Scale Polar Express

The observation car in the new catalog states it will have a curved end platform deck.

T4TT:

I believe he is referring to the roof.

ATSF Cliff:

Good luck on your project. This is no small effort. You will have to post photos of your progress.

Cliff - It will be fun to watch your progress.  Please share pictures when you can.

Art

Cliff, your plans sound good.  The Williams cars should work out great.  When I reworked my observation car, I took the time to enlarge the drumhead and taillight.  A must for me was to add those three down lights that illuminate the observation deck.  it was a fun project.  I look forward to seeing your progress.

Keith:  Already have Dan's PE Drumhead.  Of course will include the three 'spotlights' on the Obs car.

Cliff,

Any good paint store can match a color sample. Automotive paints will be glossy fro declas and you can flatten.

Keith is the OGR Forum star on this, his modified PE Observation cars with the extended rounded roof for himself and PTC are works of art, plus also his PE RPO car.

Why Lionel chose to letter the cars incorrectly will baffle me forever. Like did they only pay 1/2 the license fee and had to make the cars wrong?

Please keep us posted, it will be a great project to see.

I suspect that the reason the cars are lettered above the windows has to do with their tooling.  It may be the case that the machinery or tooling is set up to only allow large-font printing above the windows and small-font printing below the windows, since this is how most, if not all of their prototype heavyweights are decorated.

In any case, it doesn't bother me in the least, and having had thousands of people see mine in operation, not once did anyone ever complain about the placement of the lettering or even the square-end roof on the observation car.  In fact, it has been pretty much a home run at every show where I have run it.  Most of the questions I get about it involve why it is bigger than the one the questioner has, or where one can be bought.

Andy