Hello everyone,
I’ve been working on my models a fair bit, and I’ve finally got some results to show. Firstly there’s a YouTube video which sums up what I’ve been doing - and secondly I’ve made a Flickr album with some close-up pictures.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgKocgbznbI
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/streamlinedtrains/sets/72157631816919988/
I’d be glad of any thoughts or suggestions you might have!
Michael
Hi Streamlinedtrains!
Good to see you on the forum. I’ve enjoyed your previous videos on California Zephyr unit and the Amtrak Superliners.
Very good to see that you painted the interiors of your Superliners. Looks really nice and adds more “flavor” to them. What a difference it makes.[:D]
A respectful suggestion. In the future when you paint your interiors’ seats, dull them down with either flat clear coat or dullcote through an airbrush or rattle can… [;)]
BTW: Let’s make your links above active: [8D]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgKocgbznbI
http://www.flickr.com/photos/streamlinedtrains/sets/72157631816919988/
no way, one of the gentlemen to whom I’ve subscribed.
your work is amazing, I enjoyed your NP set.
Nice video. My Geordie wife noticed your “southern accent”. She is a brit from up near Newcastle but imigrated to be my wife here in Northern Virginia near Washington DC.
Here is a link to a website for a company that makes decoders and has photo instructions on how to install them in many major American HO diesels:
I too have 3 of the Walthers F40PH’s in Amtrak Phase III paint, to model the Amtrak Superliner California Zephyr of the 1980’s thru early 90’s. I road that train in 1990 and it was all phase III paint, and pulled by F40PH’s. The westbound train I road from Chicago Illinois to Sacramento California left Denver with 4 F40PH’s on the head end, and was 17 cars long and had two diners. The second diner was at the end of the train and appeared to be one of the ex-El Capitan bi-level diners.
Cheers.
Jim
Awesome work [tup]
I don’t really want to mention this since you’ve already painted them, but the interior colors you chose are the present day colors. The phase III Superliners (all Superliner I cars) used a palette of reds, oranges, browns, tans, and even a sickly looking green on the lower level partitions.
Some photos of a lounge and diner still wearing their original interior scheme (even after being painted into phase IV paint) can be seen here:
Superliner Lounge and Diner Interiors
I couldn’t find a photo showing the older sleeper interior colors doing a quick online search, so here is a photo of a me ( a lot younger [;)] ) in a then brand new Superliner sleeper back in 1980. That’s in a bedroom, which was called “Deluxe” back then:
It took a while to find one of the coaches in the older interior colors. So the blue you chose for the coach seats actually works pretty well. But something in my mind says some had a predominately red color instead of blue. Maybe this was in the Amfleets instead of the Superliners. I never have traveled much in Superliner coaches, but did in the Amfleets on the old San Diegan. And I remember their seats as being mostly red.
But who would really notice this other then a Superliner weirdo like myself. You did a really nice job on painting the interiors and detailing your trainset.
Thanks everyone! Really helpful.
AntonioFP45 - Thanks for the tips on dulling down the interiors. I’ve actually striven to use matt paints as much as possible - the problem is, that they don’t seem to be as widely available in the USA as I was used to back in the UK. The Diner is the only one which has any gloss paint still visible.
Burlington Northern #24 - Thanks! There’s a bit more on the NP train to be seen yet - I have to convert the trio of F9s to DCC. After that, I’d like to get some more prototypical Baggage cars (the ones I have are old Rivarrossi UP ones which I repainted. They look good, but I should have the Pullman Standard ones available from Walthers now. I painted them back in '03! That train is pretty much finished though.
