Hello Crew,
Has anyone here ever put an E&B Valley streamlined passenger car kit?
I bought 4 streamlined New Haven "8600" series coach kits and was wondering how challenging they might be to assemble. Though very light in weight and sparsely detailed they certainly are attractive.
Those oversized windows bring back memories of EP5s and FL9s.
Thank you
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
Antonio,I have done a few, and the main thing to watch out for is a warped roof. It must be straight, or you will be sorry. The roof is what holds it all square, and without a straight one, you can forget about having an easy time of it. If they are warped, either try to get new roofs from Eastern Car Works (who bought the E&B tooling), or try bending them or maybe even heating them up with hot water to try to get them true.
BTW, if you do try for new roofs from ECW, try to get the ones that have no visible rivet detail. The original E&B roofs used the same roofs from the old American Flyer-type cars. However, the P-S stainless cars were much smoother and looked welded when compared to the old roofs.
Paul A. Cutler III************Weather Or No Go New Haven************
Paul, Smitty: Thanks very much for those tips! I didn't think I was going to get this fast a response.
I actually bought these cars 4 years ago from a good guy who works at my LHS (Happy Hobo Trains). He had purchased them new back in the 80s but was always so busy that he could not find time to assemble them. So he sold them to me, still new in the box, for what he payed for them. All the pieces in the kits were still on the styrene parts trees. The metalized finish is very nice.
I'll carefully check the roof as you suggest. For each car's floor, I plan on putting a one piece flat steel weight that is the length of the floor to provide 7 to 8 ounces. Will be using Palace Car seats painted in Royal Blue (as per David Telesha )
I admit, though, that I'm not very impressed with the trucks. I think that back in 2004, someone mentioned a company that makes a better quality version of the appropriate trucks. Do you guys remember which?
By the way, what glue did you guys use to assemble them? Did you need a jig?
Again, Thank you so much for your help
You may want to try Train Station Products for the trucks. The E&B trucks are "nasty" in my opinion. I don't know if TSP has the correct prototype truck you are looking for, but it is worth a shot.
Edit: I used Faller "Expert" plastic cement with good results.
Appreciate that Smitty.
I'm willing to settle for trucks that come reasonably close to what New Haven's 8600s had.
Paul, The roofs look straight but I'll do a comparison with an ECW roof as my LHS stocks their products.
High Greens.
I built (not painted...yet!) one of these "American Flyer" kits a few years ago. It's not hard to build--the most difficult part was removing the skirting. However, it's important that everything goes together square. ECW also sold a few PRR P70 coaches as well--these are nearly identical kits. One modification I made to all of these cars, was to body-mount the couplers. While I was at it, I plugged the truck bolster holes with styrene rod, redrilled and tapped them to take a 2-56 screw. IMHO, the trucks had too much "play."
Stay away from the ECW core kits. Those things are nasty! The TSP one is sooooo much better.
Antonio,A further recommendation is to throw away the name boards, letter boards, and logo plaques that come with these E&B kits. They are waaaaay too thick for HO scale.
Instead, buy some .005" sheet styrene, paint them stainless or black as the case may be and buy one of the Microscale decal sheets for NH passenger cars. The real logo plates (which I have) are 24 1/2" square, BTW (but the Microscale decal is a 1/64" too small), and name board lengths varied with the name of the car (see prototype photos for ideas).
As for trucks, a good and cheap substitute for these horrible E&B/ECW trucks is the Walthers GSC 41-NDO. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-1060
Now, the NH used 41-BNO trucks, so these are not perfect. However, they are $11 MSRP, they are metal, they roll well, they have built in electrical pick up, and they can be easily converted to be used on the E&B kits. And with the addition of a brake cylinder, can be a rather convincing NH truck. What you do have to do is flip the bolster over. See, the Walthers cars have a molded center beam on the underframe that they have to get around with the truck bolster (like the real thing). The E&B tooling is just a flat bolster like on a boxcar. So you take apart the truck (you can see the four screws in the link above) and just flip the bolster over. You may have to file it or the sideframe tab a bit to get to fit square, but that's not too hard to do. Then screw them back together, and you should have a flat truck bolster. To keep the truck on the car, I used a Kadee #5 box lid, trimmed to fit...sort of like a big washer. Sure, it's a pain, but then it is cheap.
Custom Finishing makes metal trucks for $21.95 that are perfect for NH.http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/247-310
And Rapido Trains is making a plastic version, and I've seen it, but to me it looks very delicate as it's all plastic. It's all one piece, and has a "gooseneck" bolster which will make it tough to use on the old E&B kits. It's Walthers part No. 606-102001
As for cement, I used ol' Testors plastic cement in the black plastic applicator. The E&B is just styrene.
Also, like emdgp92 said, body mount the couplers.
For a final touch, throw away those awful styrene diaphrams and use either the Walthers rubber ones or the American Limited P-S or lightweight passenger car diaphrams.
Thank you again Paul.
You have a wealth of great information! I will check out the first two truck options you mentioned and will body mount the Kadees. I will post my progress with these cars on this thread.
Peace