Digging out the old stuff

I have been seriously modeling the New Haven Railroad for over 40 years.  The excitement of the E&B Valley Osgood Bradly, then the 8600 stainless steel coaches and county cars made the possibility of making New Haven passenger trains for a high school / collage student a possibility.  Brass cars were way out of my price range. E&B Valley (later Eastern Car Works) also made a series of Pullman Standard smooth side lightweight passenger cars, a 4-4-2, 6-6-4, coach diner and obs.  Why am I rambling on about this?  I came a cross four of these cars I built years ago, but do not plan on keeping.  I dawned on me I have a bunch of Concord Jct and NKP Company brass car sides. I also have a stash of Train Starion Products 41-BNO trucks that work great on these cars. 

Here is the underframe. I added .030 thick styrene strips to each side to
compensate for the thinner brass sides from the original plastic. 
 The floor drilled and tapped for 2-56 screws for trucks and couplers.

Here is the roof before I added the .030 styrene to the taps on the side.

When adding the .030 strips, make sure to lave a blank area
for the vestibule window. 

Here is the roof with the styrene

I glued one end to each side making sure to
 maintain a 90 degree angle.

Here I am clamping the two sides to the floor. 

Here are two cars with the roofs temporally added.

Here are the diaphragms I use for the cars, I would
 recommend the ones molded in black.  

Here are the partially built diaphragms.

Here are the TSP truck kit.

Here is Allens Point.  It is one of the very few cars that got the

 revered logo, a black NH on a red field.

Here are three cars. I built two per what I just wrote up, the third I
 did a while ago using a TSP core kit.

This was a fun way to clean up stuff that is sitting around the train room, not going out and buying Walthers PS cars saved a lot of money (and time). These may no be sate of the art cars form Rapido or Walthers, but the look good on the layout and I am not waiting for somebody to bring them out in HO scale.  If you don't have or can not find the brass sides, Union Starion Products makes the sides in styrene.  

Fun Project

My youngest son is working on his Master's at Syracuse University, so I built the following car. I rebuilt an old Rivarossi 12-1 into a 12-2 a while ago but I never finished it. 12-2 Pullmans use the University suffix, I already have Valparaiso University, used on the B&M so I need a good name for this car. I thought Syracuse would work well. Unfortunately there was no real Syracuse University name used by Pullman, but that did not stop me. Fortunately for me there was a City of Syracuse and I had the decals for that name making lettering much easier. I modified the car, including eliminating the vestibule on one end by using New England Rail services parts, the same for the roof a/c duct work.  I used a mix of NERS parts and Branchline parts for the underframe and Branchline parts for the interior.  The trucks are original Rivarossi with Kadee wheel sets. I body mounted Kadee couplers.

Here is Syracuse University next to the NH's New Franklin.
The upgraded Rivarossi holds up well with the Branchline kit.