Detailing the Lionel "City of Miami" Passenger Train by John Rowlen

John RowlenOGR Forum Member SUPPORTING MEMBERDIGITAL SUBSCRIBER

The new Lionel City of Miami passenger train is a pleasant surprise to see. At first glance in the catalog, I passed it by. It was the video sent to me by a friend that caused me to give this beautiful passenger train a second look . . . and I was hooked.

I usually do significant detailing of my passenger cars, but since this set has Lionel people in the Combine, and Coaches, I decided to do a simpler, modified detailing of these cars. I like the red interiors but always look for details inside the cars that can be painted in different contrasting colors to give the interior a better "depth-of-field" to see the details inside the car.

I started with the StationSounds Dining Car. The interior is a newer interior with molded seat backs on the chairs. I commend Lionel for adding these details. It saves me time of cutting 1/4" Plastruct strips into seat backs to glue on the seat cubes molded in the older dining cars.

The obvious items to paint in the dining car are the table bases and the table tops. Since this car does not have people in it, I am detailing it as the empty car awaiting the dinner hour. I removed the Dining Table Floor mold from the car and put the two screws that held it in place in a small plastic sandwich bag for safe storage. Using a Tamiya flat "Red Brown" acrylic paint, I painted the table base through the openings in the bottom of the floor mold. Approaching the table painting through the up-side-down floor piece made it easier to reach places I could not reach if I painted from the top of the floor mold. I gave the tables two coats of paint to get an even coverage of the plastic tables. The releasing oil used in molding the plastic floor can cause the paint to be uneven as it mixes with any remaining oil on the plastic. The first coat traps the oil. The second coat covers more evenly.

The table tops and edges get five coats of Tamiya flat white acrylic paint. I crisscross my paint strokes diagonally across the table tops and allow the paint to dry. This can create a linen tablecloth effect on the tables. Here are pictures of the finished Dining Car.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

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John RowlenOGR Forum Member SUPPORTING MEMBERDIGITAL SUBSCRIBER

Detailing the Combine Baggage Car allowed me to use my four color "wet mixing technique" to create the wood floor in the baggage area. Using Tamiya flat acrylic paints in a Cream, Yellow, Buff and Red Brown, I apply the cream color first, add a streak of Yellow, blend with a streak of Buff, then add the darker Red Brown. I draw the 1/4" Flat paint brush straight across the floor of the baggage section of the car. I need to work quickly since the paint dries, so I add more paint to keep the blending showing hints of all four colors, but no color as the prime original paint. The key effect is the blending and streaking of the paint at 90 degrees to the car floor.

My hand may not always draw the brush perfectly across the floor, but on average the brush travels straight across the wet floor.

I also painted two sinks that are in the bathrooms at the end of the car. They are barely visible through the windows.

Sincerely, John Rowlen