Hilton-Mears Timber Fairbanks Morse…

When thoughts around my Dad’s old H0 scale Shay, logging railroads and a scheme for Bear Creek started circulating as I thumbed through Gary Durr’s book, Chris very kindly posted his second hand Walthers / Roco Fairbanks Morse to me from Canada with a simple request…

Keep it and make something from it. What arrived was a wonderful running heavy locomotive with an injection moulded shell that captured the look of the prototype but was missing all the handrails. Those yellow FMs of the Weyerhaeuser company’s Chehalis Western (amongst others) deeply influenced the results shown here, the Hilton Mears Timber Company (more recently known as HM Forest Products) 288, a FM H12-44. 

Scratchbuilt handrails were somewhat of a labour of love, but worth the effort. The cab side ones strangely were the hardest to shape and form, the soldered ones were comparatively easy. The long hood handrails aren’t right, there should be more fixing points but I wanted to connect back to the original model. Up too a pair of Milwaukee Road style spark arrestors sit on the exhausts and a new horn supplements the original single tone facing both fore and aft. 

Custom decals were designed inspired by the Weyerhaeuser house style but tweaked, to be subtly H&M. A very light weathering suggest hard work but good care, consisting of a panel line wash, washes and airbrush. 

The end result sits well on Bear Creek (which hopefully will be moving to a new home at Easter) but longer term will go into my display case to represent a transatlantic collaboration that has grown from humble Claremont and Concord beginnings to planning a shortline empire across the Maritimes (and more). The personal story that sits behind our models, why and what brings them to us, that is such a missing piece in our conversation about methods and techniques and something I find fascinating. Until next time more soon…