Pullman Std C&O/D&RGW/D&H

Mac Shops (Haynes McDaniel) made several styles of aluminum extrusions with windows punched for various types of cars as per prototype.

 

You could also try OK streamliners in NY state (I believe.) He produces aluminum extrusions of various types and will punch windows as desired.

 

There is another fellow doing various style car kits in plastic, but I can't recall who it is at the moment. I'll try to find his info.

 

I believe the cars you want to model have corrugation below the windows only, don't they?

American Lightweight Car Company offered in the 1980's a complete consist of PS cars. The Budd domes would be an extruded you could add.

Mike Flauding is building this #1231 Combine for his RGZ

After Pete Plunkett died another fellow named Ken Tolar(?) was attempting to continue the line of American Lightweight, but I never saw anything from him.

 

Mac Shops still offered a brass wrapper for the Budd domes as of several years ago.

 

Nice build on your combine, Erik.

Found it.

Union Station Products makes exactly the D&H car kits you want.

I'm still waiting for the kit they were going to send to me back in March......

What century were those adverts from?

The super stupendous OMG 50th Anniversary issue of Model Railroader.

1984

http://youtu.be/OYecfV3ubP8

What year, Martin?

Erik,

I had forgotten that Ralph Brown announced streamlined car kits. Did he ever produce them? All I recall were the heavyweight kits. After Ralph passed the business on to a fellow in TN I sent $5 twice for his catalog probably 20 or so years ago. He kept the money, but I never received the catalog.

I'm in the process of building a C&O Pullman Standard passenger train. As far as I've been able to tell only American Lightweight Car Company and Union Station Products have the correct car sides. The PRB D&RGW coach and 10-6 sleepers are identical to the C&O cars but are very pricey if you can find them. PRB was going to make the full C&O train but didn't get enough reservations.

 

The Union Station Products car sides are more detailed than the ALW sides especially the skirts. However the USP sells only the car sides. You still need the ALW kit to use as a core (car ends, underframe details, roof).

 

Here's the C&O combine built with the ALW sides.

 

And here's a C&O coach with the USP sides and the rest of the car from an ALW kit.

 

These are 3 rail cars with K-Line trucks.

 

Ken

Thanks to everyone so far for the very helpful replies. I have followed up by contacting Ted Brebeck of OK Streamliners in Mohawk, NY. Mr. Brebeck custom makes aluminum PS and Budd passenger equipment as O-scale and HO-scale kits.

 

I shared my thoughts with Mr. Brebeck about what the kits should look like and will repeat it here:

" Two years ago, I made the mistake of buying a 5-car D&H passenger set from Weaver Models that was very non-prototypical. My goal is to build a 1968 D&H Laurentian passenger train with equipment that once ran on the Rio Grande's "Royal Gorge" train, with the exception that, in 1968, the D&H did not use any domed coaches or sleepers:
 
http://www.drgw.org/data/passenger/RoyalGorge.htm
 
The window and door arrangements may be viewed here:
 
http://unionstationproducts.com/deleware_hudson.html
 
Photos of the prototypes may be viewed here:
 
http://passcarphotos.info/Indices/D&H.htm

 

...I am still trying to figure out how many of each type of car the Laurentian consist would have had. I assume it had one RPO/Baggage, one Baggage, one Diner/Lounge, one Lunch/Buffet, and at least two D&H coaches, plus whatever equipment the NYC would have attached to it in Albany. I'll worry about the NYC stuff later."

 

I can probably cannibalize the Weaver D&H set if Mr. Brebeck's kits lack trucks, pickups, etc.

 

For anyone else wishing to have Mr. Brebeck make custom PS or Budd kits, he can be reached at okengines@aol.com and his website is www.okengines.com.

 

I will let you know more when he responds to my email. Thanks again for your suggestions. This is a very helpful forum.

2015

 

The super stupendous OMG 50th Anniversary issue of Model Railroader.

1984

 

Bit of lost year for me............but then I very rarely ever waste my time looking at MR except in the most desperate of situations, e.g. trapped in an airport in a multi-hour delay..........w/o toilet paper.

