For the third time in four years, the Bowser/Custom Traxx team visited GuangDong province in Southern China. The main reason was to collaborate with their current suppliers in ShiJie on their PCC cars and their new trolley to be introduced next year. Also during this trip a potential supplier was targeted for evaluation. These are always whirlwind trips with time only for business and little time for anything else. Two Bowser representatives, Lee K. English, Bowser CEO and Scott B. Davis, Bowser Locomotive Project Manager, left their Montoursville, PA headquarters early in the morning on Thursday, March 29th, arriving in Los Angeles, CA mid- afternoon, where they met up with George Huckaby of Custom Traxx. George serves as Product Consultant for all Bowser HO scale trolleys. All three then left LAX via United Airlines early Friday morning, arriving in Hong Kong late Saturday evening. Sunday is normally spent socializing with their main vendor, and developing an agenda for the next two days. Fortunately, such efficiency between the supplier and the team exists that the expected two-day visit turned out to require only one day and there was time to visit other potential suppliers. Naturally, by Thursday morning, it would be time to board the airplane for home and due to the peculiarities caused by the International Date Line, arrive back in the United States a few hours before they left Hong Kong.

As part of doing business in China, Custom Traxx' George Huckaby began studying both the Cantonese and Mandarin languages after his second visit to China. Cantonese is almost spoken exclusively in Hong Kong and was spoken in Southern China, but Mandarin is taking over slowly. The characters have the same meaning in both languages. But there are both traditional (more involved and complicated) characters and the simplified ones introduced during the cultural revolution. He Huan (pronounced 'huh wan'), the wife of a UCLA Medical Laboratory Professional, became his Mandarin instructor. George has been taking one-hour lessons, twice almost every week since 2010.

Figure 1 - Huan explaining the four tones in Mandarin!

Huan is shown above discussing the Chinese language during an informal meeting just before all three left the U.S. for China. [Note that the Chinese state their last (family) name first and the first (given) name last.] When George began his Chinese lessons, Huan had a Chinese student, Gao Yu Qi (pronounced 'gow eu chee') living with her husband Yong and young daughter Mei Mei and they all became close friends. Yu Qi had to return to China in June 2011 but insisted that we tell her when we planned to visit China again, as she intended to visit us, wherever we were to be. We did and she met us at the Cinese Hotel in Dongguan for two days of the trip. Yu Qi is shown at our main supplier's conference room with Scott Davis and Lee English during a brief lull in our meeting. As expected, Yu Qi would demonstrate to George Huckaby just how much Mandarin that he knew and also how much he did not know.

Figure 2 -Yu Qi, Scott and Lee in the supplier conference room!

As expected the meetings with Bowser's primary supplier, AFFA Technology Limited, ShiJie, Dongguan, Guang Dong Province started right after a plant tour. In Figure 3, Lee English is discussing his concerns with K. K. Ku, owner of AFFA Technology Ltd. Also in the photo are Chen Shu Lin, and Chen Xiao, Project Engineers. We are always impressed with the youth and quality of all the engineers, managers and workers. Bowser presented a Request for Proposal (RFP) to AFFA for their next streetcar project and within one week, the response and quote was received.

Figure 3 - Shu Lin, K.K., Lee and Xiao, discussing production issues!

Not all business is done at the supplier facility. Sometimes it is far more efficient to talk in a more relaxed atmosphere. In the next photo, Lee is discussing motor applications in the restaurant of the Crowne Plaza Hotel with Sun Yau, a representative from ZhongShan XiaoLan Yong De Metal Production Factory, one of the potential suppliers contacted during the trip.

Figure E - Sun Yau and Lee English discussing motor selection!

One thing would be different in this China visit. In our first visit in 2008, we returned to Hong Kong via private car. We ended our second trip by returning exactly the same way we entered, via the high-speed rail and the MTR. This time we would be returning from Zhong Shan via a ferry. But first there would be an hour van ride from the Crowne Plaza Hotel where we parted ways with Yu Qi, who for all intensive purposes had served as our guide. This van ride turned out to be somewhat similar to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland. but we saw parts of China not normally seen by tourists. After 90 minutes on the ferry, and the normal "show-us-your-papers" immigration rigmarole, we were back at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile in Tsim Sha Tsui (one of the major sections of Kowloon).

With our business almost completed, we were afforded the opportunity to visit the Peak Galleria on the top of Hong Kong Island. One can either drive up a very narrow two-lane road or take an articulated tram to reach this great view of the Hong Kong / Kowloon area.

