I’m the kind of modeller who enjoys running many roadnames (as well as freelancing and a healthy dose of fantasy/what-if). Two of these are the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe (an interest started with a trainset Bachmann F9A), and the Union Pacific (which runs through my birthplace of Pocatello as well as my current hometown Pomona). I also have a fondness for passenger trains, whether they’re short suburban or sweeping long-distance.
My Santa Fe passenger fleet thus far includes a semi-scale model of ATSF coach-observation 3197 that I wish to build an interior for. However, the only reference for the interior I could find is a photo of the coach section. No floorplan, no images of the newsstand it apparently housed at one time. Can anyone help me?
In my searches for passenger car information, I discovered the existence of an unusual club car that was often part of the Union Pacific’s City of Los Angeles train: LA-703 “Hollywood”. The lounge section of the car had porthole windows running its length, which grabbed my curiosity. Unfortunately, beyond a site offering the car in car-sides kit form and another site showing a single photo of someone’s build of that kit, that’s about all I’ve been able to find out about the car. No proper photos, no interior shots, no diagram. Either there’s just not a lot published about it online, or the name floods search engines with so many tangentially-related-at-best results that the info is buried. Does anyone have knowledge they could share?
I can´t provide you with any infos on the Santa Fe car nor with a floor plan of the Union Pacific Hollywood Lounge car, but the following informations might be helpful in further research in order to find out more details about this car.
Also see Ranks and Kratville’s “The Union Pacific Streamliners”.
There’s a good bit of information on HOLLYWOOD and its train. In particular, pages 220-225 have a car diagram including a floor plan, 7 interior photos plus one exterior. There is discussion of the interior treatment.
If you are interested in UP streamliners, this is an absolutely excellent book.
Copies are available on Amazon. I believe it is out of print.
Thank you for the tip. I just went through the Newberry’s extensive digital collection of Pullman diagrams, and didn’t find the plans for either of these cars.
I’d already seen those pictures - the exterior shots are how I knew my model was based off of 3197 - but I hadn’t seen the Pullman plan number before. So thanks for that much.
Jonathan Boyle’s book “Santa Fe Streamlined Observation Cars” has floor plans of ATSF 3198/3199. Peeking through the windows of the brass model of 3197 by The Coach Yard, I do not see any differences between 3197 and 3198/9 (although the former was built by Pullman-Standard, and the latters by Budd). Usually, TCY gets it right.