Charlie,

Ted is a very accommodating fellow and understands prototypes quite well. I have had him do some car extrusions for me in the past. A word of caution:

make sure Ted will be doing your extrusions in full length. Several he did for me were an inch or so short.

 

He does not include trucks with the kits. Since you are in 3 rail I suggest you look at purchasing MTH passenger trucks. They are far better than the Weaver trucks at a reasonable cost. Ted's turn around time is extremely quick.

Mr. Brebeck of OK Steamliners just replied and said that he does not have the tooling to produce a Pullman Standard lightweight with this kind of siding. I will contact him again to see if he has tooling for Erie-Lackawanna's AC&F streamliners which were used on the D&H's Adirondack when it was operating for Amtrak. I have also contacted Scott at Sunset, just in case he was running low on suggestions about what to make next. In the unlikely event that Mr. Mann is not inspired by my great idea, does anyone have contact information for Haynes McDaniel? I would really like to stay in the realm of metal trains in spite of the advances made in resin kits.

I would still be tempted to get Ted to make the car extrusions for you without any corrugation. Evergreen plastic makes the correct corrugation in 24 inch long sheets. You could add the plastic corrugation to an aluminum car. A number of us have done it and it works fine.

The original Kasiner extrusions, which may be available from OK, would work.  You would need to belt-sand the corrugations off above the windows.  Get him to punch windows, then sand the corrugations off yourself.  Easy.

 

I think I would be tempted to use ends and trucks, and interiors as well, from cannibalized K-Line or MTH.

 

I am really glad I have no real info on passenger car window arrangements.  I have a lot of K-Line, and while I am quite sure some of the windows are incorrect, I do not carry a "spotter's guide" with me when I run them, or even look at them.  I sure do spot incorrect  car bodies, though.  The one you want has never really been done to perfection in O Scale, to my knowledge.

Here is the story on American Lightweight.

I'm Ken Towler and I worked with Pete Plunkett from the day he bought the company until he died.  I helped his widow, Linda Plunkett, for about 5 years when she sold the company to me. Unfortunately the biggest nightmare has been the underbody details.  The company that was doing the details was very unreliable for Pete, Linda and myself so when they decided to close shop they supposedly shipped me all the patterns and molds...........well not all the patterns were there and the molds were old and unusable.  I am trying to work something out now on the underbody detail.  I reordered the metal castings and injected molded parts and have them.  Two weeks ago I got a quote on ordering more roves and skirts.  Since 2007 the roves have gone up over 100% and the skirts have gone up over 300%.  It's either cough up $5,000 for roves and skirts, find a new supplier or do without.  I have replenished the trucks and bought 1,000 axles and wheels from Weaver before they closed.  

 

I like what Union Station is doing and looking at perhaps combining his sides with the rest of my kit but that would increase the cost of the kit by $20-30$.

 

What Atlas has done with the Zephyr cars for that price is unbelievable and when their contract expires no telling what the cost will be.  If you want a particular car I can do it but is that volume worth spending thousands of more dollars?

 

I am open to all suggestions and feedback.

 

Ken Towler

American Lightweight Car Company

201 Grist Mill Road

Lynchburg, VA 24501-7732

Ken,

Sorry I misspelled your last name but wasn't sure of the correct spelling, hence the question mark placed after your name in an earlier post of mine.

 

I will send you an e-mail regarding another possible option for underbody details.

USP can include the skirts but as I understand it they are flat with the sides that people would have to bend.  I need to get with him on the thickness of the side to make it match my end pieces.

 

What a lot of people have realized is with the ALCC roof you can scribe the correct weld lines, pull a piece of fishing line in the scribe and have the correct weld patterns and more detail on the roof. 

 

When John Smith was closing out Pecos River I bought a bunch of plated roof grab irons for my personal use.  I wonder what it would cost to have a 1000 done as extras available for the kits.  Seeing plated grab irons on a well painted car,,,,,,,,,YES!!!

