Painting and detailing the new Lionel 21" Union Pacific Cars

I usually just paint without masking for interiors. Easiest for me. 

I've never seen that box car in O. Just a generic UP 60' would be your closest bet.

Who's people are you going to use?..... I still have a Legacy Big Boy left and even though UP is not my thing, I am thinking about keeping a set of these and running them with the Big Boy.... One of the distributors has the FEF in stock - I have been thinking about it as well.... 

I ordered some people from lantern land. They're smaller than full o scale and they eat less so the railroad can cut down on food expenses.

I like using a short, fine paint brush.  Masking to spray sounds like a lot of work.  When the car is closed, brush stroke errors are seldom seen.

The people seen in photos are Preiser 65602 Unpainted Seated People 24-pack.  It takes a night (or two) to paint 24 people.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

You can find out a lot about the Excursion cars' interiors here: https://www.up.com/aboutup/spe..._equipment/index.htm

It seems that the colors used in recent times are basically the equivalent of hotel lobby decoration. But what John R has used for the dome observation/lounge car is certainly in the right range.

I reckon that masking is well worth the effort as respects the coach cars where there are so many seats that spray painting instead of brush will be far more efficient. It takes several coats to cover the spray finish Lionel used and you don't want to be coating the same seat by hand 4 times.

Hancock52 posted:

You can find out a lot about the Excursion cars' interiors here: https://www.up.com/aboutup/spe..._equipment/index.htm

It seems that the colors used in recent times are basically the equivalent of hotel lobby decoration. But what John R has used for the dome observation/lounge car is certainly in the right range.

I reckon that masking is well worth the effort as respects the coach cars where there are so many seats that spray painting instead of brush will be far more efficient. It takes several coats to cover the spray finish Lionel used and you don't want to be coating the same seat by hand 4 times.

Thanks for the inspiring link.  Would that any of us could match this level of beauty and detail.  Although I got to say, some modelers come amazingly close.  The owner of Whistle Stop Trains in Portland has a passenger car with wall hangings with  readable details in O scale.  My favorite is the scale billboard of the advertisement for the Santa Fe Super Chief.

One idea I've found useful is to buy assortments of people from different sellers and do mixes and matches as needed throughout the car.  I use more robust size HO people in the domes, and I think they look more realistic than most O scale people.  I don't like the look of people bent over in their seats with their heads shoving into the overhead dome.

Scrapiron Scher posted:

I have tried to read all of the threads on detailing these cars but there are still some questions bouncing around in my head. I will start with what I would like to accomplish and I invite everyone to chime in with opinions and their approaches to these goals.

1) My primary goal is photography and videography of a UP Excursion Train as pulled by the various locomotives used by the UP. I would like my entire consist to be as accurate as I am able to make it. My secondary goal is to enjoy modeling these cars to the extent I am capable. Realistic interiors, correct colors, and passengers.

2) I have read the threads with care that discuss the difficulties opening these cars. I will follow the best advice. These questions persist:                                                                       

a) What colors would be best for the seats and the floor?  I am considering coloring the chairs by some means other than painting. Perhaps some material glued to the existing         seats for texture. It appears the seats and floor are one cast piece and a lot of time masking would be required for several different colors. Thoughts on this?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   b) Are the interior colors used in all of the cars consistent or did they vary considerably?   

 c) I know I have seen a double door boxcar in UP yellow on Excursion trains. I will try to find the photo and include it here. Is there a boxcar currently available or from past         production, that would be a reasonable entry that I could use. Found it.

I personally don't mask anything but I just use craft paint and brushes.  It makes for a nice winter project.   A little tedious but we gotten good results this way. 

I also am interested in colors to use on the interiors.  For next winter.  

As for boxcar I ordered the steam program boxcar from the most recent catalog to use in my train.   Just thought it was nice that it actually had steam program on it    

Patience is the one thing you will need in your toolbox.  While we would all love it if these shells popped right off, the well documented issues with the adhesive need to be taken into account before you start.  Take your time Elliot and you should have great results.  While in there I would recommend doing as John did and replace the E clips.  These cars are beautiful but definitely have some unneeded challenges to add folks to the car.  John's results show that this is a well worth it effort.

Looking forward to seeing your results. 

Many thanks to all of you responders. John, I really like your interiors. Hancock52, thanks for the link.

I thought I'd add this here partly because I'm starting on my little batch of 21" cars (two sets, one first run from a couple of years back and one second run) including the Excursion set. I've have had to think about what to do and how much work is involved. Also Mr Scher asked for opinions so politely.

I've had my Texas Special (first run) dome car apart for a while to install overhead and other lights in the dome section. I've learned that this is not prototypical but don't care as without extra lighting the dome is, well, a little boring. The single color moulding of the interiors also does not do justice to the details moulded-in but more on that in a minute. 

