One of the last details that I’m looking at is the roof vents. I’ve got the Walthers O-Scale plans that D.C. Henry offers on that website, which show the location of the vents in each of these cars, but don’t really have any clear indication of what type/shape the vents have.
Searching for roof vents on the Walthers site isn’t particularly helpful, either, as most of them don’t show images, only (sometimes) names. There are Harriman vents (unlikely, since the MILW wasn’t a Harriman road), Garland vents (possible), and what I would call “indeterminate.”
So, can anyone offer any help? I’m willing to settle for a “near match”, I’m not absolutely fanatical, but would like to have a reasonably good effort.
It’s images of the detail parts themselves that I’m lacking. I haven’t found any good way of identifying which parts I need to order.
In the past, I would have gone to my LHS with a list of potential parts in-hand, and simply go down the “Wall-O-Parts”, and eventually find one that looks right. Unfortunately, he had to move recently, and his new location doesn’t have the “Wall-O-Parts”. I don’t think it’s fair to him to ask him to dig into his boxes of parts, one-by-one, if I don’t have a good idea of which part will do the job.
So, again: My request is, does anyone have any idea which HO-Scale parts (manufacturer and part number) would correspond to the vents on the afore-mentioned MILW RPO-Express and Baggage-Dorm?
One of the issues you are going to run into with Milwaukee Road passenger cars is that so much of them are ‘Shops Built’ - Right down to trucks and appliances like the roof vents. Some of the pictures in the above links will get you an idea of what they look like.
I hope I can remember when I get a chance, but I have been there and done that with trying to find passenger car roof vents, and have quite a stash of several different types at home. The only problem is that I am on the road helping keep the real thing rolling, so it will be a few days before I can look. I can certainly understand your frustration with this.