Sunday, June 24, 2018

New Haven Railroad County Parlor cars

When the New Haven Railroad purchased it's new stainless steel cars after WWII, part of the order were for a 20 combination Parlor-Baggage cars.  They were delivered in two basic layouts, but these were later modified on some of the cars.  I am not sure if Rapido will make these cars and I really wanted a pair of them for the East Wind trains.  I decided to combine (pun intended) a Rapido car and a set of E&B Valley Car Works sides to create these cars.  I have some photos to show how I went about it.



Here are the incorrectly painted Penn Central coaches that I used to create my Parlor.
A better starting point would to use an unnamed Parlor from Rapido

I removed the sides, but saved the vestibule doors on the end of the car with the
 most vents.  This keeps the doors consistent with other Rapido cars.

The first side removed.

The E&B Valley Car with the skirting and vestibule door removed.
I used Model Flex Red/Orange for the strip and Tamiya Mica Silver
is a close match to the Rapid silver paint.

Here is the unmodified interior from a Rapido Parlor car. You need to remove most of
the seat and then remove the the blue floor and turn it 180 degrees.  The steps must
also be removed from one end and installed in the other.





This show you the major components prior to assembly.  I had to move
some of the vents around to match the prototype.  I did use some
vents from Custom Finishing.  The name boards on the side of the car
are made from .005 styrene. 

you need a door for the baggage end of the car, I used a door from the bulkhead of the
old E&B valley car.  I sealed the window with a piece of styrene.  The door
was then glued to the Rapido vestibule.


Here is a diagram of the cars as delivered.



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