Espeefan's Passenger Car Modeling

[Espeefan]

OK Guys, due to some personal issues I wanted to get the San Joaquin Daylight photographed and videoed for your viewing pleasure! Here she is. I have to put a marker on the end and tweak a coupler or two but the whole consist of the 1947 train is here. The green diner is running protection for the normal Daylight painted unit!

 

[Sirfoldalot]

OK Guys, due to some personal issues UI anted to get the San Joaquin Daylight photographed and videoed for your viewing pleasure! Here she is. I have to put a marker on the end and tweak a coupler or two but the whole consist of the 1947 train is here. The green diner is running protection for the normal Daylight painted unit!

YAY - BULLY, BULLY!
BEAUTIFUL

 

[Espeefan]

Hi folks! I know I said I was done with Daylight cars for a while, but I was browsing Evil-Bay the other day and low and behold look what turns up:

This is a 70-D-10 Diner. Along with the Tavern/Lounge and the Coffee Shop cars I just did, this was the third of the dining cars on the original 1937 Daylight. Starting bid was a paltry $49! Now I wasn't in the market for any more dining cars considering how many I just did, but for 49 bucks I figured what the hell, I'll bid. Nobody else was interested and here she is! Just got here today. I have the interior, the decals, and the full width diaphragms on hand so I just need to get another set of trucks to replace the crappy factory ones and all that's left is the elbow grease! I'll probably take turns swapping it out with the heavyweight diner in the train now, and maybe use it in other trains. There were just two of these built, and one of them lasted until the 1960's in Daylight paint, so it'll be pretty versatile. I won't cover its upgrade and painting in this thread because you've all seen how these are done already, but several have asked how you get decent Daylight cars without spending a fortune. This is how. Of course you have to do the work, but it's not really all that hard, it just takes time!

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Definitely a nice catch. I run into plenty of SP stuff on the shows here in the East, but being "not my thing" and generally unfamiliar with it, i just stare and keep going. In yesterdays show in Allentown one stand had old production Con-Cor observation with vista dome in Daylight colors. The vista dome part had rather thick window panels...But if i ever run into one of those 4-8-2s with skyline casing on the boiler for a decent price...just imagine the Gringe smile done by Jim Carrey

 

[Espeefan]

Definitely a nice catch. I run into plenty of SP stuff on the shows here in the East, but being "not my thing" and generally unfamiliar with it, i just stare and keep going. In yesterdays show in Allentown one stand had old production Con-Cor observation with vista dome in Daylight colors. The vista dome part had rather thick window panels...But if i ever run into one of those 4-8-2s with skyline casing on the boiler for a decent price...just imagine the Gringe smile done by Jim Carrey

Check Brass Trains.com or resourced rails. The older models come up quite often. Sunset models did them too, but the older Max Gray and Balboa models built by KTM are solid runners and good pullers. A fellow with your skill level in brass would have no trouble handling the care and feeding of one!

 

[Espeefan]

Morning All! I haven't had much bench time lately, but I did get a few things done. I've pulled off the baggage cars for the moment. I may remove the swing couplers at a future date, but for now they are runnable, and I found something at the Mad City show i snagged for a song. In all the time on this forum I haven't seen much traction modeling. I have a minor in traction. The SP owned the Pacific Electric and I have a small collection of their models as well as a collection of PCC cars. I found a Pacific Electric box motor at the show and I snagged it. I have a couple of thee models alying around unpainted and I decided to go ahead and do them. They are very simple models to take apart, and the paint schemes are easy so they come under the heading of "light work". If you aren't familiar with the PE, they ran an extensive electric interurban network in Southern California in addition to passenger traffic in LA. They moved tons of mail and less than carload freight, and for these they used the box motors. Sort of a powered baggage car. I have two at the moment, and a third disassembled so all I have to do is paint them, and decal them. Oops, and re-motor and add DCC. First here are a couple of my finished models: First, a sister box motor I did a few years ago:

This is a Blimp. Interesting name, because of their size and the huge amount of people they could carry. They were brought down from the Bay area before WW2 and were used to deliver shipyard workers to their jobs. They lasted until 1961.

The current projects are a Blimp box motor and the fourteen hundred series box motor I just found.

Those front windows give the car sort of a Jules Verne look.

The motor and drive are very simple on these cars. A motor, spring belt drive and a single power truck:

I'll have to fabricate a motor bracket, but that's pretty simple. The bodies and chassis are ready to go the blasting and paint booths along wth that Daylight diner.

More later!

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Morning All! I haven't had much bench time lately, but I did get a few things done. I've pulled off the baggage cars for the moment. I may remove the swing couplers at a future date, but for now they are runnable, and I found something at the Mad City show i snagged for a song. In all the time on this forum I haven't seen much traction modeling. I have a minor in traction. The SP owned the Pacific Electric and I have a small collection of their models as well as a collection of PCC cars. I found a Pacific Electric box motor at the show and I snagged it. I have a couple of thee models alying around unpainted and I decided to go ahead and do them. They are very simple models to take apart, and the paint schemes are easy so they come under the heading of "light work". If you aren't familiar with the PE, they ran an extensive electric interurban network in Southern California in addition to passenger traffic in LA. They moved tons of mail and less than carload freight, and for these they used the box motors. Sort of a powered baggage car. I have two at the moment, and a third disassembled so all I have to do is paint them, and decal them. Oops, and re-motor and add DCC. First here are a couple of my finished models: First, a sister box motor I did a few years ago:
View attachment 183004

This is a Blimp. Interesting name, because of their size and the huge amount of people they could carry. They were brought down from the Bay area before WW2 and were used to deliver shipyard workers to their jobs. They lasted until 1961.
View attachment 183005
The current projects are a Blimp box motor and the fourteen hundred series box motor I just found.
View attachment 183008
View attachment 183009
Those front windows give the car sort of a Jules Verne look.