I think that the signature car of the Excursion set (apart from the flag baggage car) is the City of San Francisco dome observation/lounge car. This is a photo of mine, which is inferior as a photo to others I am going to "borrow" below but illustrates what the lighting and window placements look like. The ability to produce prototypical window placements was one of the advantages of ABS bodies Lionel referred to way back when they first announced these products and in this case they achieved that much:

Note that in the forward third of the car there is no window on the right side; and on the left side there is just one. This is basically a prototypical window placement. These next two photos are John R's;  top view is of the left side of this car and bottom is the same angle and right side as my photo:

The Challenger dome car has a different window placement, also prototypical, as shown in this photo from another poster, with a full set of windows for and aft and thus the interior assembly is almost fully visible:

Unfortunately the monochrome light yellow of the interiors is just too plain. Among other things it conceals such moulded-in details as are included. I'm not suggesting that Lionel could and should have included a color scheme like the real dome observation but what they took from it (like the tables with cup holder insets, just visible in my first photo) really doesn't show up in the uniform color used; here's UP's own page on this car:

This is pretty gaudy in an old Pullman Palace Car kind of way but if you want to produce even a rough representation of the real thing or maybe just put in passengers for color, it is no small job to do so on one car let alone a 7 car set (or 2 or 5 sets).

I have not opened up either of the UP dome cars yet but I know what to expect from other people's photos and working on the first run Texas Special dome car. Underneath the dome there's this odd construction (top photo UP, bottom Texas Special after being painted):

Why there's an enclosed area in the middle of this I can't figure out although it's handy for placing the power supply to the LED dome lights I want to install (as you can see the wires are already in place). This moulding is undoubtedly common to all the Lionel 21" ABS dome cars and an issue is that the uprights/partitions end up being placed directly in some of the cars' side windows, which seems odd and unsightly to say the least. You can see them in my car and a picture below (which also illustrates the hanging wire problem that fortunately I have not got):

Maybe all these upright sections were necessary as part of the moulding process - they don't support anything above them - but I reckon they can be cut away to form a new compartment, although that will require putting in details and passengers.

Anyway, where I have got to so far on the first run Texas Special dome car is shown below. I have found this car to be fairly sturdy in both the frame and body shell and it was a 5 minute job to separate them. But once you do, the interior really can't be left (a) unpopulated and (b) the same dark color throughout, so I had a go at it; no passengers yet as I know installing them will be tedious.

However, bearing in mind this is a complete fantasy car I did not feel limited in my choice of features. In particular, when I happened on a bottle of paint called "Royal Ruby" and remembered that this is supposedly a Missouri-Kansas-Texas car, I put two and two together and came up with "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." I know all that imagery has been hijacked in other contexts but at about the last stages of the MKT's passenger service I was still a kid watching the Wizard of Oz every Easter and so this interior got the Ruby/Emerald treatment. It includes various Oz movie and MKT historical posters and, inevitably, some for Lone Star beer:

This is not totally dissimilar to what Alex M. did with a set of first run ESE cars when they came out - if you can remember back that far and to that thread. 

In the Excursion cars I am going to adopt a more orthodox approach as the UP Heritage Fleet website has lots of images of the cars in service including the interiors and their fairly plush hotel lobby-style decor (or maybe its plush saloons - but I'm guessing of course). I'll freely adapt what's there but bearing in mind that these cars can just be  representations of the prototypes and not scale replicas. 

But this is an awful lot of work and I can't say I am totally happy at that prospect. 

Hancock52 posted:

I thought I'd add this here partly because I'm starting on my little batch of 21" cars (two sets, one first run from a couple of years back and one second run) including the Excursion set. I've have had to think about what to do and how much work is involved. Also Mr Scher asked for opinions so politely.

I've had my Texas Special (first run) dome car apart for a while to install overhead and other lights in the dome section. I've learned that this is not prototypical but don't care as without extra lighting the dome is, well, a little boring. The single color moulding of the interiors also does not do justice to the details moulded-in but more on that in a minute. 

I think that the signature car of the Excursion set (apart from the flag baggage car) is the City of San Francisco dome observation/lounge car. This is a photo of mine, which is inferior as a photo to others I am going to "borrow" below but illustrates what the lighting and window placements look like. The ability to produce prototypical window placements was one of the advantages of ABS bodies Lionel referred to way back when they first announced these products and in this case they achieved that much:

Note that in the forward third of the car there is no window on the right side; and on the left side there is just one. This is basically a prototypical window placement. These next two photos are John R's;  top view is of the left side of this car and bottom is the same angle and right side as my photo:

The Challenger dome car has a different window placement, also prototypical, as shown in this photo from another poster, with a full set of windows for and aft and thus the interior assembly is almost fully visible:

Unfortunately the monochrome light yellow of the interiors is just too plain. Among other things it conceals such moulded-in details as are included. I'm not suggesting that Lionel could and should have included a color scheme like the real dome observation but what they took from it (like the tables with cup holder insets, just visible in my first photo) really doesn't show up in the uniform color used; here's UP's own page on this car:

This is pretty gaudy in an old Pullman Palace Car kind of way but if you want to produce even a rough representation of the real thing or maybe just put in passengers for color, it is no small job to do so on one car let alone a 7 car set (or 2 or 5 sets).

