Been working on this for a while, its almost ready for paint. These CZ cars opened the door to lots of Amtrak cars no one will ever make, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to hack and bash some of them into Heritage cars. Diner was first because it was the first undecorated car (actually more important that its unassembled) I managed to get my hands on. It also seems like its the biggest pain in the neck to do, because of all the extra holes to fill in. I'm sure this isnt 100% accurate, in part because I'm working off of photos, and in part because some parts dont exist (like HEP underframe details). The shell is fairly correct, the underframe is going to be fudged. I'm going to remove some of the stuff that definitely shouldnt be there (like the axle generator), do as best as I can to make it look right, and call it good. The underframe is getting a coat of black anyways, so it should pass muster. I'm going to finish this in late Phase III, after the car names were put back on the number boards; #8504 (Silver Restaurant).
The car starts out looking like this one:
Then:
Deskirt car
Fill flutes above end steps
Fill antenna holes
Fill some of the vents
Fill RR board holes at each end
Fill Kitchen Window
Add EOT marker lights
Install Kadees
Doesnt seem like a lot of steps, but filling all those holes and blending them into the fluting takes forever.
It ends up looking like this:
Taking off the skirts takes a lot of the stiffness out of the sides, so I added a .030 strip to the sill inside the shell for the frame to sit on. Otherwise the frame sags into the shell.
Unmodified and modified:
Once I finish this, I've got a 10-6 to work over. I might change the rain gutters over the doors and do an ATSF Pine sleeper, but I need to look a little harder and see what else is different. No matter what I'm filling in half the corridor windows, so it'll either be a 1952 order CB&Q sleeper (S. Crag or Chasm) or an ATSF Pine. Considered trying to de-flute the letter board and make it a UP Pacific series, but that might be too ambitious. The baggage car on order.
Will someone please make some 21" Amfleets now?!?!
