Interior of the Union Pacific Excursion "City of San Francisco" Observation

  I had hoped with the words new tooling,.... we might just see a couple of different style of truck sideframes especially the apprpoiate ones for all the UP excursion set.   From another thread the PRR trucks are also incorrect.

Your mini people painting skills are envious.  The cars look so much better with folks in the seats.  Excellent Work.

No offense, but since all Lionel interiors are essentially the same, I personally have been frustrated that no one who is purchasing these new "scale" cars are posting photos of the exteriors, which I believe is what most want to see.  Great work but since you own these cars and no one has posted pictures of the exteriors, window arrangements, close up of trucks etc. how about it?

I will post pictures of outsides of cars.  I had some on another thread that was closed by OGR Forum.  Right now I am playing phone tag the last three says with the dealer who sold me my set that had two cars with damage. The cars are beautiful when they are not damaged.  The wheels/trucks look the same height as my previous run C&O, NYC ESE and Wabash. 

Maybe John can help us out.  Lionel advertised these based not on how accurate the interiors were by car and roadname, but by the exteriors, which I beleive most if not all will base their buying decisions on.   So John or can someone take decent photos of these cars instead of some quick drive by video so we can indeed see if Lionel hit or missed the mark with these?  UP, PC, Pennsy etc.  Maybe a new thread is in order?

Here are some pictures of the exterior of the Lionel Union Pacific Excursion cars.  The "Katy Flyer" has factory paint damage and is not picture.  It is like the "Portland Rose" that has a coupler that will not stay closed. The car also jumps the track. 

The Flag Baggage Car doors do NOT open.

The Generator Car doors do NOT open.

The Dining Car is like all of the other Dining Cars.

The "Challenger" Dome Chair Car rear truck fell off the car and still needs to be repaired.  The coupler centering spring needs to be reattached under the truck post that lost its "E"-clip inside the car.

The "City of San Francisco" is a beautiful car. The lights on the rear illuminate nicely. There is no Drum Head on this car.  It has an operating knuckle coupler able to coupler to the Theater car Lionel is making.

These cars space further apart than the Southern Pacific 21" passenger cars because they do not have the additional1/2" Diaphragm.  The couplers also tend to pitch upward as the move.  The extra length of the SP Diaphragm helps keep the couplers on the SP cars from rising upward. 

Overall, the Union Pacific Excursion 21" passenger cars make a beautiful set.  I ordered a second set because these cars will constantly run on my train layout behind the FEF-3 or Big Boy.

Where did you get your cars? I ordered mine from Charlie Ro and haven't recieved any shipping confirmation yet. Usually Charlie is b pretty fast. 

Thanks, 

Chris

 Nice cars I was just wishin for the future availability of accurate trucks

My cars came from Legacy Station. You know, Eric Siegel's favorite train store.  I called Brian Sheffield to ask about my cars and pay the balance from the deposit for them.  The next day he called and said they just arrived and they were shipped by FEDEX.

I have purchased from most of the top Lionel Dealers, but only some G-gauge from Charlie Ro.

I am having the dealers with whom I am working, check the items before they ship.  This will save both of us excess shipping return fees and aggravation.  If it is inspected, loose trucks and cosmetic flaws can be addressed at the dealer.  I want the dealer to know what they shipped, so we can compare it to what I receive.  Sometimes the shipping process dramatically changes an item.

"I have had too many assembled cars arrive in "kit" form."

I cannot capture the sound files of the "Overland" Diner.  The announcement calls the train "The UP Frontier Days Excursion".  The conductor has no specific accent.  The dialogue is like all other Station Sounds Diners.  My Nikon Coolpix camera has not allowed me to successfully post video to OGR Forum.  I can make videos that run on my computer, but they will not post.  I welcome any suggestions.

Here is an attempt to post the "Generator Car" sounds.  Once it starts up, the sounds remain the same until power is shut off. 

I realize this is shown as a video file format, but my Nikon Coolpix 20.1 Megapixel camera takes good video I can play at home, but not post on OGR Forum.

John, I am having Joey at Nicholas Smith check over all of mine before they ship. Any cosmetic issues and they won’t get shipped. I’ll fix the truck issues.

