The Water Tank at Big Thunder Creek

Modifying a Banta Modelworks Water Tank With a New Roof & Other Details

Engine #6, Ollie Johnston, pauses to take on water at the Thunder Mesa tank. The tank draws its water from the same spring that feeds nearby Big Thunder Creek. It looks like there's still some scenery work to do in this area.

I often work on several projects at the same time. Some get finished in a week or two, while others get dabbled on over the course of months. This water tank project was started last spring but I wanted to complete it as part of the larger Big Thunder Creek project that's been occupying my modeling time for the last month or so. The tank stands just next to the creek, west of the depot in front of Thunder Mesa Mill.

I started with a Branch Line Water Tank kit from Banta Modelworks. This is a nice laser cut wood kit that builds into an attractive model. The smaller dimensions of the tank are a good visual fit with other structures on the TMMC, but I wanted a little more character in my tank so I added a peaked roof and some other details.

Here's what comes in the package: some strip-wood, scribed siding for the tank, laser cut plywood pieces, a couple of handy jigs, laser cut adhesive paper bands, and white metal castings for the spout and other hardware. The kit uses a clever laser cut plywood form to build the tank. Following the directions, I stained all of the wood prior to assembly. I used Minwax wood stain pens on this one, mostly Dark Walnut and Early American.

All the wooden pieces assembled. With the included cardboard jigs, this only took a couple hours. Rubber bands were used to clamp the tank wrapper in place on the plywood form while the glue dried.

I followed the instruction up to about this point on the assembly, then I went off on my own. The tank bands are laser cut, adhesive backed paper that was airbrushed a dark reddish-brown before assembly. The rust is colored chalk mixed with rubbing alcohol and applied with a brush.

I laid out the pieces for a hexagon shaped roof in Adobe Illustrator. These were printed out and then laminated to 1/16" illustration board using a spray adhesive. When cut out and assembled I had the basic shape of my roof. Triangular roof panels were then cut from 100 lb bristol board and glued into place. I chose a hexagon shaped roof due to the small size of the tank. The panels on an 8 sided roof would have been too narrow to allow for an access hatch.

A hatch was built up from strip-wood and bits from the scrap-box before being shingled with Bar Mills laser cut paper shingles. The finial ball is the head of a large dress-pin.

The Bar Mills shingles looked much too garish on their own so I dulled them down with a heavy dose of powdered chalks. The finial ball was painted metallic copper and then given a patina with dry-brushed dark green paint and chalks.

To make it easier to center the roof on the tank, a hole was drilled in the center of each and a small metal pin was inserted to align the two.

Some wooden channel is provided with the kit to make a water gauge, but no markings or hardware come with it. I created gauge markings on my computer to fit in the channel, and a pointer from the head of a rail spike. The spike fits into a hole drilled in the tank and keeps the black thread taut as it runs up the length of the channel to disappear under the roof.

The spout, pulleys and hanger assembly were put together more-or-less as the instructions indicated. One nice detail from the kit I had to omit was the plug pull since that would be hidden by the roof. The white metal castings were painted dull silver and weathered with paint and chalks. Elastic thread, painted a metallic gray, was used for the cables. I added a short length of blackened brass chain with a wooden handle to allow crews to pull down the spout.

The ladder was aligned to access the roof hatch and then glued in place using some leftover strip-wood as supports.

Some of the last details added were these "concrete" footings made from strips of painted illustration board.

Final weathering was done with more powdered chalks mixed with 70% isopropyl alcohol and painted on with a brush. The white mineral stains were brushed upwards from the bottom and rust was stippled onto the tank bands and other metal hardware. Once the alcohol evaporates the chalk colors can be quite strong but they are easily blended in and made more subtle by scrubbing with a stiff brush.

Building the water tank was a fun project and I'm very pleased with the way it all came together. Bill Banta makes a fine kit that lends itself well to all sorts of kit-bashing possibilities. I look forward to planting the tank on the layout and working in the ground cover and other details to complete the scene. As always, thanks for following along, questions or comments are welcome below. Adios for now!

Thunder Mesa tank, ready to service locomotives on the TMMC.

Building a 14' Excursion Car

Inspired by the trains on Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, I created this plan for a 14' excursion car back in October of 2012. An online friend saw it and suggested he might have the perfect kit to use as a starting point.

The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness

The trains on Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction feature distinctive gold and brown cars that are meant to evoke ore gondolas of a bygone era. In reality though, they only remotely resemble any kind of equipment used on a real railroad. Since, in the world of Thunder Mesa, my railroad existed first and helped to inspire the attraction, it makes sense that the TMMC would have a short string of excursion cars converted from old ore gons. The challenge was creating something that could act as a believable "prototype" for the Big Thunder trains.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad postcard showing the distinctive "ore" cars that folks ride in. © Disney

Starting with a Flatcar Kit

Canadian modeler Heath Trollope graciously asked me to review a kit for a 14' On30 flatcar that he plans on producing, suggesting at the time that it might be just the thing for the Thunder Mesa excursion cars I had talked about building. Since my original plan had been to cut down Bachmann flatcars for the job, I readily accepted the offer. Mostly because, A) I love getting free stuff, and B) I knew Heath would produce a quality kit that might be perfect for my needs. Below is a distilled version of how it went together. My full review and build thread can be viewed on the Railroad Line Forums.

