Jackson & Sharp Coaches

I thought that, you might appreciate seeing my "varnish" here in the new Dulles & Reston Garden Weeds R.R. livery.

First, as usual, the official builder's photos:

Both together


No. 47, "San Joaquin"


No. 29, "San Jose"

A couple of quarter shots:



I replaced the individual clear plastic window castings (which looked too much like cast plastic) with a single sheet of clear ABS on each side.


As you can see, Ken the traveling salesman has changed trains again. (He does get around a lot.)


Here's a shot of some of the passengers taken before the bodies were put on. Some are from Railroad Avenue (a few modified a bit) and the rest I picked up here 'n' there, I removed the armrests on the wall-side of the seats, leaving only the aisle-side ones. The 'material' on the seats is just paint, weathered a bit.


Power for the lighting comes from rechargeable 7.4 volt lithium-ion battery packs hidden in the heads (pardon me for talking like a marine.) No. 47 - shown here - has a three-way switch that turns on all the lights or just the rear marker lamps only.


I was inspired by Bruce Chandler ("The Joat") to use magnets to make the gladhands connect realistically. I have since converted all of my rolling stock this way - it really makes a big difference and was relatively easy to do. For more info see my ( how-to )


here is pic of the end car, you can see the end of the air hose, with the tiny magnets.


The bolsters on the trucks were lowered about an eighth of an inch and safety chains were added. To finish the cars I used Badger ModelFlex paint - "Pennsy Maroon" - applied with an airbrush on the bodies, "Grimy Black" on the trucks.......


I used my masking tape method to simulate tarpaper roofs ( see my how-to ) and modified the smoke stacks a bit just to make them a little different from everyone else's.


I put frosted glass in the clerestory windows, as well as the bathrooms to help hide the battery packs. .
To make the frosted windows I sprayed an even layer of Testor's DullCote on the back of the clear ABS - sometimes two coats, then to add a touch of class to the "etched glass" I added the railroad logo, I just used white decal (from Stan Cedarleaf) applied in reverse to the back of the "frosted" glass.


I kept the original lighting in place but used the aforementioned battery packs to power them.


On my RGMUK combine, I lowered the truck bolsters also and modified the windows to match my other coaches.

As much as I like my Carter Brothers "duckbill" coaches, I like these even better. They admirably fill a long-neglected void in the Fn3 range of options. Their method of construction readily lends itself to modification and allows for a lot of potential variety on everyones' pike. I look forward to seeing more bashs of these models here. Thanks for looking at mine. As usual, your questions and comments are welcome.