Large Scale Central

Building Modern Passenger cars

Modeling
#21

Hey Y’all;

I don’t understand the want to use sandpaper, even fine grit, for the car roofs; passenger cars had long had metal exterior roofs by the era of this car style.

I did a lot of custom painting of N scale cars in to N&W for a few N-Trak fellows in Va Beach Va in 1980s, and Jack had some slides of N&W cars in Roanoke in the 1950s, at least one with the cars seen from above. Thing to do might be use flat black paint with repainted areas of fresher satin black paint, and a few quick and dirty, rough textured, reseal and patch paint spots here and there. A couple of them we classed as downright scuzzy.

Here’s an on-line illustration of what that kind of appearance is http://www.railpixs.com/nw/NW%20commuter%20train%20car%20at%20Chicago_Sept%2077.jpg

Blue one showing some rust http://www.railpixs.com/nw/NW_coach_RoanokeVa_Oct77.jpg

Lighting and film grain give there PRR car roofs a more uniform look, http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=257515

Here, cruise through here looking at PRR passenger car photos, some will be similar cars in color, http://www.northeast.railfan.net/rolling37.html

Note slight shading over where roof sheets are attached to carlines http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3801551

One more place to browse passenger car pics, http://passcarphotos.info/

edit: hmm, don’t know what it is going to look like to you, but here the word spacing has a somewhat random appearance, odd.

#22

Here is the first picture (original link did not work)…

#23

Interesting links Forrest Thanks. The reason I wanted to go with the sand paper roof is to try something new and to give the roof some texture and mostly to hide the 2 lines on the roof where the caboose roofs meet. I’m not 100% happy with the sandpaper but it is good enough for now.

There is still lots to do on these like possible roof vents and under the car items like AC units, tanks etc…

Now that these were out in the sunshine for the photo shoot I think I need that extra yellow stripe that would run below the windows but I’m not going to rush into that. I do need to get some CAPE COD CENTRAL decals to go above the windows.

I have one more car body to paint, I made 3 in total and I’m thinking it would be nice to have a dome car. Any tips on how to make a dome?

#24

Splice 2 sections of a plastic bottle and add Plastruct shapes over it for the framing… a dome.

Slice above the neck to capture the curving ends.

Use a 7up for green glass … mebbe.

Looking good. Needs the top stripe to complete the ‘cigar band’ design.

John

#25

Todd Haskins said:

Interesting links Forrest Thanks. Now that these were out in the sunshine for the photo shoot I think I need that extra yellow stripe that would run below the windows but I’m not going to rush into that.

And as soon as the cat can be shoved off the desk here so I can type, welcome! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Yep, that other stripe would spiff them up nicely. My taste would be for stripe at top of side, but then again, my sense of coach aesthetics was affected by growing up in N&W, SOU, ACL, territory - and you are following your prototype’s practices.

Thing about large scale detailing projects is that they are more readily, well at least to me, accomplished in nibbles and bites over time than say HO scale projects are.

Talking about paint, if you are mixing your own, back when I was redoing those dozens of ATSF cars of Jack’s on to N&W, since I couldn’t use solvent based paints at the time for having a nasty reaction to them, we mixed our own brew out of Tamiya acrylics.
And it seems just a hair off, and somewhat lifeless, until we tweaked the mix with a spot of copper color - yes, copper. Then it had a richness and depth like the excursion cars of the time did. On close look, they had that slight hint of metallic flakes that a number of auto paints do, that was the foundation of the inspiration. We think that’s what made the difference.

It’s an idea, and remember, I’ve never been up close and personal to your inspirational cars, therefore that above idea may or may not be relevant.

#26

LONG time ago I made some cars by bending the plastic over a wood form in my oven. I did the windows how you did. For the dome, I cut out a notch in the roof of a car and used another bent piece to add the dome. Had an article in GR years back about it. I made the cars short, had a small layout in town at the time. No one made streamliner cars at the time. I have since put Aristo streamliner trucks on them. I could only get two pix on this page. THere are two more, if you don’t have this issue. Send me a message and I’ll send them to your email address. Willing to answer questions.

#27

HI Jerry . We have emailed before about your passenger car projects but I couldn’t get the melt over the mold right so my project was shelved.

When the caboose roofs came along I bought them and suddenly I had the curve of the roof which proved in my failed attempts to be the hardest part to make.

Seeing your dome article there gave me an idea so I checked my junk pile and found a piece of plexi that didn’t work out when I was trying to form my own cars and I should be able to cut out a workable dome for my car out of one!

Stay tuned…

#28

You can buy the USA dome parts, with glass/inteior/etc. Might look into that. I used one on a MtH coach, had to cut it down some to match the smaler scale but you would not have that problem. I found the metal duct tape to help a lot blending it in. First pix I narrowed it down. Kidman’s just ordered another one for me, all the pieces come to about $75.

#29

Thanks Jerry nice find but $75 yeouch!

I had an idea to take the cast off failed attempts at curving my own passenger car bodies in the stove and cutting one up to make a dome. The main part was easy enough but the curves at the end… I had one come out near perfect but after 4 attempts at replicating it for the other end I finally had to say “good enough” . So now I have a plexi glass dome but I need to figure out how to make a frame for it.

The fun continues.

#30

Update: The passenger cars hit the rails yesterday for the first trial run and my cell phone captured the fun.

I found they don’t like track that tips from side to side and derail easily over it. I plan to fix the bad spots and add a bit more weight to the cars.

There is also crazy overhang going around curves and it looks comical. In the video the train is going around a 10’ diameter circle and that doesn’t look too bad but the 8’ and 16000 LGB turnouts…

The cars do need the extra stripe and nice yellow lettering.

https://www.facebook.com/todd.haskins.50/videos/1122528714445702/

#31

I found they don’t like track that tips from side to side and derail easily over it.

That’s how I find the bad spots on my railroad. One of my Aristo streamline passengers cars is especially sensitive to those kind of irregularities. If I can run my “Dinner Train” for an hour or so without any derailments, I know that I can run any of my other equipment without issue.

#32

Todd,

They look really good on the track and that vista dome came out great! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

#33

Nice looking set Todd (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

#34

Todd Haskins said:

There is also crazy overhang going around curves and it looks comical.

#35

David Russell said:

Todd Haskins said:

There is also crazy overhang going around curves and it looks comical.

.

#36

Joe Zullo said:

David Russell said:

Todd Haskins said:

There is also crazy overhang going around curves and it looks comical.

.

They do they do but in a straight line I think they look pretty good! Suddenly my RR looks really small with these on the track. LOL

Thanks for the kind comments.

#37

Actually the overhang and sharp angles between my streamline passengers cars, and with my Pacific, reminded me of the old Lionel trains I used to play with when I was a child. So even if it looks odd, I am not bothered by the look.

Also, when we rode the Tagart Flyer, it stopped at the falls and let us off before returning. The 1:1 cars look about the same on branch-line track-age.

#38

35" cars on a 10’ diameter curve don’t look to comical too me but the deck,hose, recycle bin etc. look comical to me in the below pic.Guess I see things differently and the set you are making looks good so far Todd!

Edit: for Joe’s corrections

#39

(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

#40

David Russell said:

35" cars on a 10’ diameter curve don’t look to comical too me but the deck,hose, recycle bin etc. look comical to me in the below pic.Guess I see things differently and the set you are making looks good so far Todd!

David,

That looks more like 10’ radius, 20’ diameter.