The motor and drive are very simple on these cars. A motor, spring belt drive and a single power truck:
View attachment 183012

I'll have to fabricate a motor bracket, but that's pretty simple. The bodies and chassis are ready to go the blasting and paint booths along wth that Daylight diner.
View attachment 183013

More later!

Awesome. I like anything with pantographs, or poles. Being in LA area back in mid 90s i found myself looking for any signs of road beds of PE even in the medians of major streets.

 

[Espeefan]

Awesome. I like anything with pantographs, or poles. Being in LA area back in mid 90s i found myself looking for any signs of road beds of PE even in the medians of major streets.

Much of what was is gone. I saw a post on the PE IO group about some of the little that remains going away. You really have to know what to look for now, and there isn’t much left to see.

 

[Espeefan]

Evening All! I have the Pacific Electric cars painted except for the trucks. They get PE Truck Green, and I'll do them before re-assembly. Then comes detail painting which is brush work. I also have the orange and red on that last diner. It just needs the black. That I'll do tomorrow with the PE trucks. Then we start re-motoring and decodering. I found a "Long Beach Twelve" car on the work bench I had started and finished that one as well as the other two. I also had lost the chassis somewhere in the rubble that is my work area. Took about an hour and throwing out about twelve pounds of trash before I located it. Also some choice profanity. Keep your parts organized, or you'll be sorry. It had fallen under a workbench and was painted black, so it was very well hidden.

 

[Espeefan]

Imagine trying to get a piece of wet spaghetti to stay on the edge of a table knife... That's what applying these old Champ stripes is like. Then multiple passes of Solvaset to get them to lay down and stay down. Champ decal film is tough stuff, but more delicate stripes this thin would be very difficult to apply! These are only moderately frustrating.

Almost done, just a few tweaks left, then I'll do the herald, the logo, and the smaller items, car number and diner placards. This will be the last one of these for a while. There have been a few mentions of cost in these discussions. what did this project cost? Well, surprisingly not too much. It breaks down like this:

The car (e-Bay buy) $49.00
D&G Models P21J trucks: $16.95
Broadway Limited Full Width Diaphragms: $40.00
Champ Decals 1" stripes BRH-86 $8.00 e-Bay buy, anywhere from $5-8.00 typically. One package will do two cars.
Microscale Decal set 87-1055 $8.76 Direct buy from Microscale
Misc shipping $40.00 The big charge was shipping the brass car to me.
Total: $162.71

With current Wathers Proto plastic cars pricing anywhere from $95-110.00, I think this is a favorable comparison.

I didn't count things like Kadee couplers, window glazing or shades, the interior pieces which were donated, or figures, all of which I had already. Maybe another twenty bucks total for that stuff. I buy the cheap Chinese figures off of e-Bay.

Not too expensive really, in the grand scheme of things. Plus you get a car that is seldom seen, and becomes a conversation piece. Brass Trains is currently dumping these old Sohos on e-bay starting at $49. Nobody even bid against me on this one, so while I disagree with the often-uttered sentiment that "nobody wants to model anymore" I can understand where it comes from. I don't bother with underbody detail on these, as they are skirted cars, so you don't see that detail anyway, but if you want to those details can be had!

Next up will be the Pacific Electric cars. I need to get decoders for them, then they can be re-motored and re-assembled.

 

[Espeefan]

All done. I'll give things a couple of hours to dry, then off the paint booth for clear coating!

 

[Espeefan]

Here are the PE cars with the major painting done. Top to bottom: Blimp box motor, Long Breach Twelve, and 1400 series Boxmotor on the bottom. I'll be doing detail painting tonight. Grabs, pilots, footboards, headlight housings, etc.

 

[Espeefan]

Morning All! I figured I'd finish the last Daylight diner before moving on to the trolleys. I haven't done a before and after shot yet (I don't think?... ) Anyway, here it is. The interior was a real pain on this one and I forgot the blinds, but then I figured I wanted people to see the interior anyway so what the heck?

Before:

After:

Glad I'm done with these for a while! Now that I've said that I'll probably find another one! Nope. This completes my Daylight car requirements. The only Daylight painted trains I can't assemble now are the Shasta Daylight which ran north to Portland. It had large windows so the passengers would see all that mountain scenery, the Sunbeam & Hustler, which ran between Houston and Dallas. One would require an all brass consist, the other is a Cotton Belt train, which would require a different 4-6-2. I don't have the interest to model either area.

Next: Trolley Time!

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Beautifully done, ALAN -- I grew up maybe 200 yards from the Cotton Belt ... used to run out every time I heard the PA unit blowing for the crossing! Usually 1 PA and 3 chair cars with an RPO and baggage up front.
Loved the paint on the PA!

 

[Espeefan]

Tha

Beautifully done, ALAN -- I grew up maybe 200 yards from the Cotton Belt ... used to run out every time I heard the PA unit blowing for the crossing! Usually 1 PA and 3 chair cars with an RPO and baggage up front.
Loved the paint on the PA!

That sounds like the Hustler post steam! Where did you live? Was it between Dallas & Houston?