Sunday, July 26, 2020

Circus City Union Pacific Maintenance Truck Decals

Ever since Boley came out with various truck models in the early 2000s, I've been looking for decal sets that would let me letter them for railroad maintenance of way service. There have been some false starts and not-so-good offerings on eBay, but not long ago, I discovered sets available from Circus City Decals. Thy have railroad maintenance of way sets for Boley and River Point Station vehicles, with a good variety of current Class 1s, some regionals, and other fallen flags.

I decided to try the Union Pacific set. I was most interested in putting it on the recent Walthers 949-11753 bucket lift truck, which comes in white with some railroad emblems, but these are all generic. The Circus City decal sets have more specific prototypical lettering, stripes, and other data. Here's the Walthers cherry picker with the Circus City decals and stripes applied:

I don't know if the UP has actual cherry pickers that closely resemble the Walthers/Boley model, but it does have somewhat similar vehicles for reaching overhead structures, yard lights, etc. The general layout of UP lettering for trucks like this is similar to the fuel oil truck below:
Typically there's a UP shield on the cab doors, a number and sometimes registration data in black, and two sets of parallel yellow stripes on the hood and doors, extending back over the body. The Circus City set gives the shields, data, and stripes. There's enough stripe material to do two of the larger Walthers/Boley trucks.

There is no lettering diagram provided with the Circus City decal set. Luckily, I've photographed dozens of UP trucks on railfan excursions, so I had photos to work from. I printed one out for reference when I worked on three trucks I had on hand:

The dump truck was a former Boley model I picked up some time ago. The dump body was silver, and I airbrushed it white in hopes that one day decals for UP would be available. I finally got lucky. I think Walthers now has an all-white version of this truck.

I made up the little truck on the left from pieces left over from a kitbashing project using former Boley body and chassis parts. If I can scrounge other bits and pieces, I'll finish it to look something like this loco service truck I found at Dolores Yard near LA:

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