Weaver #1204 N&W Lightweight Passenger 5-Car Set???

let's see here:
The Weaver model represents a Budd-built car. Wrong.
The Weaver car is slightly short.
The Arrow did not have a streamline baggage car: http://www.trainweb.org/fredatsf/powhat49.htm
Plans for the Arrow cars can be found if you search long enough; I believe Prototype Modeler published them, e.g. The original, 1950 Arrow had seven cars.
Here is a floor plan for one of the coaches: http://www.trainweb.org/fredatsf/powhat49.htm

Anyway, it's your hobby, so can do as you like.

Kinda mentioned that in my post Rex, but thanks for the links!  I'm just glad I didn't pay a lot of $$$ for them, the whole 5-car set was less than 1 GGD Silver Meteor car!!!

Now that you mention it, Mainline Modeler ran articles on the Powhatan Arrow, starting with the coach in the December 1984 issue.

If you're looking for scale fidelity, etc, to go with your "J", try these guys:
https://unionstationproducts.com/norfolk-amp-western

American Lightweight (from years ago) made an Arrow set of kits, which I have. To go with my "J". They are scarce as hen's teeth, however.

The Weaver N&W cars represent a car that has two diaphragms. One, at full width of the body. The second is the rubber, normal looking one. 

Rex

  Any pics of the Union Station products?  

VistaDomeScott posted:

Rex

  Any pics of the Union Station products?  

Not really, you have to click on one of the diagrams/photos and it'll enlarge but that's it.

I did make a car using USP sides and core kit, but I was disappointed.  What I did do was get another "wrapper" and glue it to a OK Engines smooth-sided aluminum shell that I had windows/doors cut to match a Seaboard Pullman 10-6 sleeper.  I'm not sure if they sell the "wrapper" (sides AND roof as a single piece) or not.

Here's some photos I took of the USP kit in progress:

The USP kit by itself was extremely light and flimsy, but it did look nice.  Gluing the wrapper to the OK Engines smooth-sided aluminum shell worked, but I had to cut the roof from the sides.  O scale models this large are hard to handle when trying to glue a large 1-piece sheet of styrene in place.  It was easier with the 2 sides and roof separate:

If I could get another wrapper I'd give this another try, but it was difficult gluing the roof on, getting air pockets out, and keeping it lined up while doing so so it mated up to the sides.

I would love to see OK Engines and USP combine efforts and offer us the aluminum shell with windows cut to order to match the wrapper, and the wrapper applied.  While they're at it, they could team up with Delta Models and offer interiors separately!!!  This Pullman 10-6 Sleeper PORTSMOUTH has interior by Delta, makes for one HEAVY car.

Bob,

 Thanks for the info and pics.  At least for the car sides I want they only have a very basic drawing.  I assume that ordering 1 you are buying 1 car and 2 sides.  Their website isnt very good at promoting their products.  I need the Budd PRR 21roomette slabsides for my CVSR (Cuyahoga Valley Scenic RR) "metro coaches" which are these former Pennsy "Inn" series roomette cars.  

 Your info helps give me an idea what I'm in for.  No idea where I will get the rest of the cars from.  I have 2 unmade Kasiner kits but one is a dome and I hate to cannibalize those kits.  Yes, Union Station should get into a joint deal with someone offering the rest of the cars.  

 I looked at their site before and wasnt convinced based on their descriptive only website, no photos.  I hoped GGD might make these 21 roomette Pennsy cars as they have many lives from tuscan red, to metal sides PRR, Penn Central, MARC Rail, Semta, and now the mainstay 80 seat coaches for CVSR.

But having the rest of a CVSR consist completed thanks to Christine's painting, the exx Pennsy cars are sorely missing from my consist.  Im taking a chance and ordered what I think are 2 cars worth of car sides.

 Could these be applied to an existing car with just the window areas cut out? 

Scott

Mac Shops offered a kit for the Budd 21 - roomette car. I do not know if Mac is still in business.

OK will cut windows to your specification, at the last time I looked.

rex desilets posted:

Mac Shops offered a kit for the Budd 21 - roomette car. I do not know if Mac is still in business.

OK will cut windows to your specification, at the last time I looked.

Rex, doing some quick searches it seems Mac shops were finished  more than 15 years ago.  No idea about OK.  Seems many of these products were under the radar, a real shame.  My Father had a small O scale product line and advertising in OGR was a necessary expense.  Pre internet businesses had it tougher.

I only recently heard of MAC, Kasiner, OK.

I ordered the sides and the core kit, the sides came with the roofing as a one-piece "wrapper":

I got a smooth aluminum body from OK Engines, and emailed them a drawing I made of where I wanted the cuts made:

As they say, measure twice!  I had to Dremel the truck cutouts a bit for additional clearance and enlarge the door window cutout in the right of the top drawing.  My measurements were just a tad off and some aluminum material would be seen thru the window opening.

If I did it again I would see if OK has a shell that is smooth on the sides and ribs on the roof, the wrapper didn't have any extra material and just met the bottom edges when applied.  Might not be a bad idea to have OK trim 1/16" off both side edges to make sure the wrapper covers completely (hope that makes sense!).

When I attached the wrapper I found the center of it and the centerline of the roof, so the wrapper would hang evenly down both sides, while making sure the windows all lined up.

Here's what the USP kit looked like while building:

But after a few days I ended up with a load of lumps and bumps:

I couldn't determine what adhesive to use and with the wrapper as large as it is, it made it difficult to apply to the clear core body.  That's when I bought another wrapper and went to OK Engines.

