Modeling Union Pacific's Generator Car UPP #2066

@Jayhawk500 posted:

I will then need to get the hump of the #2066 made using 3D printing.

Until the next time...

My Heritage consist uses MTH cars.  When you have the hump made I would like to purchase one.

Thank you

fans beneath grills will spin.

@AlanRail posted:

fans beneath grills will spin.

That would be awesome. Need to find a pair of nano motors to power them
From the one photo I could find of the roof, The fan houses are flush with the roof.

I'm also going for the fan driven smoke unit. I just need to find the proper smoke funnel.

I have opted not to do the cool fan motors. Would be too much trouble. Still trying to find usable measurements for the Hump. Union Pacific was no help at all. UP's Historical Society wasn't any help either. Still on the hunt for those measurements. If anyone with that info please chime in.

Just a little update...I have ordered the sides of the car fom Union Station Products. The order was confirmed and an estimated ship date is very soon. I also ordered the sides for building the "Portola" Sleeper car at the same time.
The only draw back is Union Station only produces sides up to .040 thickness. Factory sides from Lionel are .100 thick. So I now have to build up the sides to get the correct thickness to match the Lionel sides. No biggie really, just a couple of extra steps. Union Station is providing the necessary material for the build ups. They have great customer service and have been awesome dealing with!

I sent Mark at Union Station an email about the sides for the Portola car and within about a half an hour, he emailed me back saying it was done and on the website. Now that's service!

I'll post up some pictures when I get the sides.

Good Morning Fellow O Gaugers,

Here's a progress update on the 2066 power car. I've had alot of this done for quite sometime and honestly forgot I had these pictures.
First up is the speaker mount  simply made out of HVAC duct sheet metal.

Trying to decide where I want to place these 2 items.

I stained the wood decking in a dark color to simulate the Kreolite wood flooring. I let that dry and then started assembling the chassis. The Railsounds Lite board is only a place holder for the Generator board. I used this to get the correct plug and wire lengths.
The trucks are 6-wheeled with one having the Hall Effect sensor.  The 2 wires running on top of the speaker enclousre is for the Fan Driven Smoke unit. Which I just realized, these 2 wires are way over kill, They'll be replaced.

Once I get the hump for the car, I'll have to decide which smoke unit to use, both are MTH units. The smaller one (I believe) is from a smoking oil tank car. The larger one is a PS1 unit. Consequently, the fluid capicities are different, both smoke equally well. It's just how often do I want to refill the smoke unit.

The car sides should be arrivng any day. Then alot of measurements will be sent to Alan so he can work his magic.

Until next time...

Thanks for the likes guys. I should be taking delivery of the sides on Friday, hopefully.

Looks good Alan.

As promised, here are the sides from Union Station Products. The sides are made out of .030 Styrene, both white and clear. I ordered both the Power car and Portola sleeper car sides.

I have already added the battens, glued the clear inner spacer in place, and added the doors to all four of the sides . This brings the total thickness to .060. I need another .040 to bring the sides to the standard thickness of .100 as manufactured by Lionel. Everything is in white, so it's hard to see some of the detail. You can just barely see the battens on the sides.

A NYC coach car is used as a donor car. Yes, I know sacrilege by some of the NYC fans. But, it's what I have to work with.
Taped up and ready to start surgically removing the side. I'm cutting just a cats hair below the rivet line.

And so it begins, I started off using a Dremel tool, but I didn't like the way it cut. I settled on using a fine tooth hacksaw blade. Easier to control.

The side removed, Now I have to clean up the edges, and add the .040 to the side. Then it'll be ready to install.

Until next time...

Here is some of the detailing of the sides. The batten strips are glued into place with superglue. In fact everything is glued with superglue. I started off with the gel type glue, but quickly ran out since there is next to nothing in the bottle to start with. Now I'm using commerical grade glue. Which is like normal superglue.

After measuring the inside and getting a dimension of 2.2", I cut 5 pieces of 1/4" plywood to that measurement. Then glued them to the inside of the existing car side. This not only gets me the correct spacing, but it also helps support the side while it's glued into place.

The side is taller than what is needed so I ended up cutting about 3/16"-1/4" off of the top of the side. After looking at a bunch of photos, the door tops are a cats hair below the rivet line. So that is where I did the cutting. The bottom needs to be flush with the diaphram end piece.

All glued on to the donor body, wiped down with paint thinner and wiped clean.

This is a very time consuming process. It has taken me approximately 5 hours from start to finish. With all the cutting and fitting that's needed.

Here's the final product of side number 1. After looking at a lot of pictures on the internet, U.P. always runs this car with the head end of the car where the big slider door is to the front of the consist. The passenger door to the rear of the car. There are some small detail issues I need to fix, but all in all, this looks pretty good sitting on the chassis. I've already started to cut the other side free. More pictures coming in the next few days.

