I have just purchased 2 Rapido Trains Milwaukee Sleepers and would like to add them to my other Walthers Hiawatha consists. The orange color of the Rapido Trains cars is pretty much the same like the one of the Walthers cars, but the windowband of the Rapio Trains cars is a bit darker than the windowband of the Walthers cars. Therefore I would like to repaint the 2 Rapido Trains Sleepers into the same color as the Walthers cars windowband, so that they match the windowband of the Walthers cars perfectly.
Are there any colors available that resemble the brown-red color which is used on the windowband of the Walthers Hiawatha cars?
You should be able to come up with a pretty close match, but might have to do a custom mix yourself…although I’m sure someone out there has done a similar conversion.
Another option would be to find a maroon that looks right to you and repaint all the cars with it, both Rapido and Walthers. That way they’d all match.
If you’re modelling after 1955, you could use Rapido cars in the later UP-style yellow and gray scheme. For a period of time it was pretty common for Milwaukee trains to have a mix of orange and yellow cars. Rapido did do the Milwaukee cars in yellow, but I don’t believe they’re currently in stock at like Walthers so it might take some digging online and at RR flea markets to find them.
You could also use Walthers heavyweight sleepers, although they’re painted in the earlier (1940’s-early 50’s) Milwaukee paint scheme with a maroon band thru the letterboards. These would match the “excursion” paint scheme available on the Walthers Superdome and Observation cars as used by the Friends of 261 now.
I´m modeling the Olympian Hiawatha in the time between 1952 and 1955. Since there are no Walthers Hiawatha Sleepers, I managed to track down the probably last available Rapido Trains Milwaukee Duplex Sleeper on the internet, and also bought a brand-new Rapido Trains 6-4-6 Sleeper. I know it´s not 100% prototypical, but my Olympian Hiawatha doesn´t have to be perfect. Just a good compromise. I will cut out some windows on one of the 2 baggage cars to make it a baggage dormitory. Then I will cover every second window in the seating area of one of the coaches to make it a Touralux Sleeper. Finally I will cover every third window on one side (bedroom side) and leave only every third window uncovered on the other side (gangway) of the Skytop Parlor Observation to make it a Skytop Sleeper Observation. I think it will look good enough for me. Then of course I will have to paint the window covering into the same color to match the rest of the windowband. So I´ll need the colors for the window covers and for the 2 Rapido Trains cars windowbands. I just don´t know what color to buy. It would be so great if the color would look exactly like the color of the Walthers cars windowband, so no custom mixing would be necessary.
Brass car sides makes sides for all the cars you mentioned in HO and N Scale . A core car kit makes it easy, in my opinion easier than cutting new windows in stock cars. I use Model Master British crimson for my Milwaukee colors, after the dull cote it looks pretty close.
I don´t want to use brass car sides, because it´s much more work. If I would use them I would need to cut off/out the sides of the the 2 sleeper cars, 1 coach and 1 baggage car and apply the brass car sides, which is much more complicated. In addition to that I would have to paint the whole train then and also apply decals, which is defintely too much work for me.
But thanks for that color recommendation. I´ll have a look at it.
With brass car sides, they’re thin enough you normally can just lay them over the side of the car you’re changing. Then you just remove the areas where the windows go.
“In the overlay method, the plastic surface features, window piers, and some skirting are trimmed and the brass sides applied over the super-structure using adhesive. The windows are then reglazed immediately behind the openings in the brass.”
That was the original way they were designed to work, it was only later that they came out with their “basic body kit” that uses the sides free-standing.
BTW the Rapido Duplex Sleeper is really really close to the Duplex Sleeper the “Friends of 261” use in excursion service, but unfortunately as noted the maroon doesn’t match the Walthers Superdome and Observation car that the Friends also use.
Yes the Rapido Trains Duplex Sleeper looks very similar to the “River” Series sleepers used on the Olympian Hiawatha, except that the two higher positioned windows are not in the middle of the car. I really wonder why brasscarsides doesn´t offer a 10-6 “Lake” Series Sleeper at all. They were used even more often on the Olympiahn Hiawatha.
Ok, I didn´t know that the brass car sides are so thin, that it´s not necessary to take off the original Walthers car sides. But still, there is a lot of work to be done, because the window arrangement of the Walthers coach and baggage car and the Rapido Trains Duplex Sleeper and the 6-4-6 Sleeper doesn´t match the window arrangement of the brasscarsides cars of course, so removing parts of the carside below the brass car side will be the case at probably almost every window opening of the brass car side. Plus you have to paint the whole thing and add decals. Like I said, that´s too much work for me, although I must admit that it surely would look good if well done.
