ONE DAY I went to the hobby shop and two products immediately caught my eye. The first was ARISTO-CRAFT's 1:29 scale Kansas City Southern 40 foot bulkhead flatcar (ART-46404); the second was AMT/Ertl's 1:25 scale D8H Caterpillar tractor (part number 6670-10D0). I realized together they would make a remarkable "rolling diorama".

The flatcar requires minimal assembly but the Caterpillar was another story. I would recommend you avoid that model if you are a beginner or if you lack patience. The actual assembly is fairly easy but the illustrations are hard to correlate with the instructions and the various sub-assemblies require a lot of time.

THE MODEL

I also wondered whether the painting suggestions are accurate because, for example, they indicate the exhaust manifolds, air cleaner housing, and fuel filter are the same color. I went to my local Caterpillar dealer to verify that paint scheme and, yes, it is correct. Workers essentially hand assemble heavy equipment such as the D8H bulldozer and the Trainer Yellow paint they apply is thick, almost the viscosity of 90 weight automotive grease! So I painted my D8H accordingly and left it shiny and without weathering to represent a new unit in transit.

I built my model with the standard rear end tow bar but also included the kit's two optional rear end attachments to represent accessories accompanying the tractor. I whipped together a 2 1/2 inch square wooden pallet from scraps of spruce and colored it with Minwax Driftwood stain. I represented heavy-duty rubber cords with 4mm wide rubber bands.

The resulting "diorama" has attracted a lot of favorable attention. So much, I sometimes feel the need to put a large "DO NOT TOUCH" sign on it when I display it at my railroad club.

Caption: Mac McCalla's Caterpillar tractor is from a Depot G kit. He made the canopy braces from paper clips and the corrugated metal roof from sheet styrene.

2. Sauter's Vintage Crawler

I used an AMT/Ertl kit as the basis for my mostly scratchbuilt 1:20 scale Holt crawler. The flatcar represents a late 19th century Carter Brothers narrow gauge prototype. The concept is the same as Thomas Frankini's but the execution varies.

I combined styrene sheet and shapes, some of the kit's plastic castings, and a few pieces of sheet metal or brass rod into a new superstructure to ride on the original kit's "mechanism". For example, I modified the kit's manifold from an eight- to a six-cylinder configuration. I used the kit's transmission without modification. The radiator body was from the kit but the top of the radiator came from a Depot G Mack truck kit. The letters forming the word "SIXTY" on the radiator sides are 20 gauge solid core copper telephone wire. I used CA to bond the wire in place and, when I airbrushed the model, the letters came to life. I made the fuel tank by adding end caps and details to a plastic tube. I built the canopy from .060-inch thick styrene formers and .010-inch thick smooth styrene sheet.

The flatcar is completely scratchbuilt from oak, brass strip, brass rod, and Little Railways detail castings. I sandblasted the wood to distress it.

3. McCalla's Forklift

LGB'S FORKLIFT COMES as a load on their number 40510 four wheel flatcar but some stores, such as Morgan's Big Trains Emporium in Huntington Beach, California sell the forklift separately. Mine cost $5.00. As the photo illustrates, the little tractor comes in shiny, unpainted yellow and black plastic. If you do nothing more than use either spray cans or an airbrush to paint and weather it, the forklift can become an attractive addition to a flatcar.

My flatcar began as an ARISTO-CRAFT model, but I added Dean Lowe metal wheels, a wood deck, Ozark Miniatures nuts and bolts, chain, shackles, chain binder, and a brakewheel. I used large paper clips to form coupler release levers. The two loading ramps are scrap wood with sheet metal ends or, if you prefer, you could use sheet styrene. The barrels are wood. I bought them for about thirty cents each.

The project took about three and a half hours from start to finish and was neither difficult nor expensive.