What were the primary differences between the Great Dome Cars and Super Dome cars when they were constructed?
Thanks,
Dave
USAF (Retired)
The Great in the name was used by Great Northern, actually for all their domes, even the "standard" ones. GN had six of the full-length domes made by Budd. One of the cars was actually owned by the Burlington but was painted for Empire Builder service.
GN Great Dome by Edmund, on Flickr
The Milwaukee's eleven "Super Domes" were built by Pullman-Standard and were the first of the type ever built in 1952.
Super-Dome by Edmund, on Flickr
Later Santa Fe had 14 "Big Domes" built by Budd in 1954.
Santa Fe Big Dome by Edmund, on Flickr
Santa Fe (BNSF) kept one and the rest went to Auto-Train.
Interior arrangements varied between the builders and railroad specifications.
Southern Pacific built in their shops seven, 3/4 domes (using Budd-built glass framing assemblies)
Glass Top by Bob Anderson, on Flickr
Hopefully that is what you were looking for.
Good Luck, Ed
Just to amplify a little on Ed's tutorial, note that the SP dome has four wheel trucks; the other big domes have six wheel trucks -- these are very heavy cars, in part because all that glass needs an even more robust A/C system
The Milwaukee Road cars were totally smooth side. The GN domes were nominally smooth side but with so much "busy" stuff" on that side that it does not look particularly smooth, and there is a bit of corrugation high on the side. Obviously the Santa Fe dome was corrugated. The SP is smooth side but not as uniformly smooth as the Milw Rd. There are many underbody differences relating to the A/C system and to whatever other use was made of the lower floor of the car.
Note also how much further down on the car side the SP's dome glass goes. The entire dome looks lower in fact, and I have to think it looked different if you were walking in the "first floor" than would the others. The other cars look more like a standard car body with a dome plopped on top. For a time Varney made a 60' shorty" version of a big dome car (it might have been old Penn Line tooling) and I was able to get a box full of unpainted shells and clear plastic dome castings for a buck or two. I had this notion of combining and stretching out the body and combining dome castings, but the body is a sort of mix of the corrugated version that doesn't exactly resemble ANY of the real full length domes. Santa Fe is likely closest. It would be easy enough to shave off those corrugations but it would still be a, shall we say, "incompletely buttocksed" (I hope that avoids the language police) approximation so those shells still sit in their shoebox awaiting my inevitable estate sale, to which all of you are cordially invited when the time comes.
Dave Nelson
dknelsonNote also how much further down on the car side the SP's dome glass goes. The entire dome looks lower in fact, and I have to think it looked different if you were walking in the "first floor" than would the others.
The S-P, of course, started their project with standard passenger car "stock" and added Budd-purchased "greenhouse".
Some good background and photos here:
https://streamlinermemories.info/?p=1392
Our old friend Mel had made some excellent models of these. Here is some additional modeling reference on these SP cars:
http://modelingthesp.com/Passenger_Cars/Dome_Cars.html
Regards, Ed
I've allway been fascinated on how SP chose to build their own dome cars instead of ordering the ones Buud or Pullman Standard made.
On SP, "the domes are too tall argument" extended into the early to mid 70's.
SP's Domes were built from pre-war observation lounges, tavern-lounges and parlor cars all nearing 20 yrs old with most of those cars sidlined or stripped for parts to keep the rest of the fleet going.