Weed Spray Car X 7603 in HO scale

Great Northern Railway Weed Spray Car X7603 was built at St. Cloud in June of 1963 from box car 45458, a 1937 AAR design steel frame, end, and roof, but wood sided, 40’-6” inside length box car. It was the last weed spray car built by Great Northern.

Reference Sheet No. 112 by Frank B. Kahl, states that chemical weed control began on lines West in 1946. All Great Northern’s spray cars were converted from something else. The following chart shows the eight weed sprayers in order of date converted.

Spray car                               Date                            Retired

X1848                                    11/1945                      4/1950

X1846                                    1949                           5/1962

X1847                                    1949                           2/1979

X1849                                    1950                           6/1979

X1850                                    6/1950                     10/1969                        From boxcar 13279

X1853                                    5/1954                        2/1983                       From boxcar 31451

X7600                                    5/1962                        After 1986                  From boxcar 50509

X7603                                    6/1963                        After 1986                  From boxcar 45458

When X7603 entered service in June 1963 it was one of six Great Northern weed spray cars.

Our HO scale model X7603 Weed Sprayer kit is a 3D printed kit suited for those experienced with building craftsman kits. The kit includes Tichy grabs, Plano roof walk, Tahoe Model Works truck frames, wire, screws, window material, decals, and a grab iron bending jig. Paint, couplers, wheel sets, and weights are not included. This kit comes with truck frames only so you can use the wheels of your choice.

There are over 60 grab iron holes to drill. They are all dimpled but we do not recommend drilling them out with a hand needle vise. We recommend that you use a motorized pin vise or hobby drill to drill the holes for your grab irons.

When spraying weeds, the car was supported by tank cars. The chemical manufacturers shipped their 2-4-D herbicide concentrate in X-1100 and X-1200 series tank cars. As applied, the concentrate was diluted by two parts water to one part concentrate. A main line application was 20 feet wide at 120 gallons of diluted solution per mile. Typical application speed was 15 MPH. The two to one dilution implies that the typical weed spray train consisted of spray car, three tank cars, an engine, and a caboose. The 36,000-gallon total capacity of these trains was good for 300 miles of main track, but probably about 250 miles was the practical limit.

While the company had two homemade 16,000 gallon weed spray tank cars (see Reference Sheet 317), and one assigned locomotive tender, this was not enough designated weed spray tank cars to support the six spray cars operating in the 1960s.

As of 1960 Great Northern had 37 tank cars of 12,000-gallon capacity built by American Car and Foundry in 1913 numbered in series X-1125 to X-1164, and 109 tank cars of 12,500-gallon capacity in series X-1165 to X-1289 built by Chicago Steel Car Company in 1923 available for weed spray service.