Next stop, paint booth. . .

Here's the "busy end" of the WHX. Click on image for full-sized version. . .

All I can say is this: I won't complain about Auscision or Austrains charging $50 for an R-T-R car again.

For until you've slaved with optivisor, teensy wire, bits of white plastic forms, tiny drill bits, balky (in comparison) tweezers and used a steady hand with the soldering iron to hit a very small spot of brass instead of the much-larger plastic area next to it--all to add the brake rigging on an AR Kits WHX grain hopper--well, stopping that God Damned oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico seems like kid's play in comparison.

I figure I have around 6 hours per car of detail work invested in these four WHX's, and there's another six on the layout that haven't been so detailed, merely given the "basic" assembly (and that's perhaps 2 hours a car there). So, 8 hours of labour per car, and I haven't even painted, decaled or weathered them yet.

That Ready-To-Run car from China is looking like a pretty damned good deal, now, isn't it?

This was a bit more intense than I had hoped for, but after it was all done, i looked at those brake decks and thought, did I really do all that?

Painting is next, and then I'll upload a few more shots of these cars. They do match up well in detail with the Auscision WTY's, but it was a hard road getting there.