Polysar Granules Car

I've had this old McKean Models ACF 5800 cu.ft. pellet hopper car for many, many years.  McKean labelled it a Granules Car.  I don't remember where I got it, but the price sticker is still on the box at $9.45. I've had it on the layout from time to time, and brought it out once again a couple of months ago.  Over the years I've managed to lose one of the 20" hatch covers, and I don't know how I'd ever find one of those that would match, but I'm wondering now if I could get one 3D printed.

My friend Jay stopped in for a visit a couple of months ago, and upon seeing this car, he commented that he happened to have seen one of the prototype cars with the same Polysar logo on the side not too long before.  Jay remarked that the blue logo on the real car had been quite faded, and the rest of car looked to be in good shape.

I should also explain to those that would not likely know, that Polysar was the name of a local refinery here in Sarnia which began as the crown corporation Polymer to manufacture synthetic rubber during WW2.  Polymer became Polysar, which eventually became part of Nova Chemicals. My adoring wife Linda worked at Polysar/Nova Chemicals for 37 years.

The model has always seemed kind of light in weight, but it's certainly not that way anymore.

The covered hopper's roof is easily removable, so I've epoxied two heavy 3/4" steel nuts inside to increase the car's weight.

I've put a couple of slightly darker patches on the sides of the car, and faded the roof and sides including the blue logo, by airbrushing the entire car with Concrete Gray acrylic paint.  I've also added some light weathering streaking and a couple of scratch marks.

If you look really closely a couple of ever-so-slightly darker grey patches are there too, suggesting maybe some work done to the sides in the past.

I decided to give the upper areas of the car sides an overall light rusty look, so I masked off the Polysar logo and airbrushed some rust colouring along the upper portion of the covered hopper.

Although it's hard to see here, I used Camo Brown to paint the wheels and trucks.

The old Polysar "Granules Car" sits on my GTW line awaiting it's turn to be spotted at the MidWest Plastics plant.

In the right place at the right time on Tuesday, we got to watch the Algoma oil/chemical tanker AlgoCanada as it docked right in front of us at the Sidney Smith dock just to the south of the Government Docks here in Sarnia.

Pretty impressive to watch a 426 foot ship moving sideways towards me as I took this picture.  I could hear the side thrusters power up and down as I stood there with my camera.