Riogrande5761 - You’re right - I am British born, though believe it or not, despite my southern-(ish) accent, I was actually brought up in the North! My mother’s side of the family is American though, so I am a US citizen too. I actually have family in DC, so I know the place well. Great spot for seeing Amtrak. Thanks for the link to the TCS site - I’d actually found that one, and I’m going to use it as the basis for doing my first DCC hardwiring. I’d like to replace the lamps with some bright 12v LEDs, as I’m told the incandescent ones have a nasty habit of heating up and warping the plastic. I’d love to have ridden on that train in all Phase III colours! I rode on the Zephyr in 1999 with my family on a holiday from Denver to Emeryville. By that time, the F40s were on their way out, and we had a pair of P40/P42s, and one F40PH. Sadly, this was at the height of the aptly named “WTF Phase-mismatch” era, so the locomotives were in Phase III, and the Superliners were mostly Phase 4, which has never been my favorite scheme. I’d really like a Transition Dorm based on one of the old Hi-Level cars, but I don’t know if Walthers are ever going to do one. If not, I’ll just get an El Capitan car
yes I’ve also watched your latest vid with the superliners interior detailing and it got me thinking, WHy don’t I do that with my cars I have… I think 40-43 passenger cars currently, the only problem is that my con cor superliners are hollow and don’t have any interior stuff, no decks or anything.
Also your NP train when I was at toppenish the gentleman running the big N,HO combined layout had done up a bunch of heavyweight baggage cars in NP, it’s all right I plan on watching more of your videos.
Hi Michael,
I enjoyed your video and of my newly immigrated wife thought it was nice to hear a Brit accent! What part of northern England were you brought up? There is a guy who posts here, Jon Grant who is in Sunderland, but I haven’t seen him post lately - I need to shoot him a PM as my wife is going to Newcastle in Nov to visit family and if Jon wants I could look for trains at the next Timonium show in Baltimore MD.
Speaking of DC, I did get to do a fair amount of train watching when I was doing some temp IT work at Washington DC Union Station summer of 2010. I had to walk down the train platform to reach the old REA building to work on computers - so it was fun to walk along the Amtrak and Acela trains on a daily basis for a few months.
I am a Rio Grande and SP fan having grown up in the Sacramento California area, and spend some time traveling through the Rockies in the 80’s. As far as modeling passenger trains, my past experiences have driven me to model the Amtrak California Zephyr using both KATO and Walthers F40PH’s and older Walthers Superliner I cars. For the dorm-coach car I currently have a Train Station Products transition El Capitan Santa Fe passenger car kit. To make it match the one on the AT Cal Zephyr, I would need to remove the AT&SF lettering and detal the phase III stripes on. Intermountain has a phase III version:
http://www.intermountain-railway.com/distrib/tsp/html/tsp4815.htm
Personally I hope Walthers offers there El Capitan cars in phase III for the dorm-chair car for modeling the Amtrak California Zephyr. I have both the Concor and Walthers Material Handling Cars (phase I and II) but still need some proper baggage cars - since the Amtrak California Zephyr began running on the D&RGW rails in 1983, all the head end part of the train was phase III (Engines, baggage cars, and transition dorm coach) while
They will. I’d be surprised if Walthers didn’t. They have to tool up some HEP ends first, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t. The demand for a Pacific Parlor car is high too (in III, IV, and IVb). So we’ll see phase III Hi-Levels from Walthers. It’s just going to take some time. Probably a year and a half or so.
I have the Intermountain Dorm you linked for my 1980s Southwest Chief. But without plating like the new Walthers Superliners, It doesn’t match too well. Stripe location and color doesn’t match well either. Although it does make a good transition from the plated Superliners to the unplated baggage.
Matt,
Since I have the older Walthers Superliners, the IMR step up coach should match them better as they are painted silver and not plated. Not that I wouldn’t mind plated Superliners but I would have to replace an entire train of 9 or 10 cars and a large expense to do that, assuming I could find enough phase III Superliner plated cars.
Ladies and gentlemen, please pardon this interruption…
Ok; Southwest Chief and Rio Grande, [8D]
From Passenger Train modeler to Passenger Train modelers…
My friends, I don’t even need to state it. You likely know what I’m going to say as far as solving this non-issue! My respectful suggestion:
Go for it! If you need any tips, send me a pm!
Nuff said…
We now return to our regularly scheduled forum activity; already in progress.
[quote user=“Southwest Chief”]
…I have the Intermountain Dorm you linked for my 1980s Southwest Chief. But without plating like the new Walthers Superliners, It doesn’t match too well. Stripe location and color doesn’t match well either. Although it does make a good transition from the plated Superliners to the unplated baggage.
Antonio, I don’t have any place to paint where I live, unfortunately. So for now I’m sticking with out of the box stuff. But I’m happy for you that you have the space to paint. Cheers.
Ok, Riogrande,
Understandable.
