While this Conrail Volvo-White-GMC railroad wreck truck built by Andrew Pearson is not based on any specific prototype vehicle, it is based on aspects of several different vehicles Andrew was able to find photos of. The body is a Custom Finishing Wreck Crane Supply Carrier kit. The kit is designed to be mounted to an Atlas Ford LNT-9000 but Andrew ran into two problems with that; one was that in his research, he found that Conrail tended to purchase General Motors products. He found very few photos of a Ford vehicle. Most importantly, Andrew had trouble getting his hands on an Atlas Ford LNT-9000 model. What he did have on hand was a Herpa White Road Commander. Andrew was able to find several photos of Volvo-White-GMC cabovers in different configurations for the railroad. With some minor modifications the Road Commander could be made into a reasonable stand-in for a newer model Whitecomb truck. Andrew sanded down the sharp lines of cab front, added the louvers, body seams and the small panel below the windshield. He also added the trademark Volvo diagonal in the grille. He filled in some other minor details in the cab and added details from various manufacturers. The front bumper and frame extension were scratchbuilt from styrene. The hi-rail gear is a mix of parts from the original kit and wheels from an old Magnuson kit. Decals are a mix of Microscale, PDC, Mount Vernon Shops, and Shellscale. The details in the back are all off the shelf parts except for the welder (3D printed) and the welding tank rack, work lights and dunnage rack which were all scratchbuilt. Wheels are from Don Mills Models. The model was painted and weathered from various different prototype photos.

Posted July 8, 2017