Skip to main content

So my project tonight when I got home from work was to take apart one of my Atlas O NJ Transit Coaches.  This is somewhat similar to my other post about taking apart the MTH Bombardier Coaches.  The point tonight was so that I could see the cabin interior and see first hand up close (can't really see through the narrow windows) what the floor and seat set-up is.  I don't have a functioning layout at the moment - and the ceiling loop is on hold - so I will get my railroad fix at home by painting some cars and making a diorama for my 1/43 vehicles.  The trains will still get to run, but only on the club layout.  So my aim is to post in this thread once in a while with interior painting updates for both my NJ Transit and Tri-Rail coaches.
 
By opening up the interior I can have an idea of the process I'm going to do in the near future with painting the interior to get rid of the monochromatic tan* look and also to put some commuter passenger figures inside. *-After opening it up, I saw that the interior seats were orange and not tan. Here are some coach interior shots of the  NJ Transit prototype on the internet.
 
 
I have never taken a car apart before, so no better time than the present.   Can't find an exploded diagram anywhere and for the most part the Atlas O website is pretty much useless in providing technical information, so I took a multitude of photos of every step I made so that I would know what it looked like before and how and where to put every back together in reverse order.  
 
It looked pretty straightforward until I got to a point where it looks like the coach floor is connected by to the rest of the wiring by a part that is soldered, so I called it quits for the night.  That's enough today and  I can go deeper into the disassembling another day.  I don't have a soldering iron in my stable (yes, you read that right ), so I'll have to remedy that situation.  
 
Here are some (not all) of the photos:
20200121_19075420200121_19492620200121_19544320200121_19561120200121_195625
 
 

Attachments

Images (5)
  • 20200121_190754
  • 20200121_194926
  • 20200121_195443
  • 20200121_195611
  • 20200121_195625
Last edited by Amfleet25124
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

I’ll be following this thread with great interest Kevin. I have a fleet of NJT and Septa cars from atlas I too would like to upgrade the interior and add LED lighting.

The interior photo you showed I believe is from a Comet V, judging by the larger windows and red seats. Now it’s your train and you can do whatever you like, however I think the Atlas cars are Comet 2s, which NJT refurbished a few years ago and they now have green seats I believe. Just commenting - feel free to paint yours however you like and you have inspired me to do mine now! 

Kevin,

Thank you so much for pictures of this.  I tried taking about a Horizon coach a number of years ago and promptly gave.  While they are difficult to disassemble I do truly believe it requires Jedi level knowledge of the Force to put them back to together.  Please share those as well!  My NJT trains run empty while my most of my Amtrak cars merely run at Penn Central era level of ridership.

I remember seeing the Comet IIs testing on the NY&LB with shiny new F40PHs over the summer of '82 as a naive 13 year old not realizing that it spelled DOOM for the E8s I was so used to watching.

M J Breen posted:

I’ll be following this thread with great interest Kevin. I have a fleet of NJT and Septa cars from atlas I too would like to upgrade the interior and add LED lighting.

The interior photo you showed I believe is from a Comet V, judging by the larger windows and red seats. Now it’s your train and you can do whatever you like, however I think the Atlas cars are Comet 2s, which NJT refurbished a few years ago and they now have green seats I believe. Just commenting - feel free to paint yours however you like and you have inspired me to do mine now! 

M.J., those are just two photos that I have on file and am not beholden to them.  Yes, the Atlas O's are Comet II's (I just looked on the blue box to confirm). I like to overkill on certain things and will probably have a dozen photos for reference when all is said and done that will be on display around my painting stand as I'm doing it (did the same thing when I recently built a model of the US Navy ship my Father-in-law served on during the Vietnam War).  I'm already amassing photos of the Tri-Rail trains interiors that I commute in every day. 

Kevin, I too will be following this thread with anticipation for each new entry you supply.  As for documenting what you are doing with photos, that's excellent--but may I suggest you capture all of the various screws, nuts, etc. and keep them in separate containers as your work progresses and accompany each group with notes as to what they are and where they go.  This is particularly useful when, as often happens, projects must be put aside for months.

Good Luck.

 

Two weeks later, I finally got around to finish opening up the Comet II coach.

Didn't notice the green circuit board on the floor prior so that makes things interesting.  This adds to the wires running from the trucks thru the floor.  I know zero about electronics so don't want to mess with it if I can avoid to, so I'll probably hand it over to one of the electronic expert members of my club to separate (and then put back together) and maybe even install LED lighting.

My plan is to have the floor separated totally so that I can paint it via airbrush.  

20200203_212429

20200203_212449

20200203_212613

20200203_212703

 

But at least now I have an actual visual in front of me of the seats and how I want to paint them matching the internet photos of a Comet II interior with what looks like to be a blueish gray.

