Hi folks,
I recently purchased 6 Rivarossi Santa Fe 12-1 heavyweight sleepers for my yet unnamed all sleeper Santa Fe heavyweight train. They are all named "St. Croix" so I wanna replace that name on 5 of the cars with other names of course. Since there are no decals available for Santa Fes other 12-1 sleeper car names, I want apply them by hand using a gel pen. But before doing so, I must get rid of that "St. Croix" name. I already tried it on once car a little bit just to see how it will be, and unfortunately when scratching off the yellow letters of the name you also scratch off the olive green color below it. I was hoping that it would be possible to scratch off only the yellow color of the letters without scratching off the olive green color below them, but sadly it´s not possible. But I don´t wanna search for the right color to overpaint the scratched areas because I know it will be impossible to get the exact matching olive green color to make the scratched area invisible and look exactly like the olive green color of the rest of the car. So what can I do? (Same problem goes for one of the two diners where I will have to apply another number of course.)
By the way: My heavyweight train consist looks like this: BPO, Baggage, Combine, 3 Sleepers, 2 Diners, 3 Sleepers and Café Observation. 12 cars in total. I know having six 12-1 sleepers isn´t prototypical for any SF heavyweight train, but I wanna keep it like this because I want my train to be made of entirely from Rivarossi heavyweights. What could be the best choice in my case? A prewar sleeper section of the Navajo or Grand Canyon Limited, a prewar Chief or California Limited, or a postwar sleeper section of the California Limited or Grand Canyon Limited?
The problem with Rivarossi cars is that removing paint and/or lettering seems to be a bit of a crapshoot. Some colours strip off readily, while others are more difficult to remove. I understand that you wish to remove only the lettering, but in many cases where I wished to remove all paint and lettering, the lettering was the last to come off.I've found X-Acto's #17 or 18 chisel-type blades best for removing pad-printed lettering. Hold the blade almost perpendicular to the car's surface, and use the non-bevelled edge as the leading one. Be careful to not allow the blade to tilt to either side as you work, as this will cause gouges.Once you've applied the new lettering, a coat of clear finish (dull, gloss or semi-gloss) over the entire sides will help to blend-in the modification.
You can use New England Rail Services parts to alter the window configurations of your cars, creating most any Pullman prototype, as the parts are made specifically for the 12-1 Rivarossi car.
I changed most of mine into coaches simply by making my own interiors, but did alter one into a solarium/lounge using the appropriate NERS parts:
Wayne
Wayne.... Did you mean to say perpendicular to the car's surface. .... Or parellel ? .... I like your photo!
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Yeah, perpendicular. This requires a fairly light touch, and often repeated passes.
Parallel, especially with the non-bevelled edge down, will remove the lettering, too, but it will take with it a portion of the car's side.
Hi Wayne,
thanks for your reply! Who would say that solarium observation once was a 12-1 sleeper! Good job!
About New England Rail Services: is this company still alive? I once sent them 2 emails but never received a response. I would indeed love to have two 12-1, two 10-1-2 and two 8-1-2 sleepers instead of six 12-1 sleepers. And I would rather have a postwar train than a prewar one because I mostly model the early 50s era (although I don´t stick to one era because I run trains from 1894 till 1990). But then I also need those air conditioning ducts. But I don´t like the way they are selling them: One kit contains one duct whose length is only enough for one side but not the other, and it contains 4 different end pieces while 4 same end pieces would be much better. So you need 2 kits for one car. Having to fit them to 8 cars (6 sleepers and 2 diners) this will be very expensive in the end because 16 kits must be bought for the price of almost 10 $ per kit! But what about those conversion kits? How do they look like and how are the made up? I would like to know wether these conversion kits for the 10-1-2 and 8-1-2 sleeper contain many small parts where you only work with the winow arrangement or do they contain complete carsides? Is there a lot of cutting involved for these kind of conversions?
The air conditioning duct was often on one side of the car only, or, in some cases, crossed over, with a portion on each side of the clerestory. Inside the car, the vents were located as required.
You can easily create your own duct using .010" sheet styrene, which then makes those extra ends more useful. Sand off the rivets if you wish, but many of those cars received air conditioning after they were in service for some time, and would not necessarily be identical."
Most of my air conditioned coaches (extra fare, of course) have homemade ducts and ends, too. The latter aren't all that difficult to construct, either - trial and error acomplished the first one, which was then a pattern for the rest.
Coach Cayuga has an almost full-length duct on one side:
...and only a partial one on the other. I provided air conditioning for the washroom/lounge areas, too, something not usually done on the Pullman cars:
Business car Rockhaven, a shortened Athearn observation car, has full length duct on one side:
and none on the other:
As far as I know, NERS is still in business (I continue to see new stock in various hobby shops) and their website is still available. However, they are accepting only written orders and they have, over the years, never answered my e-mails, nor will anyone else who might be connected with them (Tichy, for instance).
EDIT: As for converting the 12-1 to other types, there are no kits to do particular cars. They do offer various styles of windows (all the same style in one package), and you simply buy a pack of each type required. Those three or four packages may allow you to convert five or six cars, depending on what's needed for each. They also offer door blanks (for creating cars with blind- or half-blind vestibules, tanks for APWS, and various battery boxes, etc. The air conditioning duct kit contains two lengths of duct and four ends for each length, so you can do four cars with each kit if you make your own duct for two of them. Don't forget that many of the cars which received air conditioning did so when Pullman still owned the cars - and the style of duct-ends may have varied depending on when or where the work was done.The conversion work on the car sides involves removing the portions which are incorrect, usually the window area above the belt rail and below the window tops, then replacing that area with different windows and wall sections - quite simple, as the cut lines mostly fall on separation lines of the original body casting.
Here's coach Onondaga, with one vestibule door blanked-out on each end:
...and a Rivarossi combine re-done with NERS coach-type windows: