What has to be done to the old "blue box" heavy weight Pullmans to get them to a scale length with a meaningful window configuration? I've been trying to get back into the hobby and dug out a pair of old shells that have had the factory paint stripped off and I'm thinking it would be a fun project to cobble up a new car. Thanks!
Welcome Pete,
I'm guessing the prototype car you want to model is of the 80'ish length? and the Athearns are 72'
I guess I would start by finding some images or pictures of what you want to end up with, including window configuation, and then decide how you could cut up the cars you have, and splice them back together to what you want.
You might even figure a way to take a 3rd sacraficial car, along with what you have, to come up with 2 coaches.
I guess the easy way out for you is to find a heavy weight car that is already the right length, with windows the way you want, but what fun is that. I think you itchin to get out the razor saw and build!
I'm working on something kind of similar, in that I need a sleeper car 70' to 75'ish in length to go with a train I'm building using the Athearn 72' streamlined cars, and sleepers of interest are 85-89' long.
So I'm going to be kit bashing my own.
I guess you'll be kit bashing in the other direction.
Please keep us posted on your progress. I, for one, will be watching.
Mike.
My You Tube
My post might have changed a bit Mel, as I was re editing as you posted.
There was a book published a while back (which you can still find if you search online) called "Model Railroading with Athearn". I haven't looked at my copy for a while, but IIRC it's chapters are reprints of articles from the old "Model Railroading" magazine. Pretty sure one article is on doing what you're asking about, extending 72' Athearn heavyweights to correct length sleepers, diners or observations. (The heavyweight Athearn RPO, baggage, and coach cars are the correct length already.)
Probably be easier to just pick up and old AHM/Rivarossi 80' Pullman at a flea market for $10-15 and just use that however....
I would suggest buying a Rivarossi heavyweight and selling the two Athearn cars.
.
You are attempting to do a lot of work to make something you can buy for $25.00 or less.
You could convert the Athearn cars to MOW service if you want to keep them.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
While I "get" the idea of kitbashing the two Athearn cars into one longer car, I have to agree with Kevin. The Rivarossi cars have received some criticism in forums such as this, but they can be made into decent looking models. I see them regularly at train shows for ten bucks or less.
Here's a couple, although all of mine have been converted to coaches - my road is too short to need Pullmans, unless it's a run-through car from a connecting line...
I used some New England Rail Services parts to convert this one into a solarium/lounge for local high rollers...
...and while I do have a diner, another one was shortened and turned into this combine, used mostly on mixed trains, doubling as the caboose...
Wayne
I mentioned the old AHM / Rivarossi cars because for all the work it would take to kitbash the two Athearn cars into one, about the best result you would get is something comparable to the old Rivarossi Pullman. If the OP wants to shop around a bit, he could also find better detailed recent Pullmans from Walthers and other makers.
BTW don't get me wrong, I have quite a few of the old Rivarossi cars and like them a lot, especially since I have bought many of them at RR swap meets for as little as $10-20 - sometimes with an interior.
I might end up chopping up a Rivarossi sleeper to get a sleeper in the length that I want. Something to match the Athearn streamliners.
At first I felt I shouldn't, but with what I'm hearing on the Rivarossis, I won't feel so bad now.
I did find a ConCor 72' sleeper, but it's smooth side.
I like what the OP is doing. He wants to build, and he has the basic stuff to bash into what he wants.
If you have access to the MR All time Digital Archives, there is a very good article by the late Bill Clouser called "Stretching The Athearn Pullman" in the December 1960 issue. Bill also wrote an extensive article on modeling with Strathmore brand paper and illustration board in the February, 1959 issue and an article on painting and finishing in the March 1959 issue. Although 60 or so years old, all 3 article are well worth reading. I especially enjoyed the Strathmore atricle as it provided a facinating look at modeling out of material most of us would never consider today. Bill Clouser was a professional model builder and also one of the first small manufactures of very highly detailed "epoxy" (resin) cars, mostly in O scale. His work, IMHO was so good, it still deserves study today.
mark
Well, if it was me, I would just add some detail to them and run them the lenght they are. Oh, that's right, that's what I do now, with a fleet of nearly 200 Athearn, ConCor, and MDC "shorty" passenger cars.
As others have suggested, if you want full scale length Pullmans, just buy something else.
Nothing you do to an Athearn Pullman is going to make it a truely correct model, so why bother?
Personally I like the selectively compressed nature of 72' passenger cars - and in fact, MANY passenger cars were LESS than 80'.
True, Pullman never built any 72' heavy weight sleepers, but truth is passenger cars were built in relatively small batches and variations are endless - why obsess, you will never get it all correct.
Just my thoughts,
Sheldon
While I'd just run them as is, I gather that's not your prefference. Thus I'm one more vote to just go with a Rivarossi or IHC version. Sell the Athearn's to the right person and buy the right replacement you might well come out ahead with a few bucks pocket change.
Visit the Chicago Valley Railroad for Chicago Trainspotting and Budget Model Railroading.
First off, I'm new here so I have to wait before I can post again. Tnd.rail... Thanks for the MR article. Turns out that years ago, I was saving and filing away old issues of MR and I went digging and I FOUND THE ARTICLE!! I also have an old "All Time Index." I had gone to the Passenger Cars, Construction and there were a whole bunch of references to "Pullman Cars." It wasn't there but it was located under "Stretching Pullman Cars!!" I'd still be looking. Also, I went Googleing "Pullman Floor Plans" and that led me to a Rail Road Museum in Texas. There, I found that J H Giessel had drawn plans that are in a '56 issue of MR. I still have to dig that issue out. But what I could see in the Museum's web page (bad scan or copy or whatever) the car looks pretty much the same as the Athearn car. I'm thinking that Athearn used the MR plans and fore-shortened (Did you know that the word "non-hyphenated" is hyphenated, but the word "hyphenated" is actually non-hyphenated.) it to fit into their molding machine. I think that it was in the same Museum site that there was a copy of a 1910 railroad engineering publication that looks like the source of Giessel's drawings.