20200203_213025

20200203_213124[0)

20200203_222502

One thing though is that the seats looked like a tight squeeze and I would likely have a lot of passengers who were double amputees.  The seats and between them looked shorter than those in my  Bombardier Tri-Rail coach so I took so some measuring on the fly to compare one 1:48 scale coach interior (as MTH doesn't make the Bombardier coaches full scale length like K-Line did) to another.  As you can see by the photos below, my eyes were seeing an optical illusion.  The seat back heights are basically the same and distance between the head rests of the Comet II - if the seats were flipped facing each other - is the same as the 1-inch separation on the Bombardiers.  My construction worker, which I don't recall where I got him from, but if were standing straight would be 1.5 inches, which is 6 feet at 1/48 scale, so he is the correct height, would have a hard time sitting in the seats that he is standing next to in the aisle.

20200203_225300

20200203_225917

20200203_230345

20200203_230437

This is going to be a lot of fun!

Attachments

Images (11)
  • 20200203_212429
  • 20200203_212449
  • 20200203_212613
  • 20200203_212703
  • 20200203_213025
  • 20200203_213124(0)
  • 20200203_222502
  • 20200203_225300
  • 20200203_225917
  • 20200203_230345
  • 20200203_230437
Last edited by Amfleet25124

So today, I had a professional (John Fasso from the Florida Citrus Model Train Society) take apart the car and install a LED Strip.  Lot of the inner guts removed out. 

Left the remaining 4 coaches with him today to work on during the week.

As I mentioned prior, I know nothing about electronics so therefore I don't have any use for keeping circuit boards for supplies so if any of you want a set of 5 (once all cars are done) shoot me a PM.

Here is a before shot from last week:

20200203_212449

This afternoon's workbench:

20200209_125721

20200209_130033

20200209_153521

And some shots from home this evening with the beautiful white light:

20200209_194101

20200209_194113

20200209_194151

20200209_194312

Now its time to start painting!

 

Attachments

Images (8)
  • 20200203_212449
  • 20200209_125721
  • 20200209_130033
  • 20200209_153521
  • 20200209_194101
  • 20200209_194113
  • 20200209_194151
  • 20200209_194312
Last edited by Amfleet25124

Started some painting last night and came to a realization that the old adage of "a man on a galloping horse wouldn't know the difference" would apply in my case here.

My original intent was to paint the seats one color  (Gunship Gray) and the armrests another (Neutral Gray).  I'm not rushing the project, but to do that would be very labor intensive and viewed through the narrow windows of the Comet II coach, and with seated passengers, no one would notice, even standing still.  If we're talking tables in a dining car or the tables in the Tri-Rail commuter coach, then that's a different story.  FYI , the seats with the dark navy color was just a test on my part.

20200215_233733

20200215_233750

20200215_234027

So I changed my mind midstream and will paint the entire seat assembly the same color (Gunship Gray), and I'll be able to spray paint them, instead of hand painting each set of seats.  The floors will remain painted a different color, in this case, I'm using Dark Tan.  

 

Attachments

Images (3)
  • 20200215_233733
  • 20200215_233750
  • 20200215_234027
Last edited by Amfleet25124
Quarter Gauger 48 posted:

Those colors should look fine Kevin.  What are the colors on the prototype just out of curiosity ?  I know first hand the time involved in detailing a large coach'... Just don't loose patience'....

Ted,

I don't know the actual RGB color codes of the interior, but based off this picture http://www.rrpicturearchives.n...cture.aspx?id=512333 I'm going with Bluish Gray for the seats and a Dark Gold type color for the flooring.

Showing some updates over the past month.  

First off, Peter A, I followed your suggestion on painting the floor first.

Have had an interesting time the past 4 weeks with 2 different orders of paints that looked online that they would work with the seat color I wanted and when they arrived the colors were anything but.  Then there was a paint that I tried which the color was right, but the paint type (I don't recall it off hand) would not adhere to the plastic seats. 

The gray surface primer sprayed on:

20200222_131437 

20200222_170615

20200222_170559

So I finally went with #21353E Mountain Blue by Apple Barrel

20200315_17322720200315_173208

20200315_180657

A select few passengers from the Rail King tour group testing out the seating at the factory 

20200315_181737

 

 

Attachments

Images (7)
  • 20200222_131437
  • 20200222_170615
  • 20200222_170559
  • 20200315_173227
  • 20200315_173208
  • 20200315_180657
  • 20200315_181737
Last edited by Amfleet25124

Well, finally after 3 weeks I've got around to finish painting the seats on this Coach #5633.  Visitors from the Rail King Tour tried out the seats and adhered to "Social Distancing".

Now to rinse, wash and repeat for the other 6 coaches (I just purchased 2 more).  My plan is to have 8 coaches being pulled by the loco.  Will need more passengers for all the coaches.  I'm not going to buy any more Rail King ones as I don't want to have multiple of the same person in the same coach.  I will paint some so that at least if I buy two some of them will look different.  I compared the O Scale Model Power people compared to the Rail King ones and they looked way to large for my taste.  That leaves the bulk bags from China and I'm not buying anything shipped from there for the time being for obvious reasons.  I'm sure I'll find a bag of people somewhere. 

20200404_18581120200404_18584920200404_18590520200404_19013720200404_19015420200404_190208

Attachments

Images (6)
  • 20200404_185811
  • 20200404_185849
  • 20200404_185905
  • 20200404_190137
  • 20200404_190154
  • 20200404_190208
Last edited by Amfleet25124

Add Reply

Post

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×