Reply to "NEW Lionel Penn Central 21 Inch Passenger Cars"

July 1, 2018 … My four pack of Lionel Penn Central 21" passenger cars just arrived.  The two-pack is on its way.

I decided to detail the most difficult car first: the 12-4 "Connoquenessing Creek" Sleeper #4366.

On first look I see that the six middle seat backs show in the middle of the six lower center windows.  (See previous pictures in this thread.)  The middle six seats are molded by the factory facing the wrong way.  The car should alternate direction of seats all the way down the lower level of the car.  (The seat position is facing the way of the Upper Duplex Rooms should, not the bottom.)

With a new Excel #11 knife, I score/cut the middle six seats out of the floor.  The seats are also too high for the lower middle windows, so I trim 1/16" plus off the bottom of the seats before mounting them back in the car.  The six middle Duplex Seats are now lower to the window height in the body side of the car.

Two of my lower Duplex windows had the sticky tape covering the outside of the window opening when the factory jammed the window piece into the side of the car.  I had to remove the four-window glass piece and use an Excel #11 Knife to "tack-pick" the tape out of two lower window openings. (Tack-pick is allowing the glue tape to attract the other glue tape in the window as I pick across the window bottom.)  I also had to remove tape from the outside bottom of the two window glasses.  I re-installed the window glass and the car looks good.

Three toilets and one sink are missing from the Vestibule end floor half.  The other floor section has the two toilets as it should.  I had to repaint the room walls because the factory spray paint job on the non-vestibule floor section missed several areas around seats and in the bathrooms. Corners of some rooms also had blue paint showing.  (I used Testors Acryl Flat "Gull Gray" paint to paint the walls.)

I also replace the Silver Lionel "E-clips" with steel 3/16" E-clips from Home Depot. One clip on this car was bent and loosely fitting. The E-clip holds the trucks on the car.

The Lionel 12-4 Duplex Sleepers do not have seating for the upper six Duplex rooms in the middle of the car.  Nothing: open space that looks down to the lower Duplex rooms.  To provide seats for the Upper Duplex Rooms I will create a bridge, fastened to the back of two lower seats, that will hold a platform for the upper Duplex passengers.  (See the photo of one of the four Pennsylvania 12-4 Duplex Sleepers I have already done.

After dinner I will build the Upper Seat Bridges for this car and add Preiser 65602 Unpainted Seated Figures.

Sincerely, John Rowlen