My sample kit consisted of a two-sided sheet of instructions, white resin castings for the under frame, some scale 2x8 decking, and a short length of music wire for the truss rods. Trucks and couplers are not included so I picked up some Kadee HO #501 trucks and #5 couplers as the instructions indicated.

After a couple evenings of enjoyable assembly here is the completed kit just before trucks and couplers were added. The resin castings are very well done and nicely detailed. I stained the decking boards with a rubbing alcohol and shoe dye mixture.

The completed car ready to go to work on the railroad. All in all this is a great little kit that could be the starting point for a wide variety of funky little cars; gondolas, tank cars, pulpwood buggies, even a boxcar or caboose. I don't have sales information on the cars yet, but when I do I'll post a link here on the blog for anyone who might be interested in building a few for themselves.

From Flatcar to Excursion Car

Heath was right of course, and his great little kit was the perfect starting point for my long delayed excursion train project. I've built one car thus far as a prototype and plan to add four more in the not too distant future now that the bugs have been worked out. My plan above shows two different styles of car, a basic and a deluxe model with a shade canopy and seats facing both forward and back. Though the basic car  more closely resembles the Big Thunder trains, I decided to build a car with the deluxe seating pattern, sans canopy, since it makes more sense for the point to point operation I have planned. Still, I tried to capture the flavor of the Big Thunder cars and I hope there is enough of a family resemblance there that folks will understand what I'm getting at.

Once again I turned to printed photo-textures for the car sides and benches. I took some careful measurements of the completed flatcar and then laid out all of the interior and exterior pieces I would need in Adobe Photoshop. These were printed out on HP Premium Presentation Paper and then laminated to smooth 100 lb bristol board with 3M 45 All Purpose Spray Adhesive.

Each bench/bunker was created as a separate sub-assembly. Here are the pieces for the center benches with the exterior and interior walls glued back to back and the edges painted a matching color.

The assembled center benches before trim was added. The benches are reinforced underneath with 1/16" square strip wood.

The completed center bench assembly ready to be installed on the flatcar. The trim pieces are scale 4x6" stock painted with acrylics. Music wire grab irons and Grandt Line nut/bolt/washer castings round out the details.

Two of the bench/bunker sub-assemblies cemented to the flatcar deck. The color scheme and diagonal bracing are direct references to the Big Thunder cars.

The completed car ready to go to work on the layout. Final details include safety chains and steps made from leftover 2x8 stock from the flatcar. A little dry-brushing with acrylics helps bring out the cast-in detail on the car frame and a light dusting with colored chalks adds a needed dose of weathering. During construction, the flatcar developed a slight bow in the middle. It bothered me at first but now I kind of like it.

Each excursion car can hold up to 12 O scale people. These folks look a little pale and could use a paint job. 

All Thunder Mesa passenger equipment is numbered in the 100 series,  starting with Combine 101. These excursion cars will be 107 - 111. Now it's back to the car shop to build four more!

Okay! That about wraps it up for this week's project. Thanks for following along. And very special thanks to Heath Trollope for getting me rolling with his excellent flatcar kit! As always, questions and comments are welcome. Thanks for checking in, folks. Adios for now!

Bachmann On30 18' Boxcars

The latest rolling stock acquisition on the Thunder Mesa Line is a pair of Bachmann's On30 Billmeyer & Small 18' Boxcars. These are nice looking, free rolling cars that come with Bachmann's EZmate Mark II couplers installed. Like the other Bachmann On30 freight cars, adding Kadee #5 couplers is an easy, drop-in upgrade. At a scale 6' 3" wide, these cars about a foot narrower than Bachmann's earlier On30 cars, and their hunkered down, chunky appearance is a perfect match for the Bachmann Porter. On my postal scale, each car weighs in at 3.4 ounces and they track well, having no trouble negotiating the TMMC's 15" radius curves. They could probably handle 10" radius curves without difficulty, making them ideal for smaller layouts. They are sold in sets of two cars, painted mineral red with white data lettering, but otherwise undecorated. Even the tiny "Billmeyer & Small" lettering is crisp and clear. Each car comes with two sets of freight doors, one framed and one unframed, making it easy to customize the look of each car. The freight doors slide open to reveal a nicely distressed and weathered "wood" floor. The old style, low frame arch bar trucks are entirely new and a really nice touch with 18" diameter blackened metal wheels. These cars are just one set from a complete line of new 18' narrow gauge cars by Bachmann that also includes both high and low side gondolas, flatcars and tank cars. Each car is closely based on prototype Billmeyer & Small designs.

Billmeyer & Small began building railway cars in Pennsylvania in 1852, at a family factory that also built doors and sashes. They later became known as the York Car Works, after their location in York Pennsylvania. The Denver and Rio Grande ordered 100 4-wheel cars from the works in 1871, ideal for the new, light, 3' gauge lines being built in the West. Many more orders would follow and, within a few years, Billmeyer and Small was on their way to becoming the preeminent builder of narrow gauge equipment in the late 19th century.

I'm really impressed with the look and quality of these 18' Bachmann cars and will be eager to add more of them to the Thunder Mesa roster.