UPDATED 8/24--No Longer Available--Atlas O Scale Budd Vista Domes

 Hello Carl

  I called Atlas today and spoke with the O gauge parts guy and he said he doesn’t have any in stock at this time.

  He said if they release the cars again they will Probably have parts again.

  Glad you found them when you did!

Al

I didn't realize just how lucky I was.  Disappointed you weren't able to get what you wanted.

@albertstrains posted:

 Hello Carl

  I called Atlas today and spoke with the O gauge parts guy and he said he doesn’t have any in stock at this time.

  He said if they release the cars again they will Probably have parts again.

  Glad you found them when you did!

Al

Carl, you might have tipped off the parts hoarders! 

@BobbyD posted:

Carl, you might have tipped off the parts hoarders! 

You may be correct.  Believe me, when I placed my order, after having tried without success to find ANY O scale domes for several YEARS, I was tempted, really tempted, to buy more, especially at under $10 per dome, complete.  But, I did not pursue that train of thought and was grateful to get the four I needed.  I confess the thought occurred to me to be a hoarder.  I hope that's NOT what happened.

And based on my brief encounter with the Atlas O scale parts man, Bill, I don't think he'd have filled an order for a hoarder.

In the model railroader sense a hoarder can be someone that purchases the last one or two of an item they have no use for which then sit unused forever in a drawer. Ever wonder about all the unused stuff that shows up at meets? 

  I just need Two of them to replace the  incorrect style used on the recently issued Lionel 21” CPR cars! Lol
  It would be nice if Lionel would step up to the plate and provide an exchange for them

  I guess I’m going to have to think about scratch building them or just leave it....

Al

Lucky you tracked those down, Carl. As you know I have used Atlas spare parts for other purposes but not to work on dome cars. 

Thanks for this post it finally got me to finish my domes over the weekend. So many many years back in the 90's I bought a 10 car set of custom extruded cars with the windows cut out for the CP and VIA Canadian trains; I was told these cars had been custom extruded in the 1960's to the correct Budd Canadian car shape then the windows milled out from templates apparently several sets had been run. The domes that were with them were not that good.  A long long time ago I was able to order Mac Shops brass dome kits. It took a few more years to find a skilled person to solder the Brass dome kits to fit. I painted them silver and they have been on the train for many years. I rarely run them as I picked up a set of K-Line scale length CZ passenger train passenger train with 4 domes 10+ years back and more recently got the latest Golden Gate Canadian CP train set very expensive but very accurate. The VIA set has been in a box for a few years.

A few months ago I added a new loop of O scale track and had finished painting up a VIA engine set to pull it.  So with the train on the layout now and having it parked where I can see it from the rec room I had intended to finally put the windows in the domes. I bought a large 7-Up bottle a couple of weeks back and had it sitting on the shelf waiting to cut up to get the curved green dome glass.

Having seen this post on the weekend the first thing I did was grab my domes and measure them to see if the Atlas domes would fit with the measurements given. They were not long enough, but otherwise looked the same size as the Mac Shop domes I had. So I thought I would install the bottle green plastic for the windows in my domes. It took about 5 hours to carefully cut to fit and glue the windows in as best I could. They are not a perfect fit. I had to use a strong instant glue to help hold the curved sections in place. Unfortunately there was a couple of glue run spots that got onto the plastic. I thought I would see how they looked in the end and order a set of Atlas domes if they did not turn out well. In the end I was satisfied with the final look. This is not a fully detailed scale train so I think they look ok from a distance so I decided not to order the domes. So good find to those that found and were able to order the domes. I wonder if anyone is still looking for domes if you might try hunting down Mac Shops dome kits just need a skilled person to assemble them. Check the O scale Kings there might be some links or info. https://oscalekings.org/WP/

Or perhaps contact Atlas, Lionel or  Golden Gate to order some from the trains they have produced or see if they might consider offering the domes a few extras run off next time they do a run!

kj356

  The domes you installed still look better to me than the stock ones on the CP Lionel cars.

   I don’t have a problem with soldering so I will have a look at the kits

Thank you for sharing

Al

@T.Albers suggested doing exactly that--buy Mac Shops kits for ~$25 for the dome kits.

The Clark Benson domes had two brass castings for the front/rear of the dome which you are welcome to if interested:

Hello Carl

  I will contact you in regards to your dome castings. I might be able to figure something to do with them

Al

I took a few photos comparing the Mac Shops dome kits on my old VIA Canadian castings train, with the Golden Gate CP Canadian train dome and CZ from K-Line. The rivets look a bit large on the GG and I do not like how the part of the roof with the ribs is part of the cut out section to where the dome fits in it looks weird. 

Thanks for the comparison shots @kj356.  With the photos posted for the Atlas Budd CZ domes earlier in this thread, this subject is pretty well documented photographically.

@kj356 posted:

 

Or perhaps contact Atlas, Lionel or  Golden Gate to order some from the trains they have produced or see if they might consider offering the domes a few extras run off next time they do a run!

When Scott Mann announced production of the GGD NP North Coast Limited I immediately emailed him regarding the purchase of the domes separately.  I received a prompt reply that the domes are made along with the cars by his vendor and are not available separately. 

@albertstrains posted:

Hello Carl

  I will contact you in regards to your dome castings. I might be able to figure something to do with them

Al

You have mail.