Lanes Trains S Scale Conrail & PRSL N11

Conrail & PRSL N11

This has been a very long off and on project - mostly off for many years. It all started in 2002. I was becoming more interested in the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines which was the railroad nearest to me growing up. The only correct PRSL “Cabin Cars” in S Scale were Overland N5 brass – hard to find in the pre-internet days and were expensive. I saw a photo of 252 and liked it. I have some memories of the PRSL running. The transfer caboose was the correct time period for me just before becoming Conrail. The number one aspect for me about S Scale is having something that is one of a kind if I make it or bought it.

I belonged to many Yahoo groups. On 1 of the groups was Chad Boas that was making very nice HO cars from styrene and casting them in urethane for sale. I asked if he would make me a N11 which he declined but did make me this cabin.

And so it was started. My plan was to make the frame from brass to give it some weight. Obviously 24 years later that did not happen. It became a work on it for a while project many times. In 2008 I learned Solidworks forever changing my modeling skills. That eventually led to me doing my own 3D printing as well. I liked the whole open grating of the platforms and steps.

Added 7-4-26

In the few months since I last worked on this the “just making a frame” idea changed to designing a complete 3D printed car including printing the end railings. I found this Conrail drawing that confirmed Chad’s original shell was not far off at all from being correct in spite of me not giving him any info when he made it.

Now the plan is to make the 3 PRSL N11 and make the same 3 cars again in the Conrail paint scheme. I am not even going to use the shell that Chad made for me! I got Circus City to make the decals.

· PRSL #251 became Conrail #18564

· PRSL #252 became Conrail #18565

· PRSL #250 became Conrail #18559

There was MANY test prints to get to this point. I originally wanted wire handrails but some are curved so reproducing them exactly over 6 cars would be a massive time consuming challenge. The printed handrails are about .025 diameter. I would have used .015 wire anyway so the printed handrails are not extremely oversized.

N11 In P48

Through the Facebook Conrail Modelers Group I made contact with Patrick Welch who sent me these photos of his awesome scratchbuilt P48 Conrail N11. I used it as a reference for my designing.

N11 18521

Added 7-12-26

Photos are taken with my phone they are not stack photos.

I was sort of still in test print mode when I printed this shell. I decided this was the final version. I switched to Siraya Tech resin that was supposed to warp less. It even has printing model trains in the description. After 3 years of doing 3D printing I STILL cannot consistently get prints that do not warp as they age. That is so annoying and disappointing. So car 18521 is a test print I completed as an “extra” Conrail using K4 Conrail Caboose decals.

You can see the end platforms are warped upwards making the couplers high. I have already custom milled the truck bolsters for this car to lower the couplers. I am not completing any more cars until I get the shells to stop warping.

Updated 7-12-26