Things are slowing down a little in the 3d design area, so I'm going to add this project to the pile: A Rio Grande Royal Gorge dome coach. I don't think I've seen one of these exactly as specified. Some vendors have come close. Correct me if I'm wrong. For those that are familiar with this road and/or car type, can you direct me to the appropriate truck to use? Also, this project won't really get started for a month or two since I still have superdomes to start, and a MILW boxcab that is offering its own challenges.
Built by Budd for the Chesapeake & Ohio's The Chessie train but never ran. Sold to the Rio Grande, who altered the observation end to provide for the addition of a diaphragm. These were dome - coach - observation lounge cars with the Budd low-profile dome which was 23.5" high above the roofline compared to 28" on other Budd dome cars (except for the B&O dome - sleepers, which also had the low pro dome and were also built for use on The Chessie). One saw use on the Rock Island trains in the early-70s (owned by Butterworth Tours and leased to RI) while another saw use on Amtrak (leased from Autoliner). All three exist still today but not in the best of shape... the link below takes you to the DOME.main webpage for these cars... http://www.trainweb.org/web_lurker/CO/
I would be extremely interested in this car so I could add it to my Quad Cities Rocket consist where it ran backwards half the time because the consist was never turned. One thing that's really special about this car is actually the shape of the low profile dome itself, as the edge windows are both slanted forward and curved while the middle three rows are all just flat glass. Its easy to see this effect in this picture from Jerry's site:
Get this detail right and then the dome - sleeper car can be done as well. But lets not stop there... the observation car could also be done with the end as it was built... there are a few shots of one of the cars that had the end removed with an eye towards returning the car to its original appearance around.
Doing the glass is unfortunately going to be in you all's hands, since printing the glass would just come out foggy and unusable. There are other companies that can print in "water clear" materials, but paying $30 for glass inserts is probably a bit cost prohibitive.
I've always been of two minds about the Grande's modified dome-observations.... to be prototypical, you want the road's modifications, of course, but honestly, they're so unattractive that I'd hesitate to run them.
