2026 Sept News Update - Passenger Car Parts and Upgrade Kits Coming Soon

The Bay Area Prototype Modelers' Meet in June 2026 was a blast and great to see everyone there again.  In the last two months Owl Mountain Models has been working hard on several new projects which are far enough along that I can share some previews with the community.

2026 September News Update

Owl Mountain Upgrade Kits for GGD V2.0 Harriman Cars?

Like we've done for the MTH Daylight car with our Antenna Stanchions about 10 years ago, 

The new GGD cars have arrived at Owl Mountain's back shops for upgrades.

I'm switching from our previously announced projects, - namely our 2-8-0 conversion project (still not dead!  Honest!) and 3d printed boxcar ends which need to be redrawn, - to supporting the modeling community in working up some after-market 'fixes' for some of the noted issues in the Golden Gate Depot cars which have just arrived over the last month or so.  I've sighted some of these issues in my NightOwlModeler blog post Golden Gate Depot Harriman 2.0 Review - (Part 1) Out-Of-The-Box.

As of Sept 8, 2026, the following drawings are done:

• Draftgear (aka Coupler Box) - Body-Mounted "Fixed" - Drawings completed, files sent to be test printed, once confirmed, they will go into production.
• Weights - Drawings sent to shop to be produced.
• Brass Stirrup Steps (Diner & Lounge) - Drawings sent to be produced. Hopefully the patterns will be sent to the foundry next week.
• Windows - Drawings sent to laser-cutter for pre-production samples. - This should be fairly quick turn around and once test fitting is good, parts will be put into production.

Comments on Parts & Upgrades:

The new version of the draftgear which is shown here is the 'fixed' version, these are for those of us that want to 'body-mount' the couplers for operation on curves over 28" Radius curves.  The new draftgear will require standard Kadee No.11 (bulk #5 head whisker medium-centerset couplers), which we all should hopefully have in our standard modeling parts supply already.

I've also been working on designing a new 'swing' draftgear design for those in the modeling community that require operation on tighter radius curves.  So I'm not sure that the 'swing' version will be ready in early Oct.  Let me know if you need some form of 'tighter radius' coupler draftgear to be designed.  Whatever I come up with to address this must have restricted vertical freeplay and not sag.
Along the idea of non-swing draftgear upgrade parts, I've also had the requests for 'fixed' Draftgear for Walthers LW and HW cars.  This project will probably spring-board off the GGD replacement draftgear.

The upgraded weights should bring the models up from about 5.0 ounces up to between 8.2 ounces and 8.7 ounces, according to our CAD model weight estimates.  When we get the first weights in-house, I'll be sure to get a better update for exactly what they will bring the car weight to.

The brass Stirrup Steps project would be incomplete if I stop without doing a couple more versions for Common Standard Baggage and RPO cars, so those will be coming soon as well. - I personally have a number of kitbashed MDC/Roundhouse cars and head-end cars that need stirrup steps!  I'm not just a designer and manufacturer... I'm a modeler too!

Still More?

Yes, there are still several more aspects to this project being worked on including: Two Tone Gray Lettering & Stripe decals, various Underbody Details to be 3D Printed for Diner & Lounge, plus belt-generators for all of the GGD cars.  Plus new interior parts including Hamburger Grill Counter and a few other bits.  There will be more updates on these as we get them produced and in-hand.

Painting

Also in the works and coming together is some new interior painting research so that we can have charts of paint schemes and which cars and classes used which scheme as of August 1950.  This will allow us to upgrade the interior colors on our models!  This information will be posted on the NightOwlModeler blog when I do my rework of the GGD cars' interior colors.

In Closing

Another view of the Grand Canyon Railway's ex-SP 72-IC "Sub" fleet from 2017, Jason Hill photo.

Currently, I'm hoping to have some of the Upgrade Kits at the SPH&TS Convention in Visalia, California in early October for sale.  At least, have some samples to show of what's coming very soon.  Also, as the quantities of the early production are limited as this is a educated guess, I expect that some parts will sell out quickly and follow-up production batches will be required. - So please be patient if what you want is out of stock by November. 

Also remember to please subscribe to this blog where I'll be announcing these upgrades soon.

