I recently picked up a Williams "Girls" passenger set for a good price - couldn't pass up the comedy of a pink GG-1 and matching passenger cars cruising around our ceiling layout. I also figured this would be a perfect train set for my daughter, but wanted to upgrade it to PS-2 and upgrade the somewhat plain passenger cars a little bit. Here's my progress to date:
My first order of business was the PS-2 upgrade. I stumbled into an awesome deal on a lightly using Railking GG-1 and intended to swap the electronics over to the pink Williams. You can imagine my pleasant surprise when I realized that the shells are identical - right down to the interior bracing, details, and position of the screws. Glad both companies stayed true to the traditional semi-scale GG-1! In half an hour, I had a pink GG-1 with PS-2. Took another 2 mins to rename the engine in DCS.
Next order of business was the lack of end-of-car diaphragms. I ordered 5 replacement K-line diaphragms from the lionel parts site (2 per coach, 1 for the observation, and none for the baggage), modified them slightly, and glued them into place on each car. There's still sufficient clearance for O-31 curves. Much better:
I also replaced the lighting in each car with LED strips for Golden Gate Depot. They are a perfect fit in these Williams cars. The look is about the same (though uneven-ness of lighting is slighly improved), but my intent here was merely to reduce the current draw.
Next, I began modifications specific to the observation car. I added a lighted drumhead (courtesy of Dan's Drumheads) and some aftermarket marker lamps. Still troubleshoting getting those 1.5V lamps to light, but we'll get there. The drumhead works great, but (especially in the close-up pic) seems a little large for these particular cars. Here's the progress so far:
I should note that this train was intented to be a surprise 3rd b-day present for my daughter, but she woke up in the middle of the night last night and caught me working on it. Needless to say, she was excited to see the pink train and (much to my delight) insisted on helping me work on it. It was a lot of fun having a little train buddy! She grabbed "her" screwdriver (I was't allowed to use it), and began working the screws (which I was also not allowed to help with).
Next steps include replacing all of the window silhouettes (each car has four indentical strips, see below) with pictures of family and painting a couple details onto the cars (such as maybe making the top of each step black, etc.). More updates to come!
