How about a moment for those of us that model the US Transportation parah?? A couple of models for your consideration.. Amtrak 1137 is a Kato smoothside baggage car. Stripped and repainted, it sports new diaphrams and marker lights. It's pretty much ready to go. Amtrak 44204 is a repainted Bachmann Amfleet I that rolls!! I have three of them that work, so it's time to make that ugly paint go bye-bye! The baggage car was painted with PollyScale Flat Alunminium, the Coach with PS Stainless Steel. Microscale decals all around. After the three coaches, it's on to Diner 8501, then some Pacific series sleepers from Con-Cor models. Art
nice work there! i could never have repainted stripes on as well as you did. bad news is, this brings back memorys of a con-cor 8 car passenger set i won at a show once, i think i still have all the pieces.
Well, MicroScale painted those stripes. I just put them on. They do a better job than me at masking! Art
Well, I've been buying them for awhile on the big auction site and discovered when I was working on them that the trucks with black axles roll better. The ones with white "bearings" are the worse. The new cars roll well, but I can't get anyone at Bachmann to call me back about buying spare trucks. After removing the electrical contacts, the cars move well. I was able to test run a low level train awhile back with a Bachmann HHP-8, baggage, 2 sleepers, diner, 3 Amfleets and a business car. Since I did a repaint on these, I've removed the light package from the cars. I also built ends for body mounting couplers that look like something matching the cars. I'm going to add clear stryene for windows, then backfill with MicroScale Krystal Clear to bring them flush. One down, 2 to go... :tb-tongue: Art
Keep an eye out...my sources tell me that Amtrak Kalifornia had bought a couple of sets of Amfleets with two F40's each to run on the San Jauquins to Bakerfield and back....should be out there pretty soon....
Really? Well, looks like I'll have something to look forward to besides the usual Calif Cars I see all the time... Art
Nice work on the baggage car. I'd love to see some close ups on the diaphrams. I'm in the midst of putting grabs on my set of Amtrak baggages.
As far as I know, that's not true. There are some Amfleet cars on the Pacific Surfliner. There are a couple sets of those and they do have locomotives on each end.
I'm going to add steps, but I'll live without the grabs. :tb-biggrin: Besides, it'll be fun just keeping the steps on! Art
Art, Nice work! I just finished an ex-CZ baggage tonight. I kitbashed it from a Kato by removing the skirting then painting and decaling. I'll try to post some pictures a little later. We should have more Amtrak moments LOL! Chris
Here's an old video when I was just starting my layout of my Amtrak train. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3S-QI-66i4&NR=1"]YouTube - N Scale Pinole[/ame]
Those are both PFM Brass models. They are probably the best running brass engines I have. Very smooth.
Here is the baggage car I finished tonight. Sorry for the low picture quality. I took this with my BlackBerry: Here is a Superliner II Transition Sleeper I kitbashed: Here are a couple of SDP40s I kitbashed: And finally, here are some JnJ El Capitan cars:
Art,I'm doing the same thing on a bunch of the old ones with Krystal Clear.I have two bottles of Krystal Clear I use just for filling in number boards.I found that if you mix in a few drops of white/black paint,when it dries,you end up with seethrough black/white boards,so I'm using the black on the windows.I have the old cars,that sit ten feet off the tracks.I actually made a custom bolster that drops them right down on the deck,made a mold of it,and cast a bunch.You cut off the entire stock bolster,and replace it with the new cast ones..I tossed the lighting,too..
It's true. Got it from an Amtrak RFE after he got back from Wilmington. They have been in the works for a while now...