Matt,

 Joey will inspect a Broadway Limited set for me too.  He is checking mine after they arrive Monday.  By Wednesday he hopes to know what he has and begin to ship.  We have discussed the "E"-clips for the truck posts.  Home Depot has 3/16" steel "E"-clips in little bags of two clips.  The only problem is Home Depots floor plan only calls for 12 packs in the inventory bin, and the parts are soon gone and take two weeks usually to re-stock.  I order 30 packs of 2 at my local store.  If I did not specifically order the packs, they did not know when the computer would re-stock,  The computer says they have 4, when they actually have 0.

These passenger cars are beautiful.  They just take a little tuning, like a violin.

AmeenTrainGuy posted:

Can someone take a video of the sounds from the up station sounds?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here (wouldn't be the first time ) and bet that the sounds will be very similar to the video I posted here last month featuring the Amtrak StationSounds Diner.  And I'm only saying this because somebody posted a quickie video of the Penn Central StationSounds diner a few days ago, and it sounded very similar to the Amtrak diner... the only difference being the announcement of the train's name AND different voice talent used for the conductor.  (The female voice for the station's PA announcements is the same for both cars.)

So that's what I'm expecting for most of these StationSounds diners... same dialog sequences, unique train name, perhaps a different conductor's voice.  And if that's the case, they're similar in that respect to the ones Lionel produced 10+ years ago in the TMCC world.  The write-up for the AFT StationSounds diner indicates patriotic music as well, so that may be something different and unique to that car.

David

too bad no one sells the interiors.

John Rowlen posted:

Here is an attempt to post the "Generator Car" sounds.  Once it starts up, the sounds remain the same until power is shut off.   ...

Any instruction manual with the generator car?

As much as I love the StationSounds Dining Cars, I'm somewhat underwhelmed by the generator car if that's its only sound.  Seems it could get monotonous and boring... and could even overpower the much better sounds of the locomotive and StationSounds cars.  That's my first take on listening to your audio file.  Thanks for sharing.

I have the American Freedom Train on order, and that too comes with a generator car.  So we'll see if that delivers the same sound(s), which I suspect it does...  If so, it'll have the volume turned down relatively low compared to other "sounds" in the train... or off completely.  In the case of the AFT, the generator car might perhaps be better intended for providing sounds when the train is stopped and the display cars are lit and idly sitting on a siding. 

Can sounds on the generator car be remotely turned on/off?  Same question for the volume control.... physical potentiometer or remotely controllable? 

David

David,

There are NO instructions with any of the four-packs (SP and UP) that I received.  They were either never printed, or the mice ate them since they have WARRANTY information normally on these booklets.

The Generator car is monotonous and boring.  According to my ex-wife, I too am monotonous and boring, and I believe that listening to this car too would give her a headache.  The technology includes a physical volume pod and on/off switch.  Unfortunately, there is no Legacy Remote communication which would be nice after listening for 15 minutes.  

The nice thing about the Generator Car is that, as you suggested, when the train is stopped, there is some sound coming from the train.  Low volume is a must, or a good headache medicine.

There are no opening doors on the Generator or the Flag Baggage Car.  I was counting on putting some detailing into the Baggage car, but without doors, it would not be seen.

This is a nice set.  I like it, but . . . there are some opportunities that were missed.  The Dining car has the appropriate windows, but the regular car interior was used and a vertical wall is in the middle of the first window from the kitchen.  Ugly.  I will have to buy some Preiser O-scale coats and hang them on the wall, . . .  or take an exacto Knife and cut it into a half wall, ... or whack it to the floor.  Decisions, decisions.

Here's a pic of the Overland

I was just inspecting my "Overland" UP Excursion Dining Car when I saw glue on a window.  There is a web-like glue that sometimes runs across the top of the window glass in the Lionel passenger cars.  It looks a lot like spun cotton candy and is sticky.  I removed a three inch strand from my UP Excursion Observation, but it appears that some got on the inside of the window glass of this "Overland" Dining Car.  I have not yet opened the car and will have to return it with the "Katy Flyer" that has paint damage.

I call it a "window booger" and it is snot funny.  The list of items needing service just keeps growing.  I tested my "Katy Flyer (with paint damage) after the Portland Rose front coupler kept opening up, and both cars front couplers will not stay closed under a load.  I can easily pull on the knuckle and open the front couplers on both coach cars.  That it is the front coupler on both coach cars must be a coincidence. 

I am going to take a break from the trains on Sunday.  I need a day if rest.

I did not order a set.  Glad I did not.  For the price of these cars, you would think they would be bullet proof.

