UPDATED 9.15.22 - Taking apart the GGD 3/4 length dome cars (and detailing the interior)

@TedW posted:

@Hancock52, only one of your photos is viewable.  The rest say image not found.

Uh, don't understand that - I will try again!

OK. I have attached them all again. Undoubtedly my fault if it doesn't work; let me know if they are visible now.

Got 'em now 👍

OK, and FWIW, having taken apart this car here's where this project has got to. It's near complete, but I have to re-assemble the car, which for me is always the most nerve-racking stage of any project.

My intention was to produce as near as possible a prototypical SP dome car interior, to go with Scott Mann's beautiful GGD car. Bear in mind that I am really a trespasser on this 3rail SCALE forum as I am a dedicated traditional O gauge modeller. Maybe unfortunately, that governed how the project progressed.

I posted above what the stock interior looked like when I extracted it from the body shell. Using some historical SP concept drawings and the few color photos of these cars that exist, I decided on a color scheme - even including a "carpet" (which is inkjet printed fabric). This is how the dome seating area assembly turned out after laboriously removing and re-installing all of the separately applied details, including the fine 3D printed "Smokadors" that came stock, which I "chromed" using a special ink product. The curved seating areas in both parts of the car also have an imitation fabric covering:

I did this notwithstanding that a fellow who actually owned the first car in this series, SP #3600, told me that the decor was really fairly plain and was assembled out of very conventional building products of the time. Anyway, the signature features of this series of cars, at least based on my research, are the cathedral ceiling lounge area and the native northwest leaf screen that separated it from the dome seating. Again, I wanted a prototypical model of this area in particular but the small scale and my available material that I can actually work with (mainly plastic - I have no metalworking or 3D printing skills) limited what I could do. So, like most O scale passenger cars, this is really only a representation of the real thing:

I like eye candy in terms of small details, and basically what you can get any more in terms of proportionate O scale figures is limited, so the lounge seating area has come out slightly whimsical, using two scales of figurines and some that are, uh, unorthodox. I mean in particular the contemporary Chinese girl taking a selfie and the conductor, whose gold watch that I fabricated from plastic tubing and a pinhead actually looks as big as a ship's compass (which might conceivably have been useful back in the day when these cars ran):

This is not quite finished as I have some other things to glue in place, and then some effort to get it all re-attached to the body shell. There is also a separate lighting circuit (for some Pullman table lamps just visible in one photo) to accommodate. But at the risk of offending purists, here it is.

@Hancock52, brilliant!

Wonderful Please reveal the source of the conductor figure Thanks

@FJI posted:

Wonderful Please reveal the source of the conductor figure Thanks

That's an Arttista (made in the USA) pewter figure, SKU #1111, in O scale, and I think that they also do it in S scale, which is better for most passenger car interiors. K-Line made a very similar figure in plastic but it is smaller and less well painted.

Anyone know where I can get pics of the Amtrak interior of these cars?

@prrhorseshoecurve posted:

Anyone know where I can get pics of the Amtrak interior of these cars?

I remember seeing some interior photos (which I saved but cannot now find) of a very late Amtrak interior furnishing of one of these cars, which was (a) mainly orange and (b) included padding over the top panes of all of the dome windows.  You would not want to duplicate this.

However, these and the other photos I have seen show that the basic fixed furniture scheme replicated in the GGD cars did not change and the soft stuff like carpets went from green to blue to coral.  I also remember seeing an Amtrak interior area on the Trainweb.org site e.g. http://www.trainweb.org/web_lurker/SP3603/. This site has several pages devoted to the history of the SP domes and into whose ownership they eventually came.

There are others but you really have to hunt around for decent images showing any part of these cars’ interiors. Not many of the ones I found are in color.

@prrhorseshoecurve posted:

Anyone know where I can get pics of the Amtrak interior of these cars?

I too am interested in this. 

@VistaDomeScott posted:

I too am interested in this.

@prrhorseshoecurve posted:

Anyone know where I can get pics of the Amtrak interior of these cars?

The late 1970s Amtrak orange scheme is described and shown in photos here: https://www.trainorders.com/di.../read.php?11,2041769. I think that you may need a membership to view them; I had to log in to do so. If the link doesn't lead you to it, the discussion is called "Nostalgia & History > Past & Past-er? Dome-volution?" dated 10/22/2009.

I'm rounding off this thread with a few images of the car as actually recently completed. Given that the dome lounge area is completely visible from the top and sides, I went overboard on the figures and their bar treats. My apologies, again, to purists, but I like a passenger car that glows like a Christmas Tree.

I was lucky to ride this car on the Coast Starlight back in the 1970s.

@harley rider posted:

I was lucky to ride this car on the Coast Starlight back in the 1970s.

Then you can tell me whether my attempted representation of it is accurate - I fear it isn't - but in any case I envy your experience. It's a shame that so few in service photos of the original #3600 10 window dome survive, and not many more do of the later 12 window dome versions. I'm still grateful to Scott Mann for making any of them.

Hancock

When all is said and done, you did  a very nice job on these!

I agree! You did a great job. And I'm glad I ponied up to this unique car!

I love it! Wonderful job, and I'm inspired to open up a few of my passenger cars and investigate! Thanks for sharing

@Hancock52 posted:

My apologies, again, to purists, but I like a passenger car that glows like a Christmas Tree.

While I don't like super bright lights in my passenger cars, if I had put all that work into it, I would want to light it up to display it!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

While I don't like super bright lights in my passenger cars, if I had put all that work into it, I would want to light it up to display it!

I see your point about super bright lighting and although my photos don’t quite capture this, neither the stock overhead LED lighting nor the two LED Pullman table lamps I added are hugely bright. They do however show a considerable addition of colors/color variety to the interior, compared with the plain/not completely prototypical stock parts, which is what I meant by the Christmas Tree effect.

P.S. GRJ it’s one of your passenger car lighting modules powering the additional lighting and actually I did not need to dial down the brightness from the default setting.

I don't know about in person, but I love what you did to it in pictures.