Until Next time...Stay frosty my friends.

This looks awesome - great job!

Nice work.  Can't wait to see the finished project.

Thanks guys, Appreciate the replies.

Chris

Small update, The second side is on. I now have to fill in the holes between the sides and the roof. I removed a section of the cat walk on the roof for the future hump. Then I sprayed Adhesion Promoter so the primer would stick and then the automotive primer to bring out the imperfections in one uniform color. Now its a matter of cleaning up those imperfections. Then the car will get lightly sanded again and then painted, when the hump is on and finished.

Until next time...

I have to say, this is an impressive undertaking.  This certainly qualifies as "real" modeling!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I have to say, this is an impressive undertaking.  This certainly qualifies as "real" modeling!

Why Thank you John! That's very much appreciated.

I spent part of the day building the second largest item that's on the UPP2066, it's fuel tank. Using pictures I had gotten online and the details in the sides of the car, I was able to determine the approximate size of the tank. The tank is made out of .030" styrene with a few pieces of .040" thrown in for stability. I have the tank high enough that it should clear any turnouts. I don't expect the tank to be hitting any structures going around a curve since it's sitting inside the body, only time will tell. I need to purchase the O scale fuel tank fittings now.

Finalized all the filling in of the body to roof seams, Re-glued the end pieces back onto the body, then sanded everything back down w/ 400 grit sandpaper. It's ready for paint! I didn't care for the primer I used so I'm not doing that again. It was way too soft of a primer.

Now that I have the body 85% complete, I'll see if I can try my hand at building an interior for the one end of the car. That should be fun!

Until next time...

I have started to assemble the interior of the car. Starting on the far left is the generator room, next to the right is the Control Room, then it's the Bunk Room for the generator car crewman, and lastly is a Commissary Stores room. There will be a walk in fridge and freezer, and multiple shelving units for the dry sundries. All the walls are .030 Styrene. I cut in doors which I felt would be easier to see from the outside. Rather than just an open hole like Lionel does on their interiors. I still have to put in a monitoring window in the wall between the Control Room and the Gen Room. I know, I should have done that before I glued the wall in. I cut the floor in half so I can remove the right section, so at least it will be easier than having to do it with everything in place.
I originally had the crewman bunk room opposite of what it is now. When I put the body on, the walls came to fall in the middle of the windows. So I flipped them, and now they fall where they should.
I'll have to touch up the floor with a little stain. Or, maybe I'll just paint the floor, Undecided at this point.

Does anyone know what color the Union Pacific's utility cars interior color is? An inquiring mind would like to know.

Until next time...

This is fantastic work so far! I've been trying to figure out how to make a model of this car for my consist as well. I likely won't have the time to make as excellent of a model as you, but would like to at least put Alan's rooftop addition on an existing car.

Nice project!....Excellent work

@Will Ebbert posted:

This is fantastic work so far! I've been trying to figure out how to make a model of this car for my consist as well. I likely won't have the time to make as excellent of a model as you, but would like to at least put Alan's rooftop addition on an existing car.

Thank you. I appreciate the kind comments.

@NYC 428 posted:

Nice project!....Excellent work

Thank you so much.

Weekend update...I have all but completed the interior of the car. The walk-in freezer and cooler are scratch built. I got a 1:48 scale desk and man w/ chair off ebay and they look way too big for my application. Any suggestions on a size? The wall color is a light tan as per Hot Water's retired UP friend. I just wagged at the couch and still have to paint the floor in the restroom. I was able to cut in a observation window between the control room and the generator room. For this, I used one of the small windows from the coach car sides.
Sadly, once the body is on, you won't see any of this.

Until next time...

Good Morning Fellow "O" Gaugers, While I'm waiting on my hump, I figured I'd modify my LED lighting strip. In my other post asking about the UP's interior colors, A retired friend of Hot Water's from the UP stated that the windows on the generator cars were heavily blacked out so no one could see in. So I opted to cut power to the 3 LED's over the generator compartment (this can be reversed) and I also put in an internal block on top of the generator/Control Room wall to prevent any light from the rest of the car from bleeding through. I then proceeded to operationaly check my lights to ensure they worked and didn't bleed through anywhere. When I powered up the track the car was sitting on, the 2101 CSS Railsounds lite sound card turned on, sounding like an idling steam engine. What a pleasent suprise to me.
I also completed the fuel tank by adding the fueling fittings and painting the tank in UP's Harbor Mist Gray. It's now permanently attached to the chassis.

With the interior lights bleeding through the sides, The sides will get a coat of Scalecoat Black to hide the light.

Until next time...