Rocky Mountaineer posted:

Seems it could get monotonous and boring... and could even overpower the much better sounds of the locomotive and StationSounds cars. 

Well, it is the same in real life and just like refrigerated box cars, it is down right annoying trying to work anywhere close to them while they are running! That is the same reason that I hope that no one decides to add that "Spitter" air dryer to loco sounds. Be careful what you wish for modelers!!!

I would use some goo gone on that window. Will probably take it right off. 

Big Jim posted: That is the same reason that I hope that no one decides to add that "Spitter" air dryer to loco sounds. Be careful what you wish for modelers!!!

Too late for that. Lionel began adding that sound with the recent Sd-40's. Needless to say there were several posts on the forum from buyers that thought there was something wrong with the sounds. They didn't know what the "clicking" was.

BOT. If nothing else John, your" fine toothed comb" posts regarding these new passengers will certainly give other buyers a "heads up" on any potential issues.

If you factor in the cost of adding your own interior these cars are a bargain. If you  like photo accurate cars these are not 100% accurate but pretty  close with only a few things additional to make them accurate  still wish they would have sprung for accurate trucks. Digging around found a pic of the City Of San Francisco.  I probably have interior shots as well but due to UPRR police am not allowed to post.

I would like to BUY some interiors for passenger cars.  Why doesn't somebody make a full interior that would easily be installed on cars that do not have an interior originally?  It's easy to say- "just buy the car with the deluxe features in the beginning-  but mine are 15"- and the more expensive cars are 19- 21" and (I think) would look dumb on my layout.

I really don't want to piece together the interiors using individual seats, partitions, and floor.  Too much time that would otherwise be spent building my layout.  I would gladly buy the interiors of (for example) these SP cars--IF they were available-- and cut them down.  

Surefire posted:

I would use some goo gone on that window. Will probably take it right off. 

I had the same thought but it depends on what glue has been used and whether it contained solvents that effectively melt into the plastic. If however the glue is just a layer on top of the plastic, Goo Gone (or "Goof Off," which I know works on most model railroad clear plastic) should remove it. 

I just woke up at noon from sleeping away my depression about the Lionel UP Excursion Cars. I was going to stay away from OGR Forum today.

Lionel made replacement interiors for the first-run NYC 21" passenger cars.  They are rows of seats with the bathrooms at the ends of the car. If your cars are the same width as the 21" passenger cars, a Dremel Tool with a right angle and a saw disk could shorten them to fit your cars. It might not be perfect, but it would give you two large floor pieces with the molded-in seats. I bought six two piece sets from Lionel parts two years ago. (when they had parts)   If I ever wake up again from sleeping, I will located them.  Right now sleeping is more fun than Model Railroading.

Note: The pictures are of the Southern Pacific Lines Coach Interiors that the factory spray painted a light peach-tan. The NYCESE ones are a yellow tint plastic that are the same mold as these.

Sincerely, John Rowlen   aka: Rip Van Rowlen  Good night!

Mark, 

Thank you for the information.  When I shoot some worthy video of the passenger cars I will give it a try.

John 

John,

Thanks for the wonderful pictures! Did you ever figure out why the trucks were jumping the track?

Brian

Brian, 

The trucks are easily bent/adjusted by bending the truck forward or backward/up or down.  I was able to bring the rear wheels down onto the rails by carefully pulling down on the rear of the truck. The car now runs well.

The same can be done with couplers that are pitched upward.  Pulling the main coupler down solved the uncoupling problem on the front of the "Portland Rose"..

These cars need some fine tuning when they come out of the box.

Here are some pictures of my "Portland Rose" Coach car.  

After much looking I'm glad that my order for the Flag baggage and coach fell through.  The underbody details are all under sized, Too small. and none of the trucks are on any of the excursion cars I've ever been on or seen.  Even the lonely Budd Willie James has outside swinghangers.

too bad there are no Santa Fe

http://www.lionel.com/products...nger-4-pack-6-83042/

http://www.lionel.com/products...nger-2-pack-6-83019/

Seeing this new 21" interior, for interest I got down an older 16" Lionel aluminum car version to compare them. Of course, for those us with more modest sized layouts, the 21" cars are of no interest, and many are waiting for Lionel to do new 16" cars. In any case, I think the older 16" aluminum version comes off pretty well, and in some respects superior, compared to these new 21 inchers. They came with painted figures and interiors that were already painted, including details such as sinks. Adding these features to the 21" cars would have driven up the price more than Lionel wanted, presumably, but adding these things takes a good amount of work by a buyer.