I have not opened up either of the UP dome cars yet but I know what to expect from other people's photos and working on the first run Texas Special dome car. Underneath the dome there's this odd construction (top photo UP, bottom Texas Special after being painted):

Why there's an enclosed area in the middle of this I can't figure out although it's handy for placing the power supply to the LED dome lights I want to install (as you can see the wires are already in place). This moulding is undoubtedly common to all the Lionel 21" ABS dome cars and an issue is that the uprights/partitions end up being placed directly in some of the cars' side windows, which seems odd and unsightly to say the least. You can see them in my car and a picture below (which also illustrates the hanging wire problem that fortunately I have not got):

Maybe all these upright sections were necessary as part of the moulding process - they don't support anything above them - but I reckon they can be cut away to form a new compartment, although that will require putting in details and passengers.

Anyway, where I have got to so far on the first run Texas Special dome car is shown below. I have found this car to be fairly sturdy in both the frame and body shell and it was a 5 minute job to separate them. But once you do, the interior really can't be left (a) unpopulated and (b) the same dark color throughout, so I had a go at it; no passengers yet as I know installing them will be tedious.

However, bearing in mind this is a complete fantasy car I did not feel limited in my choice of features. In particular, when I happened on a bottle of paint called "Royal Ruby" and remembered that this is supposedly a Missouri-Kansas-Texas car, I put two and two together and came up with "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." I know all that imagery has been hijacked in other contexts but at about the last stages of the MKT's passenger service I was still a kid watching the Wizard of Oz every Easter and so this interior got the Ruby/Emerald treatment. It includes various Oz movie and MKT historical posters and, inevitably, some for Lone Star beer:

This is not totally dissimilar to what Alex M. did with a set of first run ESE cars when they came out - if you can remember back that far and to that thread. 

In the Excursion cars I am going to adopt a more orthodox approach as the UP Heritage Fleet website has lots of images of the cars in service including the interiors and their fairly plush hotel lobby-style decor (or maybe its plush saloons - but I'm guessing of course). I'll freely adapt what's there but bearing in mind that these cars can just be  representations of the prototypes and not scale replicas. 

But this is an awful lot of work and I can't say I am totally happy at that prospect. 

When I get the car body gap issue solved this will be next on my list 

jeremy ferrell posted:

When I get the car body gap issue solved this will be next on my list. 

If you mean the gap over the couplers I think that's fully documented on other threads and I don't see a solution, not even using Kadees, which would close the gap on the Excursion cars by much. The problem is that the prototypical diaphragms do not extend out to a point where shortening the coupler length makes a great deal of difference to the separation between them.

But this is a thread about painting and detailing, particularly interiors, and in that respect it's a matter of how much time and money you want to expend on the effort. I think it would make a more substantial difference to the appeal of the cars than trying to resolve coupler issues. I am likely to try reconstructing some of the compartments in the dome cars and the diner to provide different seating and other details (probably a bar in the lower compartment of the San Fran. dome lounge/observation as the prototype has). The coach interiors in the set I think I will simply paint and populate because they are already very close to the prototypes except that the interiors are too bland. Here's UP's own page on the Katy Flyer, which shows a color scheme that could be duplicated:

Scrapiron, For the boxcar I used a Atlas O 6506-1 or 2 for this application. Close looking but not exact of course but can be found relatively inexpensive. Paul

Hancock52 posted:

jeremy ferrell posted:

When I get the car body gap issue solved this will be next on my list. 

If you mean the gap over the couplers I think that's fully documented on other threads and I don't see a solution, not even using Kadees, which would close the gap on the Excursion cars by much. The problem is that the prototypical diaphragms do not extend out to a point where shortening the coupler length makes a great deal of difference to the separation between them.

I certainly wasn’t trying to thread jack.  I just have a specific agenda and with all do respect there’s always a solution.   I’m actually thinking of going straight to interior detailing on these for the fact there are so many people working on solutions to the car gap problem we’ll let them be the lab rats and see what happens.   Now I looked through the up site last night and holy cow do the have some incredible equipment.   I think the coach cars will be easy to replicate however some of those domes will be a Task.   Please post you progress as you I’ll be interested to see your work.  I wish we could get a group  sticky of all the 21” car threads together.  It’d be nice if they were all grouped together to easily acces the different topics.   These are garunteed to be great reference material in the future.