Figure F - Articulated Tram approaching the Peak!

In our last issue, Jonathan Werner reported on the IHP "Torpedo". He had acquired two cars. the first one was to be painted as San Francisco current car 1007 in the Philadelphia Suburban Transit Co (PSTCo) livery, while the second one was sent to me to be finished as Muni 1008 in the original "wings" scheme. Because of the fact that there will soon be seven of these cars operating in San Francisco, the Times has a keen interest in these models. We have consistently attempted to give our readers the complete story about any product we review and there were some surprises with painting and lettering the second car in the Muni scheme.

As soon as I received the Torpedo model from Jonathan, I prepared the model for painting, removed both cast-on trolley catchers and airbrushed the interior with Floquil Weathered Black. Then I airbrushed the entire exterior with Floquil Antique White [110085], masked off the appropriate areas and then sprayed the remaining portions of the car with Floquil Reading Green [110183]. It was not until then that I examined the decals and read the finishing instructions. Immediately, it appeared that the decal color would not match the Floquil Antique White already applied to the car.

The original Muni 1948 paint scheme on a "Torpedo" is not an easy one to reproduce accurately, especially in an HO scale model. It requires cream striping along the sides and ends and depending on how you paint the model, dark green striping on the ends to the edges of the "Wings". Microscale 87-124-9, 1 inch & 2 inch green striping can be used here. We have used both methods in the past when finishing various San Francisco Muni PCC cars.

IHP provided cream striping, and Wings with numbers and Muni heralds in black, all of which make the job of finishing this car easier, but it is still for the experienced painter and decal applicator. The cream wings and stripes appear to have been desktop-computer generated rather than silk screened so there is a 'texture' to the Wings and stripes when applied on the car which may be evident in close-up photography. When applying these decals, be very careful as there are little or no extras of anything. IHP provides two heralds and two are needed for the car. One of them disintegrated on us so we were lucky that we had an extra set. Giving an extra herald and some extra numbers costs very little and would avoid similar problems for other users.

Knowing that decals and paint sometimes are opaque and as such are affected by the color of the paint beneath them, I decided to go ahead and apply both the 'wing' and stripe decals and see how they looked. See Exhibit A.

Exhibit A - Decals before and after application.

The decals on the car (Exhibit A, above left) looked just like the decals on the blue paper (See Exhibit A, above right) before placing them in the water and applying them to the car.

But IHP seems to have really done their homework here by allowing for the effects of the green color under the cream decal. We were pleasantly surprised when the decal wings were a much closer, although not exact, match to Floquil Antique White when applied to the car. The match will be close enough for many modelers, unacceptable to some. Shown in Exhibit B is our car 1008 in the process of being finished. The IHP-provided clear windows had yet to be installed. Another set of the IHP decals are shown below the car, again illustrating the apparent difference in color, before and after application.

Exhibit B - Torpedo 1008 nearing completion.

We did find that the size of the striping supplied matched the striping used on the as-delivered paint scheme as shown on the photo of car 1013, shown as Exhibit C.

Exhibit C - Car 1013 at Saint Louis Car Company (1948).

Regardless, applying the cream stripe on the ends and sides is a very difficult application as a portion of the stripes must be placed over the lower portion of the belt rail that is very exaggerated on the model. This is a job for an modeler experienced in decal application. If I ever have the opportunity to finish another IHP Torpedo in the 1948 Muni scheme, I would mask and paint the entire stripe, especially if the original cast-on trolley catchers have been removed.

These molded-on catchers do not seem to be in the correct location for most versions of the "Torpedo" recorded in our photographs.

We are working with Train Control Systems (TCS) to develop a double ended version of the M4T decoder so DCC can be added to these double end PCC cars along with both operating headlights, brake lights and tail lights. Meanwhile, we began the process of adding a TCS M1 decoder to control the reversing headlights. When Jonathan and I first saw the Torpedo shells, we wondered why holes for headlights were

We heard that the PCCII cars began running again on April 29th on Route 15 - Girard Avenue for the first time since October 2011, while SEPTA conducted long overdue track replacements. More on this next month but, meanwhile, make plans ro share a great charter trip with the Friends of Philadelphia Trolleys on Father's Day. Below is car 2327 leaving the new Frankford Avenue trackage and about to turn right onto Richmond Street and head to 63rd & Girard.