Edit: J H Geissel's Pullman drawings are actually in the Feb '66 issue of MR. Here's a link to the Texas Transportation Museum's posting the drawings: https://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/photos/col-mckeever/pullman-mckeever-07.jpg
Alright Pete, let the bashing and hacking begin! I love it.
I use Photobucket, but there are others, I'm sure you'll get a few more options.
I use tinypic.com and have had no issues with it and it's completely free.
Russ
Modeling the early '50s Erie in Paterson, NJ. Here's the link to my railroad postcard collection: https://railroadpostcards.blogspot.com/
Go for it Pete! I use Imgur.
Photobucket alienated many people by jacking up their rates, blocking links to the pictures on free accounts and putting in a massive amount of pop up ads. I think they lowered the price in attempt to regain the business they lost, but kept the ads.
Don't know if the people that pay for it, see the ads, but those of those that don't do.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
BigDaddyDon't know if the people that pay for it, see the ads, but those of those that don't do.
Nope,no ads, and I pay $14 something a year. That disturbing little video box on the lower right also goes away.
I spend some time on an old Ford forum (FordBarn) and through the years there have been some wonderful technical threads and then, one day most of the accompanying photos disappeared. Cursed Photo Bucket!!
Yay!!! I seem to have gotten past the monitoring phase here!
I think there are quite a few on here that use Flickr.
Google photo hosting sites, you'll get lots of choices. You can also host your own on a blog, or your own web site.
mbinsewi Alright Pete, let the bashing and hacking begin! I love it. Mike.
I mentioned earlier that I might hack up a Rivarossi to get a sleeper, but I ended up turning a ConCor smooth side sleeper into a corrugated side, and roof, using an Athearn car.
I won't bore you with all of the pictures.
Good luck Pete, hopefully you'll settle on a photo hosting site so can all see your efforts
This is just an update on my progress. I wound up cutting exactly where the Clouser article advises and the length comes out just about exactly as the Rivarossi car that I have. The sanding rig I made up worked out very nicely. And then, before I joined the two halves, the problems set in. First, I was cutting out the two tiny windows on the opposite corners to plug them up. First one, I cut too far and into the next window. RATS! Oh well, I figured I'd cut one of the spare windows out of one of the scrap halves. I CUT IT OUT OF THE OTHER GOOD HALF!!! So, I had to cut out about an inch or so to splice back into that messed up half. I also decided to cut in another window, similar to the Rivarossi car into that spliced in piece. So, it was time to join the halves back together. I made up the jig like the Clouser article, glued everything back together and held it tightly by hand for a couple of minutes. Started working on this and that and it came undone. So, I cleaned up the joint areas on the sanding jig and reglued it (I'm using Ambroid Plastic Weld), held it awhile and then the next day, added some .015 styrene plates over the joint on the inside. Let it sit for a day and started monkeying with it and the joint opened up above the windows. So, I ran a length of 5/16 threaded rod with fender washers down through the car and reglued it again, snugged up the nuts on the rod and it worked out well. But, now it has a slight sway back. I'm not going to try to fix that. So, the next part is to try to come up with some home made AC ducts using sheet styrene to mimic the NERS parts. The weather's getting nice out now. I hope I can keep my focus on this project!
Update: Well, I've gotten most of the cutting / spicing / reconfiguring stuff done. I'm a bit down because the car, although the same length looks "diminutive" next to a Rivarossi Pullman I did years ago. Windows and doors are smaller, height of sides is less, etc. I got a pair of 6 wheel passenger trucks since the Athearn trucks in the original mounting positions wouldn't work with scale width steps. I also had to adjust the step positions from Clouser's dimensions. I've given up on the AC conversion. I had found a set of NERS ducts but I refuse to cut them up because I figure I'll never see another set. I'm trying to figure out options such as making rubber molds to copy them or trying to shape wood similar to the old Walthers ducts. Trying to form .005 styrene wasn't going to work. I cut out the battery boxes on one side to make more room for brake apparatus, etc. So, next up is painting and decaling. I'm going to name the car "Wm Clouser."
How about some pictures, Pete?
Can you find a "donor car" for the air duct? Something on Ebay, maybe? I don't have any heavy weights at all to even offer.
I'm not even sure what the duct work looks like. I'm assuming it's what Dr. Wayne has on the roofs of the cars he shows, towards the top of this thread?
mbinsewi I'm not even sure what the duct work looks like. I'm assuming it's what Dr. Wayne has on the roofs of the cars he shows, towards the top of this thread? Mike.
Yeah, it's what Dr. Wayne's look like. Walthers used to offer it as a milled wood strip that fit right into their wood stock clerestory roof. I picked up a length of that years ago and installed most of it on my Rivarossi pullman. New England Rail Service also sold an injected molded set which included two lengths of duct and two each of end caps for both "duct runs to end of car" and "duct terminates before the end of the car." I'm the kind of guy who would rather reproduce a piece than use up something that's somewhat unobtainable.
Seems that in practice, duct work only ran over the segments of the car that required the air conditioning. This did not include lavatories, aisles, and other areas occupied by crew only, such as kitchens, lockers, etc.