels. By positioning the wheels such that one truck picks up power from one rail and the other from the other rail, it is possible to provide electricity to the lights in the cabin car. When I placed the car on the track, I noticed the couplers were way too low, as is evident in the next photo showing the car on my coupler gauge jig. The top of the coupler is supposed be even with the top of the block of wood. I resolved that by adding some washers and a nut to the screw that attaches the truck to the body. There are two small pins under the American Models truck that I had to cut off to get the washers and the screw to fit.