 

I like this idea. I'll ask Mr. Brebeck if he can do this.

 

Although not a fan of resin/abs/plastic trains, I'm glad this tread has prompted a helpful discussion about the availability of these kits.

The D&H had the former D&RGW diners refurbished and the corrugated fascia removed, presumably to match the 62-seat ACF coaches from the Phoebe Snow coaches it bought in 1970. So smooth sides would work without adding plastic corrugation. I might go this route if the Kasiner extrusions are unavailable. The stainless corrugations are preferable, however, because they match the stainless sides of the ALCO PA locomotives.

I had wondered what had happened to you since your posts on the Atlas forum. That's an interesting idea combining your kit with USP sides. In the alternative, your kits minus the sides (buyer purchases them separately) could also work.

Here is the story on American Lightweight.

I'm Ken Towler and I worked with Pete Plunkett from the day he bought the company until he died.  I helped his widow, Linda Plunkett, for about 5 years when she sold the company to me. Unfortunately the biggest nightmare has been the underbody details.  The company that was doing the details was very unreliable for Pete, Linda and myself so when they decided to close shop they supposedly shipped me all the patterns and molds...........well not all the patterns were there and the molds were old and unusable.  I am trying to work something out now on the underbody detail.  I reordered the metal castings and injected molded parts and have them.  Two weeks ago I got a quote on ordering more roves and skirts.  Since 2007 the roves have gone up over 100% and the skirts have gone up over 300%.  It's either cough up $5,000 for roves and skirts, find a new supplier or do without.  I have replenished the trucks and bought 1,000 axles and wheels from Weaver before they closed. 

If you can't reproduce the underbody parts, how about an arrangement with Delta Models?
On the roofs, as nice as the plastic roofs are, perhaps arranging for milled wood roofs would be an acceptable alternative, especially if it can keep the kit cost down.

The USP skirts are part of the car sides. They come flat, but have to be curved. After assembling the side I tried to pre-curve the skirt but couldn't get enough curve into it. So after assembling the sides to the floor and ends, I glued the plain, preformed ALW curved skirts to the floor. Then with a lot of styrene cement between the two skirts, I used clothespins to pull the USP skirt hard up against the ALW skirt. Once the glue dried, the USP skirts were curved perfectly. Since the USP skirt is part of the car side, when the lower side fluting is attached to the car, that fluting sticks out away from the skirts. The skirts and the lower fluting should be in the same plane, but with the way the USP sides are made its not possible.

 

The ALW skirt fluting is simply scribed Evergreen styrene that has to be glued to the plain, curved ALW skirting material. This is difficult to do and the skirting is devoid of detail. Therefore on the cars using ALW sides I just left off the skirts between the trucks. What's good about doing this is you can see a lot of the underbody equipment which was prominent on these cars when the skirts were removed.

 

Also, the USP sides have the vestibule doors as part of the side. On the ALW kit the doors are a separate casting. Assembly of the USP sides are a bit easier because of this.

 

Here's are some pics of the cars after assembly and before painting:

 

Coach with USP sides

 

 

Combine with ALW sides

10-6 sleeper and 11 DBR sleeper with ALW sides:

 

 

Ken

I found that if you take the fluting for the skirting and run a razor knife down each grove it is much easier to confirm to the skirt piece.  I have seen people cut out slots in the skirting for other detail.  I saw one kit that the builder took the drawings from Mainline Modeler and put every pipe under the bottom.  It looked like a Wasatch car when it was finished.

Ken

Ken,

 I tried that technique with the skirting for the car ends. Sometimes it worked, sometimes I screwed it up.

 

I haven't seen many of the ALW kits built up. You can put as much detail into them as you have the time and patience for, but they can certainly can be built to the level of detail as a brass car. A big problem is a lot of the detail parts are disappearing. I added a number of parts from Keil Line and other sources which are becoming very scarce.

 

If you do reproduce the kits, please consider making the interior seats. It took years to scrounge the seats in my coach and combine and now I'm out.

