Royal Blue Passenger Cars

These cars are difficult to disassemble and reassemble.

I converted one Marx car to S gauge with American Models trucks. They had to be spaced away from the chassis so the couplers would clear. They sit too high for my taste.

You might take the ugliest car and convert the trucks before putting in the effort of painting them. If they sit on the trucks OK, then go for it.

The best way to make a Royal Blue set is to use Gilbert Flyer pre war New Haven coaches. They look almost just the same as the plastic post war cars, easy to find, and put S gauge trucks on.

Well I'd order a set of American Models B&O Budd streamline cars, and just attach them to my Royal Blue.  If I were to do any painting,  I would probably paint the Engine and Tender to match the prototype pacific and change the drumhead on the observation to read Royal Blue

My painting skills are "okay" at best, but  the AM Budd cars are free rolling and beautiful, far better than anything I could paint up

LittleTommy

 

 

My Dad and I restored a junker Silver Bullet into a reasonably accurate model of the original B&O 5304 Royal Blue P7 Pacific five years ago for my son.  I bought a set of 3 (combine, coach, observation) junk AF streamlined passenger cars off of eBay.  I think I paid about $60 for the 3 cars, which were rough (a little rust on frames, beat up chrome), but complete and restorable.  I stripped the chrome, primed and painted the cars to be an approximation of the original 1937 Royal Blue cars (which were actually old heavyweights that the frugal B&O refurbished and 'streamlined').  We were very happy with the results.  The AF streamlined cars are a bit longer than the either the Marx or the AF New Haven cars, so they look better in my opinion.  The cross section of the cars also matches the streamlined tender used on the Silver Bullet/Royal Blue/Circus locomotives very nicely  Here a photo of the locomotive and a video of the set running on my layout.  I have better photos of the cars, which I will try to post in the next day or so.

Scott Griggs, Louisville, KY

 

That be nice.

Rusty

Not quite The Royal Blue, but the right roadname:

Rusty

Another approach to Royal Blue passenger cars would be to cobble some together using junk Gilbert New Haven cars. Here is a link to Joe Deger's Royal Blue webpage (yes, Joe Deger of Greenberg price guide fame) on our club's website.  He made one impressive set of cars.

 http://sgaugers.org/TD/TD_JD_01.html

 Dean

I had no idea the AF RB could look that nice, and just with a paint job (and some running gear upgrades). WOW!

Those New Havens are fantastic!  Way too nice for my skill set.  Maybe I'll get a crummy set of the streamlined cars and use those.  I don't want to have too much trouble with the Marx cars.

Kelpieflyer posted:

Those New Havens are fantastic!  Way too nice for my skill set.  Maybe I'll get a crummy set of the streamlined cars and use those.  I don't want to have too much trouble with the Marx cars.

Russell,

Joe Deger's kitbashed set is a *very* close approximation of the original 1937 Royal Blue train.  I think there was a Classic Toy Trains article on it, if I remember correctly.  As with many railroads during the Great Depression, the B&O wanted to create the look of streamlining without spending money on brand new lightweight passenger cars.  So they refurbished old heavyweight cars and modified them externally so they would resemble purpose-built streamlined equipment.  I was like you, not wanting to invest the time required to build cars to closely match the prototype.  I like to think of the set I restored as what the B&O might have done had they gone the full streamlined route.

Scott Griggs, Louisville, KY

Here are some photos of the AF streamlined passenger cars we painted to match the restored Royal Blue locomotive:

Here are 'before' photos of the junker Silver Bullet and passenger cars:

 

sgriggs posted:

Here are some photos of the AF streamlined passenger cars we painted to match the restored Royal Blue locomotive:

Those are fantastic!  Did you use an airbrush to paint them?

Kelpieflyer posted:

Those are fantastic!  Did you use an airbrush to paint them?

Thank you.  Yes, the blue and grey was airbrushed.  I think we used a spray bomb to paint the black.

Scott Griggs, Louisville, KY