Hi. My Union Pacific MOW set has suffered from "Zinkpest" and is unusable so I decided to try to fix the problem with a new chassis made of Wood which I had to hand !!!
I have heard of this before so decided to give it a try on another wagon from the 29570 NYC set which also has wagons with this problem.
A base floor was cut from 9mm plywood with vertical pillars to space it from the roof. Photo 1




I found that some spacers were needed between the floor and the underframe which were made from coffee stirrers , the whole thing glued together with PVA adhesive.
Trucks and Kadee couplers were screwed to the floor through the underframe. Photo 2



This is the wagon assembled.



Just remains to paint the floor and re-fix the brake rigging.
Not a pretty fix but from the top and sides it cannot be seen and now I will give the MOW wagons the same treatment.
No cost was involved in this fix and was done in an evening , the next ones will be quicker now that I have solved the problems found such as the spacers and coupler pocket size and type !

Regards, Colin.

Agreed, and not only that but the slab of wood in there will give the wagon a nice weight, probably be about right for the NMRA specification for wagon weight.

Hi all , thanks for the kind comments.
Here is the first MOW wagon with the other before modification.
The "Fix" was not so easy as the first because of the opening doors. The car had bent so much that the bottom rails of the door apertures had parted and had to be glued back together with a strengthening strip on the inside.




The new wood floor can be seen inside the open door but these cars would probably carried wood so no problem. I may add some extra wood on the next car !
Fortunately the caboose in the set is unaffected by zinkpest as this would have been more of a problem as it does not have an underframe which made the modifications easier on the boxcars.
Regards, Colin.