Soeobo Pacific Model Railroad

Some of the most recognizable cars in Colorado and Southern freights during the last years of narrow gauge operation are the Conoco tank cars. They carried gasoline and other fuels to the towns along the Clear Creek and South Park lines. There were several variations of tank cars. The earliest ones are simply tanks strapped to wooden flat cars. Later variants had unique steel underframes.   I found an old Taurus Products kit at a train show that models the wooden underframe version. About the same time I began construction of the kit, San Juan Models came out with their excellent ready to run models of the steel underframe cars. I decided to have both versions on my narrow gauge roster. The kit is a true craftsman build. It includes a cast resin tank, cast metal and plastic details, and stripwood for assembling the underframe. There was a nice set of scale drawings that were very helpful in laying out the parts. I started by building the underframe out of the supplied stripwood, us...

Living for several years in Colorado, I naturally caught the narrow gauge bug and began assembling a collection of Colorado and Southern equipment. The C&S was a subsidiary of the Burlington, so it dovetailed with my existing interests. Models of C&S passenger equipment are few and far between, limited mostly to brass imports. I found a few vintage E&B Valley kits, one C&S baggage and two Rio Grande coaches. The kits are not quite up to modern standards of detail, but they look good enough once painted. The finished models are approximates of C&S cars, while still capturing the feel of the prototypes. The coaches are flat kits with the car sides, ends, floor, and roof all cast as separate parts. The assembly sequence is relatively simple, but requires patience and careful aligning of the parts. E&B supplies plastic trucks (assembly required) with the kits, but I had a couple pairs of Blackstone trucks that I substituted.  I built the coaches mostly following...