Does anyone have any interior photos of the Wheeling and Lake Erie business car 1990? Or a floorplan? I am planni ng to do a HO scale model, and would love to have an interior.
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
Do you know the car's origin, or can you post an exterior view? That could help to identify the car more fully & possibly give some clues.
Tom
ex-GTW 15013
(Taken from RRPictureArchieves.net) http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=353775
According to Lepke/West's "Canadian National Railways Passenger Equipment 1867-1992", GTW 15013 (ii) was built by Pullman-Standard in 1954, and was originally Northern Pacific's 493 "Holiday Lounge". It went to Amtrak in 1971, where it was rebuilt and numbered 3353, and then passed to GTW.
It was rebuilt again with the full-width picture window applied to the blind end in March of 1982. It's shown as a "track inspection car" in the GTW roster, and most such cars had the rear portion of the car equipped with "theatre-type" seating facing to the rear of the car. I'm uncertain as to what the balance of the interior would be.
Wayne
Thank you Wayne.
That looks like an easy car to model from the outside. There has to be smooth sided car out there with that window configuration. Why don't you send a letter or email to the W&LE and see if they might be of help?
There are some email contacts under the about us in the corporate directory:
http://www.wlerwy.com/
Victor A. Baird
www.erstwhilepublications.com
Yes this side would be easy to make. The other side has a door on this end, so it is going to involve some cutting. I did find a suitable car made by Concor. I will try to contact Wheeling for a floor plan. Then again, I am not exactly sure which one to send it to.
I can't help on the interior, but it might be worthwhile to contact W&LE directly and ask. You might even be allowed direct access to the car. Stranger things have happened. The worst that could happen is that they say no.
Looking at the prototype, I'm wondering if the forthcoming Walthers B&O coach (due in April, 2015, I think) might be a starting point. The B&O cars were also built by Pullman Standard. The side windows on the WLE car seem to have an unusually short height, similar to the B&O cars. I'd suggest keeping the 7 evenly-spaced windows on each side, plugging the unwanted windows with styrene, and cutting in extra windows to match the ones you're keeping. As for the picture window, that's a problem you've solved before!
While I probably couldn't get interior access (I am south of Pittsburgh and the car is usually kept at it's main yards). Well, at least they could possibly supply some interior shots, or a general description.
I was planning to use this as my base to start. https://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/223-909