Research costs you more money...

Whilst we are still in the midst of school holidays there hasn't been any time down in the layout to continue on with either the signal install and/or anything else on the layout.

So to get my fix and to keep the interest going I have been researching the Hershey Chocolate Factory, namely how it will operate and some of the inwards & outwards goods that can be generated.

One of the interesting things I found out was that the Hershey Factory had its own fleet of 50' Insulated box cars in the era that I am modelling.

So in order to represent these on the layout I had to find some suitable substitutes that would be close to the prototype and easy enough to adapt if needed.  My search started out with undecorated models, unfortunately most of these are non-existent and have been discontinued.

I did eventually find substitutes for both the riveted & outside braced NACC 50' box cars pictured above.

Atlas makes the riveted version in a BN/FGE version that once the decals are removed and sprayed would be a great substitute for the prototype.

And Athearn makes a version of the outside braced in JCL that again once the decals are removed and resprayed it will make a great substitute.

In the mean time until I can get to making the changes the cars will be used as is.

So the moral of the story is, when you research your layout more in-depth its quite possibly going to cost you more money...