New life for an old covered hopper.

I searched various prototype freight car websites and noticed Interstate Commodities (INTX) has a sizable fleet of older three-bay covered hoppers, some of which are now used in salt service. I installed plastic wheelsets to mask the sockets, set the trucks on a homemade painting jig, and spray painted the them with Tamiya Rubber Black spray paint (TS-82). This HO scale Illinois Central covered hopper, with missing couplers and incorrect wheelsets (inset), spent years sitting on the repair-in-place track on the Milwaukee, Racine & Troy. [Extracted from the article]