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South Jersey S Scale Modelers

PRSL N5 200

Sometimes a photo will interest me to the point of me wanting to make that car or locomotive. That is the case here. I mostly model the common, not the 1 of a kind cars. I did not NEED another PRSL N5. When I saw a photo of PRSL N5 without black roofs in the mid 1950s, I wanted to make 1 because it was different, and most of all because there was NO MASKING. I HATE MASKING. I eventually found a N5 for sale. It needed stripping. The below is a mostly as built from Overland.

 

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Just as I was getting started on 10-4-17, it was pointed out to me that 200 was different because it did not have collision posts. Ahh the plot thickens and the build became much more difficult and more interesting. It was not going to be the easy “just add some details” and paint project I first thought. I would have to rebuild the end railings and add other details like swap the Ajax for a vertical brake shaft, and add a Carmer cut lever. Sounds like fun.

 

The above color photo is what inspired me to build 200 instead of some of the higher number cabins.

 

As Built By Overland 1987

 

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Fix Roof

I knew the roof end profile was wrong. It is actually straight across, not peaked out like Overland built it. The end still is also straight. My compromise was to fix the roof but I left the end sill as built. I took the roof walks off and fixed the roof ends. This positioned the new ladders to be parallel to the ends, which was most to the reason for making the roof straight. The roofwalks had to be slightly shortened to fit.

 

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Move Stack

I also knew the stack was in the wrong place from previous PRSL N5 I did, but I never did anything about it. Since I was going to all the effort of rebuilding the ends without collision posts I decided to move the stack too. I turned a brass plug on my lathe, slathered it all up with solder and wet sanded it flat. It was not as difficult as I thought.

 

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New Ends

Making the new end railings was very tedious. I measured and cut some pieces to be within .002 of each other. Once everything was soldered together it turned out to be pretty sturdy.

 

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You cannot see the plug I made to fill in for the old stack location. It turned out really well. To further hide it I sprayed paint in that spot, baked, wet sanded down to nothing to fill minor gaps before the final paint job.

 

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Painted

 

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Completed 11-19-17

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This is the first time I have painted a patch for the repacked date. Previously I have used a small piece of painted decal film and put the repacked date decal on top of it. This is TUSCAN as a contrasting color.

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This is 26 years of painting PRSL N5. In reverse order of when they were painted, 239 was painted in 2014. 227 is 26 years old now and is my first ever Cabin painted. So…. My goal of making a different PRSL N5 was achieved. The oxide red roof stands out against all my other Cabin Cars.

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With my Rex B6 recreating the color photo above.

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Updated 2-25-18

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