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Mixed train combine

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  • Member since
    February 2021
  • 1,110 posts
Posted by crossthedog on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 5:41 PM

And I just realized only now that we are talking about a railroad car that is just 25 miles away from the chair I'm sitting in, up at the depot in Snoqualmie. I could go up there and look at it, although I'm unsure whether the museum's "large artifact" collection is available for snooping around in now that the tourist season is over. I have a friend up in that neighborhood that I need to check on. Maybe time for a coffee in the old town.

-Matt

Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.

  • Member since
    February 2021
  • 1,110 posts
Posted by crossthedog on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 4:35 PM

I posted your question over on the SP&SRHS groups board. Here's the response I got back in less than half an hour:

-Matt

---------------------------------------

Good Afternoon Matt,

I have several interior photos of SP&S 272 at Snoqualmie in 1992 on Flickr. The heater is at the vestibule end. Since the car was in mixed-train service it needed to provide its own car heating. A Baker heater was installed.
 
I kitbashed a model from two Rivarossi Santa Fe Coach-baggage Combines in HO. That car provides the distinctive letterboard continuing above the vestibule doors of Barney & Smith cars. Pullman cars usually have the vestibule door continue to the roof line. Despite all this, the Santa Fe car was built by Pullman in 1923.
 
The kit-bashed model started as a Rivarossi Heavyweight Santa Fe Combine.
The trademark Santa Fe girder below the body was removed.
A sacrifice car provided the vestibule at the baggage end.
Windows were replaced and extended using New England Rail Service #201 paired windows. One window from the pair was cut away, leaving a narrower single window than offered in other kits.
Space above the windows was filled with Evergreen strip plus an overlay strip.
Trucks are IHC #4258
Couplers: Kadee #26.

Those combines were made in brass.

Hope this helps


 

Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.

  • Member since
    November 2022
  • 28 posts
Posted by Calapooya on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 11:24 AM

Thanks for the helpful replies.  I will be joining the SP&SHS.  The actual car is at a railroad museum not too far from here.  I will know after I get over there whether BN changed it from the time when SP&S ran the mixed.  My problem is where to put the chimney since the available rtr combine has the toilet where SP&S put the stove.

  • Member since
    January 2004
  • From: Canada, eh?
  • 13,375 posts
Posted by doctorwayne on Monday, November 7, 2022 3:11 PM

Welcome to the Model Railroader Forums!

I have several combine cars for use on branchlines, and where steam heat from the locomotive isn't available, I have installed either coal-burning stoves or Baker heaters, the latter being coal-fired water heaters which circulate the heated water through in-car radiators, then return the cooled water back to the heater.

A few photos...(Click on the photos for an enlarged view.)

This one is a shortened Model Die Casting "Palace Car" combine...

...the box on the roof is part of the Baker heater, while the heater itself is right below it in the baggage compartment (there's actually no heater modelled, as it wouldn't be visible).  There is a stovepipe, partially visible on the other side of the clerestory roof.

This Rivarossi car was originally a full-length diner, but I converted it into a branchline combine, shortening it appropriately...

...here's a view of the interior (before the passengers showed-up)...

There's one coal-fired stove visible just to the right of the baggage section, and another, only partially visible through the window near the washrooms and the vestibule at the right end of the car.

This one is another MDC car, but it's a full-length combine...

...with a coal-fired stove near the right end of the car.

The opposite side of the same car reveals a Baker heater in the baggage compartment (likely tended by the baggage handler), while the coal stove at the other end is probably the responsibility of the conductor.

This one is also full-length, a kit from Branchline, if I recall correctly.

I added two windows on both sides of this car's baggage section, but because it's not normally used in branchline service (perhaps occasionally in the summer)  there's no need for smoke-jacks.

Wayne

  • Member since
    February 2021
  • 1,110 posts
Posted by crossthedog on Monday, November 7, 2022 2:26 PM

I've been waiting to see if you get an answer to this, because I also model the SP&S and I'm curious about it. If no one answers here, you might post on groups.io (can I say that? -- I guess the moderator will tell me if not). There's a dedicated group for the SP&S Railway Historical Society and this kind of question gets asked and answered all the livelong day.

-Matt

Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.

  • Member since
    November 2022
  • 28 posts
Mixed train combine
Posted by Calapooya on Sunday, November 6, 2022 10:14 PM

I am trying to create a reasonable facsimile of the SP & S mixed train combine.  The car was a Barney & Smith coach converted to a combine.  The best I can come up with is the Bachmann combine which believe is probably a Pullman.

The question:  Where would the stove be in the Pullman car?  The photos I have of SP & S #272 show a chimney at the vestibule end.  That is the toilet on the Pullman.

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