I first acquired one of these back, well, in the middle of the decade that man landed on the moon......fast forward to a few months ago when I went to a train show/swap meet over the hill in Medford and a guy has one for sale. I picked it up for pretty cheap and thought I'd make a fleet so I found a couple more on ebates.
Here's the group waiting for attention on the work bench......the car in back without roof walk & hatches is the one from long ago......
I added roof corner grabs, different brake wheels, painted hatches & hatch hardware....
All the couplers are now Kadee's, with the trip pins removed, (just never did care how they looked), with Kadee air hoses added....
This car came with side panels and tanks, so I made it an open sided car.....
All of the cars had their trucks reworked and Reboxx 33" wheel sets installed along with the appropriate weight making for some very smooth, free wheeling cars......
The only car that retained it's original "73" number is the one I originally had....
I haven't done any weathering yet, as kit bashing is new to me so I've been enjoying that aspect of model railroading, along with building fleets, as you can see part of the tank car fleet in the first pic..... (did I ever mention that this is a disease?).....