American Models made three types of passenger cars, heavyweights, lightweights and Budd cars. This thread is specifically about the heavyweight cars. SHS also sold heavyweights, these were American Models cars in SHS packaging. All the AM heavyweight parts can be used on the SHS heavyweights.
As the operator of a number of the AM passenger sets I was not satisfied with their appearance. Some had no lighting or lighting that constantly flickered, some had no silhouettes, some had four wheel trucks and some had six wheel trucks. Worst of all was the big, unsightly gap between the cars.
Those who install body mount Kadees do not have that large gap, all us highrail operatores with knuckle couplers do.
In this first post I will cover how to get the cars apart. The heavyweights have a one piece floor, sides and ends molding. The roof and the interior clear plastic sides and ends are a second single piece. On the standard 70’ cars the roof and clear sides are held to the car floor by six plastic clips that stick out the bottom of the floor. These six clips must be released and the roof and clear sides lifted off. This is much easier said than done. The clear plastic is a tight fit against the exterior sides and does not want to slide out. On some cars there was paint overspray that forms a glue like bond. This was a whole lot of fun to separate.
But do not celebrate the disassembly. Getting them back together sounds easy but it is unbelievably challenging to eliminate all the light leaks.
The 84’ cars have a screw at each end near the vestibule doors that must first be removed.
Below are some pictures of an 84’ car that shows what is described above. The 70’ cars are the same except for the two screws. In the picture of the underside, the upper car is an 84’ car with the screw visible at the edge of the wheel flange. The bottom car is a 70’ car w/o the screw. On these two cars the interior lighting, window silhouettes, conversion to six wheel trucks and the close coupling modification have already been completed. The bottom 70’ car has 4 wheel trucks for comparison.
AM made three different lighting boards for the heavyweight (and lightweight) passenger cars. The one on the bottom is the first design with three incandescent bulbs, no capacitor. The one in the middle was used in later production, same bulbs with an added capacitor.
The to black lighting circuit board is their new replacement LED lighting board. I recommend buying it with the window silhouettes as part of their deluxe package.
The outer round holes are for mounting in the 84’ cars, the inner oval slots are for the 70’ cars.
I have always looked at American Models as “ready-to-run kits” that work wonderfully out of the box but that could use a lot of detailing to make them accurate models. I have detailed almost every model I have gotten from them, from locomotives to cabooses. The SHS/AM heavy-weight cars are great candidates for that kind of detailing by adding diaphragms to close the gaps between cars, window shades, seating and passengers, lighting, handrails, and grab irons. For my Great Northern versions, I also had to add appropriate numbers to each car.
Terry O’Kelly
Terry, that looks fantastic! Do you have any interior pictures? Can I send you some of mine for upgrade???
I put diaphragms on my lightweights but just pulled the heavyweights closer together.
All the heavyweights as well as light weight streamliners have the same diaphragms, but I removed the upper suspension arms on the diaphragms for the heavyweights because they did not appear in any photos of those cars that I checked. All cars have LED strip lighting controlled with a buck boost converter so that the amount of light does not change with DC (or AC) voltage applied to the locomotive. I used Palace Car seats and a combination of MTH and OO (1/75) figures that I had to paint to put in those seats. The window shades are just paper printed with slight lines and cut out here and there for effect. I’ll try to open up a car to show the interior and vestibule doors on the ends of each car.
Terry
The interior of the American Models heavyweight cars has higher space for the clerestory windows, so I take advantage of that to position a string of LED lights glued to coffee stir sticks and supported on either end with cardboard to which I glue an image of a vestibule door. The streamliner cars are much the same, but the vestibule images are of more modern doors.
The cardboard supports are moved back far enough to allow room for a vestibule. In some cars a standing passenger or conductor looks out through the door window.
When the roof is placed onto the car body, the vestibule door is visible through the end of the car. I cut out the “window” of the door so tha the passengers are visible and light shines through.
The buck/boost module can be higher in the heavyweight cars and supported only by a large capacitor. The entire module is blocked from view by passengers on either side. On the lightweight cars, the module is “hidden” in the area reserved for bathtroom facilities at one end of the car and further blocked by paper window shades.
Terry O’Kelly
I have every single one of all the train sets… I live outside of Superior, WI. And they’re brand new in the boxes
Welcome to the forums, @Elyssa_Smith!
Thanks Terry.
Welcome aboard @Elyssa_Smith . I’m just across the bridge from you.
Northwoods Flyer