Purchased and received a couple of items yesterday, finally got the chance today to get them out of the box and on the rails.
I've been wanting another western roads switcher, particularly Santa Fe, so I got a pretty good price on this Lionel Legacy Blue Bonnet SW1200.
The other item I received is a MTH passenger set. I've been wanting Southern Pacific San Francisco to San Jose Peninsula commuter Bi-level Gallery passenger cars from the 50's and 60's. I searched the web, called O scale dealers here and there and nothing exists, at least that I can find. So, I began a search for any Bi-level Gallery passenger cars in O scale and couldn't find anything over the past year. Finally, I found an MTH Rail King Amtrak Bi-level gallery car set from 2002, brand new in the box. 22 years old, never removed from the box! These cars are based on the Pullman Standard Bi-level gallery cars, which is perfect for repurposing into Southern Pacific commuters.
Here's a link to a photo of a freshly painted SP Bi-level Gallery car. The photo in the link is public domain, but I'm just gonna supply the link to be on the safe side. This is the later version of the paint scheme, if you can call dark grey a "paint scheme". LoL Yes, I saw them with my own eyes as a youngster and they were just as ugly in person! But they are history, and part of my history.
https://free-images.com/displa...ilevel_suburban.html
Here's some picks I took of the new MTH Amtrak Bi-level gallery cars from 2002.
These cars will all be repainted SP grey like in the link above. The hard part will be the Southern Pacific logo and car numbers. I have a nearby airbrush artist, she's going to see what she can do.
Unfortunately this set includes a control car, SP didn't use control cars on the Peninsula commuter trains. I'll live with it.
Wish me luck on the repurpose! Oh yeah, these have incandescent lighting which I will upgrade to LED strip lights.
