I want to build a Passenger car into business observation for my fictional railroad…does anyone still make kits for passenger cars, or do I have to buy a RTR car and cut,cement,etc/
Branchline Trains coaches and Pullman cars are available from Atlas. Lots of them on ebay, too.
Not sure about their status since purchase by Atlas, but Branchline made passenger car kits until the Atlas purchase. Probably can still track some down. There’s also the old Walthers kits, but you really gotta roll your sleeves up for one of those to get it up to present day standards.
Then there are vendors who offer etched car sides. These are then applied to either a core kit or a existing model like a Walther RTR passenger car. After that, they build up like a kit would.
Bashing old stock is certainly the cheapest route. Here’s a bash of a Rio Grande RPO/Express car I did some time back from some Rivarossi cars. The rounded roof was taken from another car and shortened to fit to eliminate the celestory roof. I subbed in 4-wheel trucks for the original 6-wheel monsters. I added an American Limited disphragm to the express end and painted the ends black.
Hi, Jimmy
If you would like a wood business car, and a lot of railroads still used older cars for business cars since the expense was so great, I’d recommend the old Roundhouse Pullman Palace 6082 Observation car. It really builds into a beautiful model with truss rods, green tinted clearistory windows, nice arch-topped windows and an open end platform.
These are 85 foot cars, not the shorter Overton models. Keep on the lookout on Ebay as that would probably be your best source. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xpullman+palace+car&_nkw=pullman+palace+car&_sacat=220&_from=R40
I have one and can post photos if you’re interested.
Have Fun, Ed
Thanks guys. I am going to a train show tomorrow, so I will keep an eye out for what was mentioned above. I am planning to do it super detailed (Metal wheels, interior, lighting, new paint,decals,etc), for a NMRA division meeting should there ever be a bring and brag for passenger cars (if nothing else, I am doing it just for a project). I am looking for a heavyweight observation, so thanks for the advice guys. If and when I get anything I’ll post a photo of it.
The old Rivarossi heavyweight observation car can be converted to a decent-looking business car without too much effort.
I partitioned the interior using sheet styrene, then added a few interior details. The outside is little changed, although I plated-over a couple of windows to suit the interior’s floorplan. The moulded-on grabs were replaced with wire ones, and I added full underbody detail - the latter is mostly from PSC and New England Rail Service, along with some scratchbuilt stuff. Kadee wheelsets and an American Limited diaphragm completed the modifications.
Wayne
There we go, I got three passenger cars to work with.
Well, you can make your Athearn observation into a business car, too, either as it is or by shortening it, as I did mine.
Wayne
The Athearn car would be a good choice. Many real heavyweight business observation cars were less than the full 80’ of standard cars, so the 72’ Athearn car would work. Palace Car Co. makes interiors for Athearn cars, it would be pretty easy to use their products to make a realistic interior for the car.
The Bachmann heavyweight observation car is actually a PRR business car. Why not use that?
I found the best of what I had to find yesterday. Besides, I keep PRR stuff in original paint for the most part. Yes, I was planning to check out palace company for the interior stuff.
Okay, here is what I have so far.
I still need to design the decals, get something to seal the paint and make it ready for decals, print the decals, design an inteior, purchase interior parts, get metal trucks, get a lighting kit and some other stuff.