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VIA Rail Canada's fleet of ex CN smoothside passenger cars painted blue, yellow, and black, is another O Scale product missing from the catalogs of any manufacturer. 

  Having waited too long for these to be made , I have started a series of custom painted "blue fleet" cars by custom painter Christine Braden.  Hoping to eventually have the two E-8 locomotives VIA owned painted up by Christine.  Here are a few of the 9 cars painted up so far. Any other VIA Rail fans who have painted up their own blue cars?20190808_022812

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Last edited by VistaDomeScott
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Wow those cars look great. Like the silver window trim very well done, great painter. Look forward to seeing your whole fleet. Nice smooth finish. Are the yellow stripes VIA water slide decals or painted? Are those MTH coaches? And who did the body of the rear Theater seating car? or is it custom made?

After waiting many years for some VIA blue cars I also painted up a fleet several years back. For reference I was able to get many photos of the blue cars at the VIA station many years ago, the local CN yards and a couple of the older coaches were on BC Rail many years back before being repainted and a F9 was donated to our railway museum in the original blue VIA paint scheme for a bit of time before it was repainted so I was able to get many good photos of the blue cars and engine many years back. 

Many many years back I picked up several ICC scale length passenger car kits intending to paint them VIA blue but never got to it, hard to mask and paint those kits, still sitting in the boxes.

I had a project where I made a bunch of Rocky Mountaineer Dome cars many years back and used the seats and bottom ends, under body details bottoms and trucks off of several clearance sale MTH passenger cars to build the Rocky Mountaineer fleet. I was left with 8 MTH passenger bodies only. I ordered some MTH passenger trucks; screwed these on to wood bottoms with N scale containers for under body detail, I cut plastic right angle strips to make seats and double sided taped these to the floors, glued on some passenger's added LED light strips for the lighting. I painted the bodies with Testors spray cans blue, yellow and black colors. I had checked with paint chips from un-faded hidden corners of the actual VIA F unit at our railway museum for reference. The testors paint colors were pretty close and what I had available when I painted these. Today there are some nice Rapido paints in VIA colors on the market.

I used the same 3M yellow vinyl material peel and stick ? I think as I recall it was called sunflower yellow? that VIA uses for its real passenger fleet. I had a vinyl cutter shop cut the correct width of the stripes and VIA symbols and stuck these on the painted bodies. So they do not conform as well over the body detail as would water slide decals. The rear VIA logo is a Tomar lighted drumhead kit. The white car names were from an old Microscale decal sheet. If you are looking for current VIA decals in O scale Ozark has the old CDS decals and if out of the dry transfer is now printing them on waterslide decal sheets, contact them for details. Here is a link http://www.ozarkminiatures.com....asp?idCategory=1753

For the engine I used an old 1970's Atlas F9 and removed the motors added a bright LED headlight it has the original 2 rail wheels. For the B unit I used a Williams dummy F unit and swapped in 2 Williams motors, with reverse unit, bell and horn.  Some day I was hoping to paint up a set off Weaver 2 rail FA set ABB engines I have. I also have a 10 car VIA rail set of Silver Budd cars that were custom extruded aluminum in the 1960's with 2 rail trucks to run with the FA set when I get it done. 

Would be interested if MTH ever made a nice set of detailed Premier  F7/9 engines in VIA blue. Might get to those ICC passenger cars kits if I had some great engines. 

Here are photos of my set on the shelf.  Hoping to get my VIA set out to run on the club garden railway soon will post some photos of the whole train in action.  Click on photo for a larger view. 

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Last edited by kj356

I have one of the 12 or so VIA Canadian Sets done by Golden Gate Depot.  Took me forever to find power to pull the sets.  No blue cars though.  Would be nice to see those as well available in O. 

Can't find the videos with the MTH F40PH VIA units pulling so this leased foreign power is standing in. 

 

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Last edited by GG1 4877

Kj356, your train looks great. Love those locomotives! Nice job! I painted some Williams F3s years ago with the Microscale decals but my results were marginal.  Christine Braden does a fantastic paint job and I no longer attempt such paint jobs myself.  The yellow stripes and VIA logo are paint, not decals. The only decals are the white lettering.  The cars are a mix of Lionel, K-line, Weaver, and what I believe is an OK Engines shell on the 24 roomette sleeper which is painted but not completely assembled here yet, it was just a shell. I am using MTH head end cars and F40PH units until later when the train gets completed.

The CN Track inspection car is the Lionel camera car.  Most of these  cars used to be CSX from the Lionel business train. The paint match we used was Rapido Trains VIA blue and yellow.

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Last edited by VistaDomeScott

20190809_172001This car, still needing interior and windows, represents as closely as I could the ex CN 24 roomette sleepers. They had 3 axle trucks.  Mine incorrectly have friction bearing trucks but could not locate exact 3 axle trucks with roller bearings.  This car is VIA's "Invermay" sleeper.  My source book says that these served VIA as crew dorms in their last years.

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Last edited by VistaDomeScott

Cool, these cars look fantastic.  Glad to have found this thread and see the progress on your custom paint jobs Scott.  I've been looking for a set of passenger cars to paint.  You and I had talked a while back when you were starting on your project.  I did find some custom painted K-line FP-7 engines.  Here is a link to a video with them:  I noticed you ballasted your fast track.  Looks good.  What did you use for ballast?

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