Repainting an Atlas Napierville Junction 1958 Cu.Ft. 2-Bay Covered Hopper

This simple project was the result of going down the rabbit hole very hard while trying to finish a project on the cheap. Let me tell you it wasn’t cheap, but it was much simpler than I could ever think.

Beware of simplicity!

Years ago, when the club started, we acquired a lot of cheap Athearn and Roundhouse rolling stock at a local fleet market. We built the fleet with $5 cars and didn’t have a lot of discernment back then. Among the cars was a small Roundhouse Penn Central covered hopper of dubious tooling. Allegedly a PS-2 2003 2-bay covered hopper, the model was crude and didn’t fit our theme. It laid back in the corner of a drawer until I decided to marginally improve the grabirons with bits of styrene and repaint it in grey as a 1950s PRR hopper with CDS Lettering dry transfers. It was destined to serve on my Harlem Station module but alas, I believe it only gathered dust in another drawer for another 8 years before I thought something should happen with this car.

 

Could the car be repainted in a more Canadian roadname? Well, a quick glance at different prototype pictures convinced me I could use it for something more local and I purchased a set of Napierville Junction decals. Meanwhile, I pushed my research forward before committing to butcher the car and found out it was both the wrong prototype and would require extensive work to be upgraded to a decent appearance. There goes the dream of an easy one-day project!

 

Descending into the abyss of Internet and nakina.net, it became clear that my safest bet was to acquire an ACF 1958 cu.ft. 2-bay covered hopper. I had a few choices, but decided to purchase a neat Atlas car in a random roadname but which would be painted light grey to save me troubles. I figured out it would only be a matter of removing the lettering with Solvaset then relettering with the new decals.

 

Not only the new car being highly detailed cost an arm and a leg, but the roof and the bays were painted black! Also, the light grey from the pictures online was far too dark for NJ. Thus, I ended up removing the lettering (which was for once easy and fast) and repainting the car in light gray. The big modification I made was to remove the end cage metal plate used for the reporting marks. NJ cars didn't have that plate.

To save me some time, I went with Tru-Color paint, mixing my own blend of light gray and spraying it. As always, the results were great and the car ready for lettering. Fortunately, that step went fast and the result is far beyond my hope. I’ve yet to decide if I will add the ACI label to date the car to the late 1960s-early 1970s, or keep it as is for a more versatile look.

That said, I’m still stuck with my cheap Roundhouse PRR car in the drawer and what should have been a $10 project turned out to cost more than a brand new car! Live and learn… again. You can’t always struck a deal! I’ll take my revenge with other really cheap cars later!