 

Ken

Thank you Ken for keeping the fires burning




       

What a beauty ��


       

I know the what people told me mark up parts when I sell them but when I increased the price of my trucks due to a cost increase some people yelled bloody murder when I had cut my margin.  With the roves I would have to charge $11 each and that is at a lower margin than things have been in the past.  I'm not into this to make money as it's a hobby with no stockholders but I do need to pay the bills.  Do you think people will buy them?

Thanks,

Ken

Your competition may well be MTH - they are all metal, and apparently they have lengthened the wheelbase and made them look like real passenger car trucks.  I think they are over $20/ pair?

 

Any word from OK on whether the original Kasiner bodies are available?

 

I have a fluted Kasiner car that had all the flutes removed - not by me - and you almost cannot tell.  I took a K-Line SP Obs and removed one flute above the windows, making the windows more like the Daylight windows.  Kind of a waste of time, since the flutes were " outies" and the Daylight cars are really "innies" - but it did look better.

I really wonder if there is much of a market for O scale passenger car kits. I have the 2 completed cars, 2 ready to be painted, plus parts for 4 more. I bought several ALW kits from P&D Hobbies 5 or so years ago. Those kits were 20 plus years old when I bought them. That's a long time to hold onto stock that apparently was never in high demand. If there were built up cars commercially available I would rather go that route as the kits take a long time to build, however, I doubt there is enough demand for these type of PS cars for someone like Golden Gate Depot to build them.

 

Besides the problem of a questionable amount of demand, there is the problem of additional detailing parts. Like I said earlier the supply of these are drying up. Decals are another problem. Before Champ went out of business I bought many sets of C&O passenger car decals so I have enough for my builds. Even then I had to have LBR Enterprises print up car name decals for me as the old Champ sets were gone. Microscale has pretty much quit doing O scale decals. The question is if you sell kits, will the buyer be able to find any additional parts and decals he may need.

 

If it was me, I would seriously question investing many thousands of dollars to bring these kits on the market without having a really good idea of what the demand would be. Kit building is becoming a lost art except amongst a few of us diehards.

 

By the way, I think $11 is a great price for the roof. if I needed one for a project I would have no problem with shelling out $11.

 

Ken

 

 

 

 

Interior details are very important and if I can find a reliable caster I will put the interiors back in production also.

Ken

I would like to chime in here. First of all the posting reply by KT is the same thing he has been saying for a very long time. As dadada and looks as nothing has changed. The kits are very good and build up nicely. But he just sits on the product and has never done anything with it. People just got tired of hearing this.

 

He talks about rooves which I think means roof. and under body castings. Cant seem to get a supplier. dadada I know several people offered to assist him including my self. He sent me an Email about 8 months ago, saying he needed to talk to me. Never got back to me dadada.

 

It is really unfortunate that he seems to not want to run a business,and pursue anything further on getting things out people would buy. It is always a but I reason.

 

Now regarding resin castings of parts. 1 it is not easy, you have to make a master. 2 it is expensive on cost.  Rubber is 45.00 per qt. resin is 42.00 per qt. Resin cures by  heat. For my castings on large types I get about 40 shots per mold. For smaller castings I can get about 65 shots. Then you need a new mold.

 

I am not set up to do casting in bulk and to give a discount, the cost is just not there to do it.  Casting is not simple there are many variables the worst is temp and humidity.

 

I wanted interior parts and under body parts for my models,none was available so I made my own. Right now I have about 80-100 different molds, and close to 225 different items that I can use. On O scale Passenger cars., for Pullman ACF Budd and  StlC.

 

I can assure you that there are people out there that wants these things, based on what I see. So there is interest, you just have to know where it is, Just ask.

 

So I hope you get something from this posting. This is about as straight forward as it gets.

 

I am doing R&D on a one piece resin cast roof. But the down side is cost per roof would be 20-25.00 per roof. Would people pay for it ? I would if it is what I needed to build models. If it is not available people would not by it.

 

So I seriously doubt it anything will come from AML. But me I am just moving on.

cant wait for dadada.

 

regards

 

Bill Basden    Delta Models