Vista dome car

[Matt_Hutson]

Hi guys,
I found a derelict USA Trains vista dome car on eBay about a month ago and decided to try to rescucitate it into a fictitious Rio Grande car. Here’s how it looked in the listing:

It looks like it was left outside somewhere back east for several years. Rusty screws, and sand and dirt everywhere. I took it apart and took the body outside to wash it. Three times it took, the third time using wheel and tire cleaner. Finally got it down to an acceptable level of clean. I’m shooting for something with a paint scheme that looks similar to this:

Last weekend I began to put it back together. I bought new trucks, a dome, and diaphragms from USAT. I removed all of the old windows. I painted the interior with Rust-oleum Satin Ivory Silk to mimic the few interior pics I’ve been able to find. The outside got a thin layer of Krylon Glow orange. Halfway re-assembled it looked like this:

Late Sunday I decided it was a tad too orange for Grande Gold. I took it completely apart and re-masked it and gave it a thin layer of Caterpillar Yellow. Now it looks like this:

Next it’s gonna get new windows and couplers. The dome glass will be tinted blue. Custom dry transfer lettering is on order.

Cheers,
Matt

[JRad (Jon Radder)]

Nice! That final color looks an awful lot like a '70s Chrysler car color called “Turin Tan”. I used it to paint our car and our step van back in the day!

[Sleepertime (Travis Malek)]

This looks great! The Caterpillar Yellow is a pretty close match it seems. What a great recover from the sad original state of the car.

I recently finished my first 3D printed streamliner, I also was shooting for a D&RGW paint scheme. I had luck with the MTN 94 “Medium Yellow” paint.

[Matt_Hutson]

Thanks guys. I was unaware of the MTN spray paint, so thank you Travis. Amazon is sending me a can even now and I’ll try it on my next project.

The prototype Budd cars had prominent black window gaskets:

Yesterday I used an acrylic black paint pen from Hobby Lobby to simulate those,:

Cheers,
Matt

[Eric_Mueller]

What an amazing save!

Eric

[Matt_Hutson]

Thank you Eric.

Yesterday I was again able to do some work on the car. I got some custom dry transfers made for its lettering; I also included properly spaces stripes. Stripes went on like this:

I later trimmed the stripes from the window openings with an Xacto knife.
Letter board lettering. You can still see some of the dings and scratches that were on the car when I got it:

One side done:

As an aside, earlier Travis gave me a tip about mtn Hardcore medium yellow spray paint for Grande equipment, so I bought a can. My son drew up some rerailers for me and I 3D printed them. They’ve since been painted with the Hardcore paint and make a pretty good match to the orange/yellow paint used by USAT for their diesels:

Cheers,
Matt

[Matt_Hutson]

Good morning guys,
Yesterday I was able to wrap up this resuscitation project.
I was only able to find three color pics of the interiors of Budd cars on the Grande. The interior walls and partitions were painted with Rust-oleum Satin Ivory Silk. The more egregious hair colors of the passengers were re-painted to something more realistic. One of the passengers was removed and promoted (much to his surprise!) to fireman on the F7’s that arrived earlier this year. Why can’t manufacturers include firemen in their cabs? One of the mysteries of our hobby.
The interior seats, passengers and floor were then given a good dusting of Dullcote.

New windows were added, using microscope slides. About a third of them had to be cut to fit. I like real glass on my models where possible as plastic just doesn’t look real to me. The lower windows (not used on Grande cars) kept their USAT plastic film.

One thing I learned during this project: the prototype, at least in Grande service, had these rods on the trucks oriented toward the middle of the car:

That orientation is not possible with the USAT trucks. The wheels were painted and the trucks given a coat of Dullcote and a wash of alcohol and india ink.

The holes in the roof from the Santa Fe radio antenna were filled with JB Weld epoxy.

Number boards were added, salvaged from the original car body. Here’s one side out on my mainline yesterday afternoon:

Kadee #906 Type E body mount couplers were added, along with air brake hoses from Burl Rice:

That’s it for this project, on to the next! Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Matt

[smcgill (Sean McGillicuddy)]

Outstanding work
As Marty would ask, is it real . Again great work !

[Matt_Hutson]

Thank you Sean.

I forgot to mention - I tried to tint the dome with diluted stained glass paint and an airbrush. Failed twice and gave up. The paint kept separating into unsightly blobs. It’s still a little blue, but doesn’t bear up under close examination.

Cheers,
Matt

[Rooster]

Matt,
If you want to play around with the dome you could try blue gel lighting filters/ sheets.

[Matt_Hutson]

Rooster,
Now there’s an interesting idea. Where would one find them?

I successfully tinted the dome in my Silver Mustang 20+ years ago, but they may have changed the formula for the stained glass paint in the interim:

Thank you,
Matt

[Rooster]

Matt,
I’m sure Amazon has them. Just search out blue light gel sheets or something of that nature.

[Boomer_K_MOGWAI]

Nice work Matt. The car looks great!!!

[Cliff_Jennings]

E.g…

Amazon.com : Lystaii 9Pcs Lighting Gels Plastic Gel Light Filter Sheets 11.7 x...

[Rooster]

Yep that’s it.
Looking at the prototype I would probably go with more of an aqua color.

Amazon.com : Lystaii 9Pcs Lighting Gels Plastic Gel Light Filter Sheets 11.7 x...