@ Randy: who produces these Olympian Hiawatha core kits you mentioned? Was it hard for you to take/cut off the original Walthers Hiawatha carsides? Do you have some photos of your Olympian Hiawatha you could post here?
Train Station products makes Pullman core kit that is a good start, the nice part about them is the ability to make modifications to the roofs and whatnot before you assemble the car. Usually the last thing I do is glue on the car sides ( after I paint the car sides , decal them and apply the top coat) I put scotch permanent double sided tape to the brass sides and tape the window material to the car side. Glueing the car side to the core kit is made with liquid plastic cement making a good solid bond. I find that using the brass sides makes a nicer car and its just the way you want it.
I have chopped up cars to get what I wanted but I found that filling, cutting and sanding took as much time as doing a scratch car and the results weren’t what I wanted. I figured that if I’m going to spend 20-30 hours on a car it might as well be correct.
As for the shope built cars like the touralux cars you really have little option than to use brass sides for a correct model, The Train Station core kit can be used as well after modifying the roof.
Ok thanks for the info. Do you have some photos of your finished Olympian Hiawatha Baggage Dormitory, Touralux Sleeper and “River” Series Sleeper that you could post here? I would like to see the final result if possible.
The Rapido “Minnesota River” 6-10-8 sleeper is pretty much a dead ringer for the real one owned by the Friends of 261, I’ve ridden in it several times. Don’t know if it was used on the Olympian or not, but I wouldn’t think it would look out of place.
I think that the Rapido Trains sleepers are quite a good choice and compromise. Take a look at this video: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v= You clearly see that the orange color of the Rapdo cars is almost the same as on the Walthers cars. Only the windowband is visibly darker. But when you look at some photos of the Rapido cars it doesn´t even seem that dark:
Anyway, these 2 cars will go perfectly for a “Lake” and “River” Sleeper for my Olympian Hiawatha. For my taste, they are a good alternative solution for the brass car sides.
…and here’s a pic of the real “Minnesota River” today (in the earlier paint scheme, used by the Friends of 261) for comparison. Looks to me like the windows are in the right place towards the end of the car, not the middle.
The orange of the Walthers and Rapido cars match fine, it’s the maroon that doesn’t. Paint fades over time, not sure if it’s all that noticeable running on a train.
Hey, that´s an interesting photo! All “River” Series sleeper photos that I saw so far showed the 2 upper windows being positioned in the middle of the car. But now this “Minnesota River” really looks like the Rapido Trains sleeper. Great! There´s absolutely no need to change that then for me.
Your point acutally really makes sense: When the Olympian Hiawatha was introduced in 1947, it was not a fully streamlined train, because the sleepers and the observation were still heavyweight cars. It was not until 1949 when the streamlined sleepers and Skytop sleeper lounge observations finally arrived. So there is a difference of approximately 2 years, which can of course count as a reason that the paint of the sleepers is not the same as of the other cars of the train, whose paint already faded and got slightly lighter because they are 2 years older.
Now it would be great if MTH or BLI would produce the 261 or another MILW 4-8-4 in H0 scale! As far as I know the Olympian Hiawatha was pulled by 4-8-4´s through “the gap” until 1953. That would really look great in H0 as well! I actually wonder why they didn´t even produce one so far…I mean the 261 is quite popular. Slowly, I´m starting to get tired of all those GS-4´s and FEF-3´s out there…
The Minnesota river and the Zumbro river were ordered late , they are a match for the rapido cars. There were two cars of this type on the Milwaukee Road.
One plus for someone offering a Milwaukee 4-8-4 like 261 is that it’s virtually identical to ones owned by the Rock Island. IIRC the Milwaukee engines were built during WW2 as copies of the Rock Island ones. Seems to me one other railroad had very similar engines. But anyway, you could offer the model in two different road names at least, so it would appeal to more folks.
That´s the first time ever I hear somebody saying that MILW 4-8-4´s and RI 4-8-4´s were virtually identical. I think they have signifcant differences in the looks of the tender, the cab (open vs. enclosed), the smokebox front and the pilot. But the cylinders, wheels and boiler…well, yes, there is quite a similarity! If someone would offer that 4-8-4 in 2 different roadnames (MILW & RI), I would definetly buy it! I´m not overobsessed with specific details, so a 4-8-4 which has elements of the MILW and RI mixed in would be acceptable for me. Then I would have cool steam power to pull my Olympian Hiawatha and my Golden State! Great idea!
