Early Piggyback project (1940-1957) late steam early diesel & some of the very first 85-89' cars in 1957-1959!

Photo copyrights apply all used for reference

Custom decal work

There is almost a complete absence of western private carriers in decal form. I do a great deal of custom artwork for Key and DVP; its a natural to grab some reference and produce some western private carriers for the train.

Rio Grande Motorway Inc.
Ringsby Truck Lines of Denver
DC Denver Chicago Express

I use CS from Adobe all vector art and print on an ALPS or Kinkos where I don't need white or opacity.

Photo copyrights apply all used for reference

Nice Erik!  Whose the Mfg. on the undecorated trailers. They don't look like plastic.

 

Butch

       
       


Thanks butch!

Some of the vans are ancient 1/48 Revell Bekins kits from 1955. These are beautiful vans. Fruehauf stainless steel that were common from 1952-through the 1960's.  The others I had custom built from a pro builder on the east coast. Both are resin and plastic and if painted correctly do NOT look like plastic.  I can't stress enough medium has very little to do with a models quality. Brass, resin, ABS, plastic, in so many ways plastics are far better at recreating detail. Brass has limits. To date nobody has produced a brass model of a early 1940's or 1950's tractor trailer in any of the sort of O scales 1/43-1/50. These Revell vans are in my opinion the best and built with modern methods and improvements are second to none.

Erik i know you can do much better than this. box them up and i'll send you a ups pickup order so that you can try again and i'm sure the second time around "you'll be up for the task". seriously this will make a great train i'm jealous. 

Lloks like you are having a blast with these. They look great!

       
       


Oh yeah! They are really interesting to me. And very rarely do you see them done right in O scale. When you see piggyback it's almost always 1960's and later with those horrendous 89' flat cars. Not my interest at all.

       
       


Send me your address boss!


No- I am flattered thanks =)

Big Grande Baldwin Challenger moving north on the Joint Line out of Pueblo with a cut of TOFC for Denver from KC!

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL Erik.  Just beautiful. 

 

Every once in a while I jump on Hankstruckpictures.com and reminisce.  

 

Another worthwhile resource is Mike Terebecki's The (Vanishing) Trucking Pioneers series of books.   I own and love them all...

Fantastic !

Thanks man!


       

Mr. Lindgren,

I've yet to see anyone who could do work on the level as you. Your attention to detail is almost unbelievable. I noticed a Santa Fe TOFC. Are there any plans to do a, Southern Pacific "Golden Pig" TOFC? If so, I can hardly wait!

 

Keep up the great work. You've been blessed with a rare talent.

WOW thanks so much. I really appreciate the kind support! Goodness knows I need it. ;-)




       

That is a great computer program for making fonts and decals.

 

 

The G in the Rio Grande artwork stops too soon, is has to arc over the rest of the way, like in the photos.

 

Andrew

Rio Grande Motorway Inc. a must for a late steam era Rio Grande fan.

In an effort trying to locate reference material I have had some luck. Photo copyrights apply used for reference.

In this photo taken by Jackson Thode published in Trains magazine December 1941 we can see the use of Fruehauf vans. Note the van on the left- a roof carrier on the top.  Interesting. Obviously this pre-dates the super strict ICC trucking regulation.
This photo was taken what appears to be Highway 6 just outside Golden. Neat Mack B-73 and a steel 34' van tandam axel.


I've found several different styles RGM used. Back in this era all lettering was hand painted from a drawing. Most of these master sign painters used some creative license. Most of these graphics exhibit subtle changes from one to another despite being the "same" the nature of hand lettering. In this case the Shadow lettering with the "speed font" is seen. I patterned my decals after this with a slight adjustment from the reference I found on Hanks Truck Pictures. In the later years a boxed design with white letters was used. My era 1949-1955 it would more likely to see the long stretched out "speed style font" lettering and red stripe seen in this photo.
Beginning with the computer I superimpoze the photo under my vector art. I beginning by tracing the best as possible. It is after all a miniature and some errors can be snuck by the viewer when applied to the model.
Hanks Truck site has this neat set created by a collector I can't recall his name and or find them again. The trouble with Google. Ugh. It shows the slight differences in the "speed letter G". I added this with some creative license.
The victims awaiting removal of the REA diamonds shall be ideal subjects for the ultimate Rio Grande Motorway van load! These Lionel 1/48 scale vans are just fabulous; simply marvelous. A fine scale model by any measure.

Ready for the printer
In these photos courtesy of the Denver Public Library (c)Otto Perry the first generation logo can be seen. It's tempting to use these and still it is difficult to locate exactly when these designs evolved. I assume this was the earliest logo for RGM. It is similar to the "toilet seat" DRGW logo.
Ancient - interesting for sure

TimDude is wondering-- "why would anyone want to spend that much money on a model that doesn't smoke?!" ;-)