I am posting my questions here to start a new thread on this topic so people with laser cutter and 3D printing experience can weigh in?
There are these kits for building the standard type of post WW-II pre-Amtrak streamline passenger cars. The prototype had a standard height and roof profile. The kits came with a plastic roof with the correct rounded section, sides that you had to cut your windows and door outlines into and injection-molded car ends, I believe. This gives an enormous start on scratch building because you don't have to bend brass to a roof outline or sand a wood roof to a finish to look like metal when painted. and the supplied ends went a long way to getting the proportions of the car correct.
As for the windows, one could laser cut the window patterns from a drawing supplied in a computer format, and I am wondering if anybody out there has a business making sides for you of about any AAR streamline passenger car out there? This would mean building the passenger car you want is just gluing roof, ends, sides and floor together, painting and lettering, and putting some underbody castings, trucks and couplers on it. More like a kit building experience?
That said, what about Superliners, Surfliners, Amfleet, Horizon and the new Siemens Amtrak cars? If someone doesn't sell kits, how hard is it to 3D print roof and ends and to laser cut sides? What about Amfleet with their curved sides? Any idea on stainless-steel "fluted" or ridged sides and roofs?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
The first place my head goes is "why?"
The value in the variable car sides for golden era equipment was the enormous variance in the fleet. How many different types of sleeper did the PRR alone operate? Amtrak has literally three (four if you split the Superliners into two, but the trucks are the difference, not the windows). The variety of window arrangements just isn't there.
And there's no shortage of them. Aside from the Viewliner sleepers that Walthers ran, Amtrak equipment is readily available on the market.
There is a company that makes just sides and ends kits for passenger cars for use on existing kits to make those different designs. No need to print those.
Shane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
I remember a couple of companies over the years that specialized in custom 'car sides' that could be cemented to fabricated framing or attached to 'sanded-down' cars or a 'core' car structure to give customized appearance at relatively low cost. I can remember some of these being stamped or etched brass, and others printed on transparent plastic. I didn't pay careful attention to 'who made what' so others will have to provide the full detail; it might not be too different to use modern printing to make 'skins' that could be formed over ribbed material to make cement-on 3D sides with flush-looking window material 'integral'.
As noted, a relatively skeletal basic car structure might then be used for actual car construction, with truck location and ride height, underframe and perhaps skirt detail, and roof. I don't know how accurate modelers 'demand' the ends of the car appear, but it should not be difficult to have a structural adjustable end to which an individual skin, accurate diaphragms as required for operation, etc. could be attached.
I'd tend to agree with Nittany, though, that the relevance to Amtrak is comparatively low except for earlier cars ("Heritage") bought or converted from older lightweight equipment. Superliners as noted are not in very great range; many of the double-deck and high-level cars have mutual differences not directly amenable to just 'applying different side detail', and Amfleet and Viewliner cars require radically different internal structure to suit flexible side fabrication. It might be remembered that Viewliner IIs were designed with 'modular' construction so a common set of dimensions or details might be applicable to a range of actual cars.
My understanding of the PRIIA car structure, though, is that much of the production is indeed to common dimensions and reasonably common structure, with the sides and graphics; much of a 'baggage' could be used in a 'bag-dorm' or diner shell, or as a sleeper if anyone cared to model one. With so much of the 'future' apparently going to single-level from a restricted source, and that being what to me is a simplified-looking car shell, the approach with respect to PRIIA single-level equipment might be interesting to develop in detail.
The interesting promise here would be that one basic set of chassis components could serve as the basis of a revived 'craftsman' kit that would provide a relatively wide range of prototypes at very low production cost and risk -- for example, things like PRR cars in Armour Yellow would be relatively easy to produce in whatever numbers were demanded, without having to make whole expensive cars to sit idle in warehouses if not bought through channels.
https://unionstationproducts.com/
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Hoping you guys don't mind this.
I do have USP kits for the blunt end Budd observation cars used by the SAL and ACL. The catch is that to form the rounded "Blunt-end", you have to carefully bend the ends of the walls to the correct contour to join it (with adhesive) to get that shape. I'm finding it to be a bit of a challenging job.
My thought is "Would it be possible for a laser printer to create the Budd Blunt end section with the roof cap itself?" If done correctly, the fluting would line up with a USP kit walls or a Walthers Budd. The prototypes survived into the Amtrak era:
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"