Athearn's Double Door Boxcars

Athearn's Double Door Boxcars Athearn's Double Door Boxcars...
Athearn makes a Double Doored boxcar that is based on a UP prototype. It is not accurate for any of the types of double door boxcar that Chessie had. It is close however to the WM Class B-117 which came with numbers 31051-31065. Also it is fairly close to C&O Class B-034 which came with numbers 28250-28999. I originally purchased these kits at a train show (buy one get one free for $5.75) to do B&O double door boxcars. I found out after some research that the B&O ones are too different to the Athearn kit, so I did one WM and one C&O. There will be one flaw with mine, they will have roofwalks. The holes have rings around them that will be very difficult to sand off without destroying the roof detail. It is better to just leave the roofwalk. A minor difference from the prototype.

Below are two Dean Heacock pics of the WM and C&O cars.

How to make Athearn Double Door Boxcars:
1. Paint the undecorated cars C&O Enchantment Blue.
2. Spray a clear gloss finish on the sides and ends for the decals.
3. Apply a black wash to the roof.
4. Drybrush the roof and roofwalk with successively lighter shades of dark blue, ending with light grey or white.
5. Decal the car as seen above.
6. Seal the sides with clear flat finish.
7. Overspray the entire model with dark grey, use an overspray on the bottom 1/4 of dirt color.
8. Seal again with clear flat.
9. You are done.

Below are some inwork pics of my two cars. Notice that the two cars are both double doored boxcars but they are decaled differently. These two cars were not delivered in Chessie colors and instead were repainted by different people at different times. The WM car has the Chess-C logo more towards the center, the "Chessie System" logo more towards the outside, and the car data more towards the center. Even very similar cars have little differences. Enjoy.

Below are the finished products ready to hit the rails. Notice the consolidated stencils and wheel inspection dot have been added. The sides have been lightly weathered.