Swamp Rolling Stock

The SER Region contest got me fired up again to get my AP Certificates. Heck, there were ZERO narrow gauge entries. I could have shown up with beer cans and won. Crap.

Not next year! Especially since the Birmingham group challenged us to show...

So...

Time to build rolling stock. Yeah, I know I've scratch built a ton of cars before. But the ones I have are either damaged, not of a prototype or I don't have the drawings. Might as well start from, well, scratch!

The first two cars will be Hebard Cypress Company Crew Cars. These cars were used to carry the logging men to the deep swamp in bad weather. So I'm thinking the rest of the time they road on a logging flat in the hot swamp with the bugs. Yuck. Car "A" was for Whites and car "B" was for "Colord Men" as it says (misspelled) on the side. This is what is known as a "Jim Crow" car, a reflection of the rampant stupidity in the deep south. The two cars are identical except for minor details and I'm going to build one of each.

If you don't have a copy of the hardback book Argent; Last Of The Swamp Rats by Mallory Hope Ferrell, I strongly suggest you get a copy. Its all about a South Carolina (and Georgia) narrow gauge logging company that lasted into the sixties. The photos are priceless. Above is a drawing by the legendary Thomas York of this car. Notice that it was built on a Russell Pattern 20 log car frame! What a cool car.


In order to build one and to get the points, I'm going to have to make my own drawings. The plan is to scratch built the car 100%. This, to me, also includes trucks and link & pin couplers. I plan to put the interior in as well so with all of this it should score more than 87.5 points, the minimum needed for an AP award. I'll put it in the passenger car category, which is seldom entered in our local contests.

Before I even started the plans, I actually scored this model! Yup, never even built it. But I know what it will be when I get done so I can estimate the score. Kind of backward planning, but you need to build to score, not build to be in the contest.

I'll finish the drawings in a few days. This is a freelanced model, so I'll change some things.