A Small Garden Railroad: A car for the railway maintenance crew

This is an older project I did somewhere around 2012. It was described on the Continental Garden Trains forum which is unfortunately no longer active since several years now.

The base was a second hand but fairly unused LGB Toy-Train caboose. The car was bought cheap because two footplates were missing as you can see on the picture. The plan was to bash the caboose in to something looking more European car for the maintenance workers of the railway.

The bash would include at least two mayor steps: the roof had to be altered or replaced to give it a lesser American look and I wanted to get rid of the grips (at least, I think they meant to be grips) that were molded on the sides of the caboose.

A Dremel hand tool was used to sand the grips of. The trick was to gently and lightly, without too much pressure, moving the sanding tool in the vertical direction, following the "wooden" siding strips. This way the 'scratches' of the sanding will be lesser noticeable and easier to remove than if you sand horizontally.

It is best to wear safety glasses and perhaps even a paper dust mask when doing this; the plastic dust and bits fly everywhere!


At the left the grip is still in place, at the right the grip is sanded of

At the spots were the grips were molded, the grooves between the 'wooden' strips on the sidings are interrupted because of the molding. With an old (but sharp) screwdriver, a hobby knife and a steel ruler this was fixed. Just carve the grooves over with the hobby knife followed by the screwdriver.

After all grooves were done I sanded the sidings again, now using a sanding sponge (some soft foam block with some sort of fine sanding paper on the sides, the type you can buy at the painting suplies at DIY stores). I've gone over the complete model until there was no more difference in surface between the sanded and non-sanded areas.

Actually, I found this too smooth and neat. There were almost no 'wood grains' visible. I remembered a little tool that master garden railroader (at least in my eyes he is for sure) Ray Dunakin used to create wood grains for his buildings on his In-ko-pah Railroad. It was made from a hobby knife holder with a little saw blade in it. I used this tool and I liked the effect very much.

When the surface was like I wanted it, I had to fill a few spots with bits of plastic (those spots where the roof supports fall in and where the caboose lanterns were mounted. I used very thin strips of polystyrene on top to cover the filled up openings.

The missing steps were replaced by a set that came from an old and incomplete LGB " Dynamite" car so that was solved quickly.

Next step was painting the body and chassis. I used Tamiya acrylic paint. If I remember correct I used Tamiya XF26 (deep green) as base with several slight grades of green and some weathering with thinned oil paint. A mixture of black and brown/rust for the chassis.

The roof was build out of polystyrene. A skeleton made from 4 supports, reinforced with strips and sheet. This skeleton fits nicely into the inside of the car.

Three thin sheets of polystyrene (almost as thin as thick paper) were used to build up the roof. Each sheet is glued on top of the other (laminate technique) using the extra thin Tamiya glue.

The glue was applied with a bigger brush that the little brush that comes with the glue. The little brush don't work because the sheets are about 22,5 x 10,5 cm. and the first applied glue is dry when you get to the end of the sheet!

Each sheet was slightly bigger to cover the one underneath completly. You can always sand or cut off to get the correct shape of the roofsides.

I used some left over pieces of grooved sheet to detail the underside the roof above the balconies.

The top layer of the roof was made out of fine waterproof sanding paper, glued with Pattex contact glue on the polystyrene.
However, do not do this! Although this looked very sharp back than, now, after 7 years of use and storage in a garage the sanding paper has got all wrinkled and probably is also the cause of bending the roof slightly. So I will not use this anymore on newer projects! I will not advise anyone to use sanding paper for roof cover.

Thin strips of polystyrene glued on the sides for finishing (so you don't see the different layers of sheet).

The roof was than painted black, using Tamiya acrylics.

Notice the roof is still nice and straight...

Inside walls were made from polystyrene sheets and painted in a wood color. Windows were glassed using bits of transparent plastic from packaging materials. I started with some interior but this was not finished completely. I will come back on this...