Some years ago I had a set of disappointing Weaver 20" generic passenger cars that were painted in NYC colors. I reconfigured them to more closely resemble wartime 20th Century Limited cars based on the 1940 color scheme. Long time readers of the Forum may have seen these cars before.
Here's the RPO I made from the Weaver baggage car -
On top in the photo above is the original Weaver baggage car I started with and on the bottom is the Lionel-Smithsonian car I used as a guide. My reconfigured car appears in the middle. It is now in the correct colors and has correctly styled and placed doors and windows, appropriate roof details, diaphragms, and six wheel trucks per NYC practice. The Weaver bodies are about an inch short of full length, so on all the cars I modified I reduced the window widths and heights by 3 scale inches. They also have fluted roofs and skirts which I did not attempt to correct.
In all I did seven cars over a year's worth of evenings, working strictly with hand tools. I may post pix of a couple of others later. It was fun at the time, but I'll never do it again.
Cheers,
- Mike
