@T.Albers posted:Hahaha! Thank you @Hancock52 I respect you guys with those 21" scale cars. The only way I would be able to run full size cars like that would be to run a loop around the kitchen tile floor and back across the living room carpet. And my wife would not be happy when she learned I fastened down the track with screws for more realistic operation.
I must say those leather booth seats in your tavern lounge look very comfortable for the SP Daylight passengers. Is that the Cascade lounge car? How do you plan on building those booths, Styrene or 3D printer?
And you would not be happy if your wife accidentally kicked one of your prize scale cars, as has happened in my household because I have an around-the-main-room carpet layout when actually running scale trains (which is all too seldom).
A long time ago, when I was researching the tavern photo, I ran the history to ground and it came out like this (showing that the photo is of a "Timberline" lounge/tavern, the Cascade series being later):
"SP 10316 (83-T-1), Timberline Tavern lounge car, inspired by the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood east of Portland, built by Pullman-Standard in May 1949 (lot 6805, plan 7575). This car and twin SP 10317 were used in the heavyweight Cascade for a few weeks until delivery of the Cascade Club cars, after which they entered service on the new Shasta Daylight. They were replaced in mid-1955 by dome-lounge cars."
As an aside, K-Line and Lionel used the basic Cascade interior design for many of their cars, including some boat-tail observation cars. With one exception none of these were very prototypical. The exception is the fine Lionel 18" aluminum Shasta Daylight set made about 10 years ago, which has a great observation car but no tavern car.
OTOH, what is prototypical is this c. 2008 GGD Tavern car that I have, numbered SP 10314, which I think makes it a Coast Daylight model. In the second photo you will see that the interior is a representation of the prototypical Tavern booth seats:
The booth seats and tables are actually available from a 3rd party supplier, from memory it might be Precision Scale, and I have them as well as those in the car as supplied. But they are true O scale size so quite big in what is actually a sub-scale interior (as most 3rail passenger cars actually have). Anyway they would not have to be scratchbuilt, which to me is a great relief. They would have to be re-painted and other features, including the ubiquitous ashtrays and smoking stands, sourced or built from stock metal or plastic. This I have done before.
But I have not tried building out the interior of this car to match the Timberline photo because, as you can see from the top photo, the body panels on both sides of the bar area are solid and you couldn't actually see the bar from the outside - except by peering at an angle through other windows. In the GGD model that area is blanked out with no fittings and has no lights. However, in about 50 years' time when I have finished my two current projects (Texas Special and UP Excursion, both having at least 7 cars with full interiors), I will revert to this one!
As a postscript, I think I have posted this before but this is the fantasy bar (and poker) section in my TX Special observation car, built about 3 years ago:
And this is the representation I made from a contemporary photo of the train's bar and dining staff, which takes the place of the city skyline mural that probably would have been at the end of food/beverage service cars:
