A Very Small 140 pound Modeling Opportunity...

My wife likes to wander through antique stores on weekend mornings, and I usually go with her because you just never know what you'll find. (In several instances I've found brass locos and other model railroading paraphernalia for sale cheap.) So this morning we walked into a place just down the street from our home and discovered that they'd opened up the normally gated-off rear outdoors section where they keep the "junk" that doesn't need to be protected from the weather.

After peering at a whole bunch of old rusted tractor parts and pot- bellied stoves I spotted something that looked mildly interesting buried beneath a pile of old rusty bedsteads, and closer examination revealed an old rusty hand-truck that looked as if it might -perhaps- have once graced a railroad station platform.

Levering the bedsteads and stoves out of the way allowed me to get close enough to determine that it had once been painted box car red, that it had "140 LBS" stenciled on one leg and a faded and chipped "A?? F RY" stenciled on the other.

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This confirmed my suspicions, as railroad-owned hand-trucks that were used for hauling around LCL freight usually had the hand-truck's weight stenciled on them somewhere so that said freight could be weighed accurately without unloading it and then reloading it onto the hand-truck again. (You just wheeled the whole thing onto the scale and then subtracted 140 pounds from the grand total. And believe me, it

*DOES* weigh 140 pounds!)

An inquiry to the shop's owner revealed that it had been sitting there for at *least* ten years, and that he'd happily take $40 for it, so we loaded it into the pickup truck and discovered in the process that (A) the handlebars are open-ended, (B) it had been standing upright for at least ten years out of doors, and (C) as a result, both tubular uprights were full-to-overflowing with filthy, rusty, stagnant rain water that spilled out all over the truck's bed. (Note to self: wash truck.)

Both of the wheels were rusted solid to the axle, but an hour in the back yard with a can of penetrating oil and a six-foot steel breaker- bar got them rotating smootly again. And, in the process, I found the letters ATSF had been cast into the steel axle-supports and had been covered with many years worth of dirt and rust, not to mention several coats of AT&SF freight-car red paint.

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So what we've got here is an early 20th century Santa Fe freight/ baggage hand-truck in operating if rusty condition. These things were ubiquitous around both freight and passenger stations, and while this one is a Santa Fe prototype the basic design was pretty much universal, so you could model this one and be reasonably close to the ones used by *your* railroad.

Herewith the URL for the entire photostream, which has front. rear, and side elevation shots that include a yardstick for scale reference.

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At circa 5' by 2' this would be a fun modeling project in anything down to HO scale, but anyone wishing to try it in N had better have amazingly good vision and an incredibly steady hand.

Question: does anybody out there know if this thing should be restored? They always tell you not to do so on "Antiques Roadshow" as it can destroy an antique's value. But left to itself this thing is going to continue to rust away even if it's kept under cover, so I'm tempted to take it apart, sandblast off all the rust and old paint, and repaint it in an authentic Santa Fe freight car red.

Opinions?

~Pete

Reply to
Twibil
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On 6/20/2009 4:07 PM Twibil spake thus:

Regarding rust removal, the best method I've found is electrolytic (chemical) removal; object to be derustified gets immersed in a solution of sodium carbonate (aka washing soda, easily available), connected to the negative terminal of a DC power source, with an iron anode connected to positive, and shoot it the juice, Bruce. Dissolves rust like magic. I've used this many times to restore things like old tools that were completely covered with thick layers of rust.

Only problem is, you'd need a rather large tank to hold the body of the handcart. You might be able to do the wheels and other smaller parts this way. If interested, I'll give complete details.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Thanx for the offer.

If restoration turns out to be the best option, I'll take you up on it.

~Pete

Reply to
Twibil

Am Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:37:04 -0700 schrieb David Nebenzahl:

Very interesting! Will you help me out too?

Kind regards from the alie^ German in Paraguay.

My mailadress works.

TIA

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Warnecke

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