RHJ Rail Heritage

Heritage Park Replica Cars - Cars 62 and 63 - Morissey, Fernie and Michel Ry

RHJ Rail built replica Heritage Park cars as they were at the Park some 20+ years ago. This collection included five passenger cars (the two MF&M, the ex-CN open observation car, the colonist car and one other), and four freight cars. Two locomotives were painted and numbered to match the two at the Park but these were somewhat smaller versions as models of the USRA design used at the park were not available.

The Morrissey, Fernie and Michel Ry cars above were fashioned from Roundhouse Overland coaches. The exterior below the windows was covered with a section of styrene molded to represent wooden boards. The original trucks were upgraded with better quality metal wheelsets. The coupler extension bars were removed from the truck frames and new couplers were mounted on the car body ends for much better reliability, especially when backing up. Weights were added to the cars as necessary.

The cars were painted to match the prototypes using an air brush and custom mixed Floquil colours. The windows (15 per side; 60 in total) were masked top and bottom with painter's masking tape and the area between the windows covered with similar tape cut precisely to cover the spacing between windows. The air brushing was quite straightforward after the cars were disassembled.

The lettering was a different matter as there were no pre-printed decals appropriate for the purpose. Individual letters (for four car sides) were cut, letter by letter, from a decal sheet designed for other purposes. To get the spacing reasonably accurate, the letterboard layout was designed on a computer using a similar font, size and spacing. The computer version was temporarily taped just below the car letterboards for accurate character spacing. (The same technique also works for grain elevators and anything else where lettering, spacing and centering are required.)

And, yes, they operate fine, forwards and backwards, on the Arrow Park subdivision of RHJ Rail, often coupled to the other two replica passenger cars on the layout.

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