On Monday I finished construction of an HO Baggage Car kit that I intend to use as a trailer car for my McKeen car.
This kit was from Bethlehem Car Works (Kit #1301). The prototype is that of Santa Fe 40’ Baggage & Express cars numbers 202-205, which were built by Barney & Smith in 1885. They were rebuilt in 1911 and were used as trailer cars for Santa Fe’s McKeen and General Electric Motor cars. Most were dismantled in the 1940’s, but one lasted until 1951.
Most of my passenger equipment is modeled after Maryland & Pennsylvania prototype, so I followed the Ma & Pa numbering sequence for baggage cars, selecting #41.
This kit, although recently produced, reminded me of car kits from the 1960’s or so, and I benefited by having assembled kits from that era. It is a composite kit, with wood, plastic, and metal parts. There was quite a bit of applying sanding sealer, burnishing, repeat in the process. There were several “pauses” during construction as the instructions were not as thorough as some kits and I had to think about just how things should go together. The instructions weren’t awful, but they certainly expected an experienced modeler.
So here’s a picture of the new trailer baggage car passing some of the miner’s cabins in Darwin, VA:
I have a local passenger train called the La Sal Zephyr, after the Utah mountains near Moab, that runs on my Foru Corners Division of the Rio Grande. During the tourist seasons – summer and snow – it rates a full train, which is most of the time.
To protect that train and provide some economy when operating it in the off-season, the Rio Grande called in its IOUs with Budd from the Prospector fiasco. Unable to make the Rio Grande whole again immediately due to wartime production priorities, after production started on the RDC line in the late 1940s, Budd was able to configure an otherwise stock RDC suitable for the mountainous profile of the newly constructed Four Corners Division, which served the needs of the booming region encpmpassing parts of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The RDC was looked down on by most regular riders, as they only ended up on it when the train with the amenities they usually enjoyed was out of service for some reason.
Then the CB&Q/Rio Grande/WP Zephyr was reequipped because of the stupendous patronage that franchise enjoyed. The equipment was used to equip the Houston-Portland Zephyr – a luxury cruise train – and add a very noce trailer to the somewhat over-powered “Grande RDC.” Suddenly regular patrons began enjoying the off-season ride and there were enough amenties in the Budd Dome-Obs-Cafe-Lounge to satisfy the Rio Grande’s most demanding customers.
The lengths some people will go through to justify running a motor car and trailer…
(a) No, I have no idea why the latter part of the original post went to blue letters and underlined. It just seemed to do that on its own. I looked at the “edit” function, but it didn’t show up as blue on that and I wasn’t sure how to correct it. (Sorry)
(b) No weathering is planned at this time. My logging and coal-hauling equipment has weathering and I recognize that operation in that environment would cause things to weather on a backwoods shortline. Still, the Winneshiek & Western is rather profitable hauling lumber and coal in 1917, and they have some pride in the railroad. I figure that they happen to have recently washed the passenger equipment so it still looks like the “varnish” of the big roads.
(c) Didn’t mention it, but the McKeen car is an old Ken Kidder brass item which has been re-motored with a can motor.
(d) Most citizens along my railroad refer to the passenger train as the “Severely Limited”.
re A) BTDT[:)] I’ll bet you’re taking “forum code” directly from your photo hosting site, then pasting it directly into the submit form? That’s where I got that, took me a long time to figure out a solution, but was simple. See the liitle box with the mountain scene, just to the right of the chain thing? The chain button gives yoiu web links, but the mountain scene gives you a place to insert your pic that should work right. Click on it and paste you forum code into it, then submit. You should eliminate the weird formatting.
Somehow, pasting pic code directly causes the after effects with formattintg you see with the underlining. If you use the button, it should solve that.
Okay. I’ll try to remember that, although it is generally a couple months between my posting pictures and technical details seem to be the first to fly from the memory bank. Thanks.