Jason Hill
OwlMtModels

P.S.  On my NightOwlModeler blog, I will be posting various "Upgrade Articles", which will be in instructional format on how I'm upgrading the GGD cars along with other articles on the rest of my personal passenger car fleet.  I hope the community will support this effort to put out some new information and detail parts.

Customer's Model Gallery (Part 1)- June 2026, OwlMtModels Lumber Loads

 For a couple years we've been planning to make a gallery page for our customer's models.  Here's some of the fine work that some of them have submitted to us.  Also visit the page of Photo Gallery of OwlMtModels Products.

Lumber Load Built by Vic Yoder 

3002 (two-stack kit) on SP RedCaboose 42ft AAR flatcar, stand-in for SP F-50-16 class.

Here's a classic 'max-cubic' load for a 50-ton 40ft flatcar.

3006 (variety kit) on Santa Fe GSC 50-ton 53ft flatcar.

Notice that Vic here put the various split units of lumber to over-hang and show off the features of this kit's 'split' planels, which allow you to combine the various lengths in unique ways.  Notice that this is a 50-ton car, and so the load isn't fully 'max-cubic' to the Plate-C limits in physical size, but the load has probably been weight-limited by the density of the wood in the load.

3003 (three-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar.

This is the full 3003 kit, stacked to full height and showing off the 'max-cubic' nature of this kit.  This is ideal to show off the difference in weight capacity of 70-ton cars, like the SP's F-70-series cars compared to AAR 50-ton cars, such as offered by Walthers/Proto2000's model.

3003 (three-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar.

A shorter stack of lumber on F-70-series car.  There's no rule preventing you from mixing and matching panels from 3003 and 3002 kits or 3004 and 3005 kits. 

3003 (three-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar.

Another F-70-series with 1/9th of the kit removed, or one unit of lumber, resulting in this 2-3-3 stack arrangement of the units.  This allows the extra unit of lumber to be moved to another car.  Aka, make one load smaller, move parts over to another car to enlarge that one, etc.

3003 (three-stack) on Nickle Plate Proto2000/Walthers 53ft AAR WWII flatcar.

Here's where the extra units went to, a 3002 kit has been expanded to create a 2-2-3 arrangement on this 50-ton car.

3004 Lumber Load in SP post-war Auto-Boxcar.

Vic decided to put some lumber inside an SP double-door boxcar.  Very nicely done.

Shifted 3003 (3-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar.

Oh dear... that doesn't look good!  The upper units of lumber on this load have shifted.  Better pull this car out of the train and send it to the RIP track and 'load shifter' for 're-shifting'.  Sometimes shifting loads will also break or damage the stakes and supporting dunnage boards too, requiring their replacement by the carmen at intermediate yards.

One AAR/ARA report showed that just one car needed to be re-shifted or worked on 14 times between Washington and Chicago area... or nearly at every division point!  So this problem wasn't unique to single cars, but represents a regular issue that should be addressed on operational layouts running large blocks of our loads!

3002 (two-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar.

The 'classic' two stacks of lumber, representing 40-50-tons in weight.  Some mills shipped 'wetter' lumber or wood that was denser than others.  Other times the customers only ordered a certain amount of board-feet, which doesn't fill up the car all the way, and the railroad just supplied the mill with standard 70-ton cars, which they normally order.

3003 (three-stack) on Northern Pacific Proto2000/Walthers 53ft AAR WWII flatcar.

Another example of a 50-ton car maxed out.  Hopefully the mill is just shipping lighter density woods or the mill (and NP) are hoping not to get caught over-loading the car.  Yikes! 

Sometimes the railroads would accept over-loaded cars if they were not going to be interchanged to another railroad, as the receiving road could refuse the interchange of over-loaded cars, due to increased risks of the car failing or causing damage to the track.  Also too many over-loaded cars in a train would throw off the tonnage and braking calculations of the railroad moving over mountain territory, risking stalling trains or runaways!

Related Articles:

OMM 3000-Series Lumber Load - Article Index

Photo Gallery of OwlMtModels Products - Photos of various modeler's work with OwlMtModels' products.