Lionel's CP 21" Streamlined Passenger Cars . . .

Matt, its just plastruct styrene. I made a couple of jigs to to cut and glue the pieces together. I can post some pics later this evening.

Pete, I have the opposite problem.  I have the ATSF Chief set and the contemporary diaphgrams are not right on the full dome.   So, I've been trying to see if Lionel's Talk to Us has the regular diaphgrams available for separate sale.  No response after several tries.  So, it looks like I will have to try your idea to at least close the gap on the ends of the full dome.  Thanks for the process.

Well my set arrived Thursday from a Dealer in Florida who had the sets in stock, which were sent UPS and not USPS so I had to pay an additional $107 for the brown shirt service.

  I opened up the shipping box to find a sealed 4 pack of cars laying directly on top of the 2 pack set. Some damage occurred during shipping where the weight of the 4 pack crushed the box of the 2 pack causing visible damage on the finish of these 2 cars.

   Not impressive packaging IMO

  None the less, I am glad I bought them and with a few tweaks and touch ups, things should be fine.

  The usual defects have been mentioned already by others so I will let the pictures do the talking

  Lionel has another vista dome casting that is much more accurate than the straight glass version used on this run. The one I am referring to is found on the UP 21” vista dome

 I wonder if one could arrange to do an exchange with Lionel, for the more realistic version with curved glass?

  As for the name board above the window that has the “hump” in the middle, well It looks to me they should have started applying it from one end of the body, instead of starting at both ends.

  Yes the seats are mounted backwards as well

Lol!

Al

@albertstrains posted:

Hello Terry

  I finally found a set of these for sale at a decent price.

  I guess misery loves company.

I will be muddling my way as well, converting them to Kadees, eventually replacing the domes(once I find a source)and repainting the Tuscan striping / re-lettering.

  I just ordered them, so a couple of weeks to wait

Al

   

Hi Albert:

I have not been around the forum much and did not see your post.

How did the set work out for you? Since delivery, I have noted some of the same separation of the striping from the cars.

Like far too many of us, I can obsess over things that are "just not right." Like those non-curved glass domes! LOL! Can't see anything to be done about it though. Were you ever able to somehow "fix" this?

I put a video of the cars behind my 3rd Rail E8s on youtube just today. Link.

Hello Terry

  I have managed to find two Atlas Domes since my last post

Atlas had one left in stock and Carl(Pingman) was gracious in providing another for my project. Thank you Carl!

  I have been doing a lot of painting for Customers lately and I am hoping to finish up a set of Lionel Heavyweight cars which are being painted in green/black CNR livery before I start the mods on the Canadian cars.

  I will be removing the skirting on most of the cars except the the mid dome and tail end dome in which the skirting will be modified accordingly

  Yes, there are a few more details that could be done but where do you draw the line? Lol

I will be repainting and relettering the cars as well

  Here are a few pics of the vista dome with the Atlas dome set on top of the existing dome

  Al

Wow! Albert, that dome replacement looks great! I would definitely like to have a pair.

Could you supply a link for ordering, or, as I gather from your post, are they completely unobtainable now?

Certainly, I found nothing at https://shop.atlasrr.com/c-1354-0231.aspx

I've got most of the UP excursion cars and some of the NS business train cars.  None had pulling apart sides, so I'm happy there.  One car came with the truck falling apart, and a couple cars had some paint defects.  Unlike most it seems, I am very very happy that there are no people in the cars, so I don't have to open them to pull people out.