I think USPs concept is great for HO and smaller, but for our larger O scale cars it may take 2 people to keep things aligned and smooth, or a slightly different design (USP team with OKE).  I tired a number of different gluing methods with the core kit and sides and nothing seemed to work.  With the aluminum shell, I basically coated it with super glue and hoped for the best.

Thinking back, when I ordered the core kit and sides, the sides came as a wrapper including the roof.  But when I reordered the sides, I only got the sides, no roof.  I contacted them and, after what seemed like a lot of heated mis-communication, got another complete wrapper.  I would contact them and find out if the sides include the roof as a single "wrapper", or if you have to buy the core kit, or if you can buy separate roofing material.

The core kit includes the ends also, which are very nice.  I made my own floor for the aluminum shell.

As always, the main issue with building one of these to represent a car you want is finding decals, good luck!

Bob

Excellent info!!! Seems the easiest part for me may be my custom painter though!  OK Engines hopefully will be my body source.  I agree that the USP should be coordinated with these other manufacturers as it will only help them sell more.  

These products seem elusive and info sketchy.   Thanks for sharing your experiences with these.  

Scott

No problem Scott.  I was hoping I could talk GGD into making the Pullman 10-6 PORTSMOUTH when they did the Silver Meteor, but it would have required a different roof or fluting than that on the Budd cars.  Here's the real PORTSMOUTH:

GGD could make a fortune by offering a different style car every month or so, starting with the Pullman 10-6 of course

I don't know how many RRs bought this particular car or if there was slight variations of the basic plan.  Make a bunch of each Pullman, Budd, ACF type and offer them painted with decals or undecorated, maybe basic aluminum.  Of course UPS and OKE could do the same thing in kit form.  I think I used Lionel trucks under this car.

Is PSC still in business?  They made some nice plastic passenger car seats, but I can't locate any now.  Scale City Designs needs to do some photos so we can see what things look like, don't wanna buy the wrong thing.

Even though the N&W cars are wrong, I still want to put some seating in them, they're nekkid as it stands now.

I'm in the process of building a couple of C&O Pullman Standard passenger cars using the USP car sides. When I bought the sides I looked at what USP's core kit and thought it would be way too flimsy to build a car around. Also, when I got the car sides I didn't like the clear plastic that is supposed to reinforce the sides. Having built several American Lightweight Car Co. kits I tried using the ALW kit and just substituted the USP sides for the ALW sides.

This is a C&O 5 bedroom, lounge, blunt end observation on K-Line trucks.

This has been pretty successful. I like the USP sides as they come with skirts and the vestibule doors in one piece instead of separate pieces in the ALW kit.

I recently bought a couple of old ICC passenger kits to use as cores for the USP sides. I really like these as the assembly is simpler and results in a fairly strong car. The sides are built up using ALW's technique and glued to the ICC ends, vestibule, and floor. This is a C&O 11 double bedroom car riding on Atlas trucks. I haven't figured out how to secure the roof to the car yet.

Budd cars should be doable with the ICC kit. You would have to cut the roof from the USP sides and glue it to the smooth ICC roof, but it should work.

Ken

Looks great Ken!!!  What kits/parts did you by from USP?  The rounded roof ends look cool.

When I put the USP roof on the OKE shell, I ran a couple of lines of super glue the length of the car, lined up the 2 parts, and started putting it in place.  I squeegeed it with a roller, put more glue lines down, and repeated the process.  Make sure the parts are lined up at the beginning.  Wish I could think of something else besides super glue.  We're talking of a piece of thin styrene almost 6" wide and 20"+ long, not easy keeping things square.

Bob,

The only thing I bought from USP are the car sides. The rounded roof end is just thick pieces of Evergreen styrene glued to the roof end, sawed and sanded to shape.

I wouldn't be sure what kind of glue to use to attach long pieces of styrene to aluminum. On the first ALW kits I built, I just used regular old Testors liquid cement. Unfortunately after a few years the sides start to bow inward. No doubt a long term affect of the glue. That's what happened to my first attempt at the blunt end observation. I put it together and then put it aside for several years and the sides bowed inward so bad that the roof wouldn't fit. However, other cars have worked out pretty good. Once fully assembled some bowing appears but its really not visible unless you take the roof off.

These latest cars have the the inside car side reinforcement styrene glued on with CA. Everything else including the fluting is glued with Testors styrene cement.

Ken

Ken, I haven't tried this but it sez it'll bond plastic to metal:

http://www.loctiteproducts.com...y-Plastic-Bonder.htm

The last kits I received from Haynes MacDaniel (Mac Shops) was just a few years ago. He did the Budd PRR 21 roomette Inn series car and the C&O / B&O observation Wawasee, Dana, etc as Ken has pictured above. Plus he did a LOT of other kits. Haynes was a pharmacist who did passenger car kits as an aside. Not sure of his current status. Last I conversed with him he lived in Florida.

His kits were one piece aluminum bodies plus the end castings and underbody.

rheil posted:

The last kits I received from Haynes MacDaniel (Mac Shops) was just a few years ago. He did the Budd PRR 21 roomette Inn series car and the C&O / B&O observation Wawasee, Dana, etc as Ken has pictured above. Plus he did a LOT of other kits. Haynes was a pharmacist who did passenger car kits as an aside. Not sure of his current status. Last I conversed with him he lived in Florida.

His kits were one piece aluminum bodies plus the end castings and underbody.

I sure would like to get a hold of a few of those PRR 21 roomette cars.  I need skirts removed though.  The Union Station sides allow for skirt removal. 

Never heard of these products before recent weeks.