With a Litlte Help From My Friends

This hobby is great for making friends. Many have similar interests but are much more into research and have access to to information that you may never know existed. I have one such friend when it comes to passenger cars, trains and how they all work together. On one train I am modeling, the Bar Harbor Express, an over night train with sleepers from Washington DC, Philadelphia and NYC, going to Ellsworth, Maine, where passengers could be bused (or limousined) to Bar Harbor for vacation. Below is the consist for the summer only train from 1957.

There are three 10-6 sleepers listed on each train, and the New Haven did not have any so I had always figured they were PRR cars. I have collected three of the Walthers undecorated kits with out the skirting to model these sleepers. I also have one decorated with skirts. Then last summer my friend informs me that there is paper work showing the use of both Atlantic Coast Line and Florida East Coast cars on the train. This surprised me, but it really should not. Both of these southern roads are busiest in the winter with northerners escaping to the sun and fun of Florida. They end up being surplus in the summer months. I started looking on how to model these cars. Walthers has made the correct cars for both roads so it was a matter of tracking down out of production cars. Embay and train shows seemed the best route, but another friend of mine happened to have two ACL cars in his stash he was willing to sell me. know unfortunately we have no paper work stating what cars from either road were used, so I was happy with any. The cars my friend had are former C&O cars the ACL purchased in 1950 to bolster it's fleet of 10-6 cars. These cars had the 6 double bedrooms located in the center of the car for a superior ride in those rooms. The only work I have done on the cars is to add handrails in the aisle, window shades and a few passengers. Plus car names.

Being able to model some different cars breaks up the appearance of trains and leads to some interesting conversations. I am still on the look out for a Florida East Coast 10-6!

Watch Hill

 I have finally finished my New Haven observation. Watch Hill. I have worked on and off on this project so long, carbon dating may be the most accurate way to measure time. I had at one time one of the observations made by SOHO, but I was never happy with it, the logo panels were over size and the fluting was awful among other things. I did paint it and ended up selling it on eBay and shipping to Denmark of all places. This project is what I like to call a multi media kit. Here is an incomplete list of parts:

Brass cars side by Concord Jct.

Core kit by Eastern Car works. The kit included an extra section of roof ad floor to spice into the normal roof and floor to create the observation end. 

41-BNO trucks from Train Station Products with Branchline wheel sets.

Roof Vents and under body details by Custom finishing plus additional underbody details from Eastern Car works.

Couplers from Kadee.

Strip Styrene and clear plastic from Evergreen.

Diaphragms from IHC and American Limited.  (different ones on each end)

Red paint is Testors Hemi Orange

Mica Silver and flat black from Tamiya.

Decals from Micoscale.

The interior was 3D printed from a friend who will reman nameless to protect the guilty. 

The 3D printed interior glued to the core floor. 

I painted the interior with common craft paints.

A friend asked me how my project was doing and I said,
almost done, just have to put it together!

Here it the basic under body detail.  Rapido has me beat. 

This would have been the way to watch the crew races on the Thames.  
Just waiting to add the sides.

Here is my car next to a Rapido Coach

Drone view.

Vestibule End.

The other end.

The non bar side of the car

Serving drinks mid-train

The bar (money making) side of the car

I did send photos to Rapido telling them it is safe to start planning a run of these car snow that I have completed mine.