Hi guys,
Last month I began thinking about building a passenger train for my railroad. Historically I have only run freight, with an occasional mixed train that included the combine I built a few years ago.
I wanted to keep it simple. During the late 1940’s and early 1950’s the Grande operated a train called the San Luis. It usually consisted of two or three cars, and the cars were Pullman green or four strip Grande gold during this era:
I wanted to use two of the USA Trains heavyweights to represent the Grande’s 900 series cars. I bought two lettered for the Santa Fe:
Leighton Moreland of Hyacinth Models was kind enough to share the artowrk he used for lettering their HO scale baggage cars. Using that, I drew up the lettering I needed in AutoCAD. Custom dry transfers were made for me at http://www.drytransfer.com/.
The prototype 900 series heavyweights had four wheel trucks, so I bought a pair of dirt cheap Aristo heavyweights on eBay to be truck donors. The USAT trucks were removed and the Aristo trucks added, along with prototypical safety chains:
I also bought an Aristo RPO/baggage car on eBay (also dirt cheap) to be doctored up accordingly:
Last week I began lettering of the cars and painting of the RPO/baggage. The RPO/baggage also inherited a pair of the USAT six wheel trucks; it also got a USAT diaphragm on the baggage end. Grande trains during this era had a variety of colors:
I used Krylon matte Spanish Moss for the baggage/RPO. I was able to remove the Santa Fe lettering from the USAT coaches using a q-tip and lacquer thinner. Each side of each car takes about an hour to letter, but by last weekend I was able to first operate my version of the San Luis:
Here’s that Aristo BN RPO/baggage car after alterations:
More on the fate of the Aristo donor cars later.
Cheers,
Matt