John Rowlen posted:

Here are a few pictures of the interior of the new Lionel "City of San Francisco" UP Excursion Observation. The front floor piece is the same as the Dome Car. The rear section differs with surround seating and coffee tables.  The Dome floor is the same as the "Challenger" Dome.  The lighting is easily removed to allow for the removal of the Dome Floor so I can add people to the Dome.

Tomorrow I will paint more Preiser 65602 Seated People and start the permanent installation of the people.

Hi John,

I'm finally getting around to fixing some of the little issues with my UP excursion cars(pushed in windows,  e-clips, etc).   I have a question for you specifically about the  San Francisco dome-obs car.   As shown in your photos,  specifically the blunt/tail end of the car-exactly how is the frame/interior actually mounted to the body other than the infamous sticky tape?   Upon taking my car apart,  it is exactly like yours.   The two black coarse thread screws that were removed from the bottom of the blunt end of the car do nothing but screw the frame to the interior.   As shown in the rear view of the interior,  there are 2 half diameter circular cutouts on the outside of the rear seats.   And on the view of the blunt end underside of the roof,  there are two bosses with fine metal threads cast in.   It appears to me that there should have been some type of mounting post extending from the inside of the roof down to the floor.   I don't know if these posts are missing.   As it is,  the only thing holding the rear half of the frame/interior to the shell is the sticky tape.   Is your car like this and I wonder if others who have disassembled their dome/obs cars have noticed this?

Nick     

Nick, 

I just worked on my "City of San Francisco" Observation tonight, July 26, 2018.  The sticky tape would appear to be all that holds the rear of the car together.  There are two screws at each end, but no longer screw like the SP, Penn Central, and Amtrak Observations.

Now we know why there is so much tape on the UP 21" cars. There may be small plastic molded pins along the floor to align with the shell.  My tape re-adhered after the first time I opened the Observation.

I originally put Preiser people in my "City of San Francisco" and "Challenger" Domes.  I left the main floor painted, but without people because I was short of blanks to paint.  Tonight I added people to the lower level.  Not all seats have windows by them, so I placed people only where they would be seen.

Here are some pictures of the interior of the "City of San Francisco".  Tomorrow I will do the "Challenger" Dome main floor.

Sincerely, John Rowlen 

After viewing the final placement of people in my "City of San Francisco" Observation, I added two more people to the lower lounge area and one to the front section.  The Lower Lounge has only two windows on the side near the Lower Lounge, but there are three big windows on the opposite side of the car that allow clear sight into the Lounge.  The Lounge now has four people, one lady is smoking.

The Front area only has one window on the left side.  There are no windows on the front right. I added a boy in a red turtleneck to the back of the front section to give it more depth-of-field when looking inside the car.

The car is now drying and ready to close.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Unfortunately I think you guys are on to something about the absence of frame-body screw fasteners in the end of the UP observation car. I noticed when I took mine apart that the mounting screws only appeared to fix the metal frame to the interior assembly, which is totally redundant as the interior pieces are screwed to the frame in three other places. They appear as the black dots in the top photo of the attached collage. But did not think about it further as the car is apart for some heavy-duty interior upgrading.

I am not sure about the other cars as I have only had the diner apart and did not notice the same issue. Also the UP Excursion set is the only one of the second run 21" sets I have so I don't know if the other sets are similar; but from what John says above it seems the other observation cars have long mounting screws. So did the observation car on my first run set, the Texas Special.

I just regarded the tape along the bottom of the car body as shoddy workmanship. But as you can see from the below photo, in the end of the UP car long mounting screws would certainly show right in the rear windows:

So maybe they were deliberately left out for that reason and the tape relied on instead? I have to doubt that as opposed to a manufacturing short cut. Besides, relying on ultra-sticky tape defeats the whole object of these cars being intended to be easily disassembled by anyone who wants to detail the interior.

Anyway I think when I reassemble my car I'll be looking for long screws to insert in the place obviously designed for them or maybe fixing in mounting posts. In neither case is that a job I am happy about. Getting screws to match whatever metric size the bosses in the roof of this car were made to hold is likely to be a pain - unless someone knows what diameter and thread they are meant to be?

John & Hancock52,

Thanks to both of you for responding to my post.   John,  your figure painting  and other modifications are enviable and I salute you!   I am going to take the lazy man's way out and use pre painted figures from GGD,  Lionel, Woodland Scenics and Wehonest from the bay.   The dome/obs is the first car that I have taken apart(these cars just keep on giving/taking).   I am going to repaint the interiors so they're not all the same monotone tan color.   I have also purchased a drumhead from Tomar industries that is round and features the Union Pacific shield logo that I am going to mount.

Hancock52,  I did some scheming and measuring today.   From what I come up with,  the missing long screws for the obs blunt end should be 3mm dia x 60mm long measured from under the screwhead.   If these are used however,  the existing screw mounting holes in the plastic interior floor will need to be drilled out for clearance to let the screw pass through the floor in order to thread the screw into the roof.   Today at my local mom & pop hardware store,  I also found some small diameter opaque nylon standoffs/mounting posts that I may use between the floor and the roof for stability.    The mounting will be down the road after I paint & populate the interior.

Nick   

Nick, 

I put my "City of San Francisco" Observation together and it runs perfectly as manufactured.  The tape re-adhered and the car lined up as it was when I opened it.  With the rear windows giving a good view into the car, you might NOT want tubing and posts running up the interior of the car.  The car body floats on the chassis now.  

I am not afraid to carve up a passenger car as my work on the three Broadway Limited and Penn Central 12-4 Duplex Sleepers proves, but modifying the "City of San Francisco" Observation has more Risk than reward.  As the Beatles sing, "Let It Be".

Yes, I am grinding and gluing People into the "Challenger" Dome main floor tonight.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

The Union Pacific 21" Excursion Cars are done.  Here are pictures of the "Challenger" Dome Lounge with Preiser 65602 People that I painted.  The cars will travel behind #844 or #4014 soon. 

Sincerely, John Rowlen

machinist posted:

John & Hancock52,

Thanks to both of you for responding to my post.   John,  your figure painting  and other modifications are enviable and I salute you!   I am going to take the lazy man's way out and use pre painted figures from GGD,  Lionel, Woodland Scenics and Wehonest from the bay . . .  I am going to repaint the interiors so they're not all the same monotone tan color.   

As long as we are comparing notes about modifying this car, I will add in what I have done so far (see below), which is broadly the same approach of using figures other than the Prieser ones John has used (which I find too difficult to source and I am not into grinding down to fit). I am using Lionel, Railking, WeHonest and some others from "quarter scale" suppliers. All are pre-painted. The Railking figures are the best in terms of variety and they fit without modification. 

Hancock52,  I did some scheming and measuring today.   From what I come up with,  the missing long screws for the obs blunt end should be 3mm dia x 60mm long measured from under the screwhead.   If these are used however,  the existing screw mounting holes in the plastic interior floor will need to be drilled out for clearance to let the screw pass through the floor in order to thread the screw into the roof.   Today at my local mom & pop hardware store,  I also found some small diameter opaque nylon standoffs/mounting posts that I may use between the floor and the roof for stability.    The mounting will be down the road after I paint & populate the interior.

That's very useful to know; I'm obliged. Same here again as regards the fasteners except that I might try fitting mounting tabs to the car body below window height. The long screws or standoffs will definitely show through the car windows although the same arrangement is in all of the Lionel observation cars I have.

The dome observation car is the signature car of this set and the one that I think has the most prototypical interior features, at least at the rear of the car. I was not satisfied with the rest and in particular the dull color so I started by checking what information there is on the car as now in service. I started with the dome, which in the model is nicely built but not as interesting as the real thing:

The seating arrangement with six tables is not replicated in the model and to make something like it all the seats have to be removed, re-spaced and turned:

I then went way overboard in terms of colors, tables, excursion passengers and, er, refreshments, and added floor and overhead lighting in this section because as a display area it's a kind of jewel case but there's no lighting in the dome as it comes from the factory:

This is phase 1 of the interior rebuild; phases 2, 3 and 4 are the section under the dome, the forward section (which has only one window) and the rear. I've mostly done phase 2, which in the UP floor plan copied above is designated a bar area. I stripped out all of the stock seating and partitions, went for a patriotic theme and more LED lighting, in particular in the transparent columns at the corners of the blue bar:

All the beverage details are 3D printed quarter scale stuff.

This is all a lot more elaborate than I intended at the start but as there is reasonably good visibility into this section through the car's side windows I thought, why not? as I had the materials on hand. 

I don't anticipate completing phases 3 and 4 until fall/winter.