Someone shared this photo with me, and I am certainly hoping the product gets released. This is exactly what I was looking for. I am also in search of anyone who has an exploded diagram or has disassembled the rear lighting board for the observation car so I can isolate the upper Red LED to be able to make it automars with an fl4. I can’t figure out how to release the black housing that surrounds the contacts so I can get to the light board itself. My Google fu isn’t up to the job it appears. All I have been able to find is this look at the lightboard itself. Looks like it might be a bicolor smd?
Well my eyes decieved me, I thought I was seeing the edge of the led board up in the shell... it’s in the floor, and is a single white smd LED aimed back at the neon drumhead. What is coming down from the roof is a red plastic light pipe with a black housing. So maybe I should do a 603 aiming up controlled by the fl4 so I don’t get an automars drumhead, or the reverse, put in a light block and run a different 603 farther back for the drumhead, and take control of the one on the lightboard with the fl4? I can put a lamp on the “table” with its clear base sticking down into the empty channel to better illuminate those last 3 chairs per side that get no light from overhead? I’m really enjoying puzzling this out. If you can’t tell, I really like taking something and improving on it in ways the bean counters rightly wouldn’t allow a manufacturer to.
I got this today... Nice metal sign! And I ordered a small Overpriced piece of 4449’s sideskirt in Daylight Orange because... why not. It’s for a good cause.
I have begun the conversion on one of my MicroTrains cabooses... And the kato caboose trucks are a perfect fit! They even reuse the stock MT bolster pins! Not only that, but there is a perfect reference point already cast into the metal frame, so this is easily reproduceable. You’ll need a MicroTrains caboose, a pair of kato caboose trucks, a dremel and small cutoff wheel, and your wife’s black nail polish (with her permission) or some black enamel paint to touch up the cut out openings. I’m still in the middle of the process, but here is a preview pic. I am indicating the cast detail that fits just inside the power tab on the kato trucks. You’d cut thru next to this detail and then open up the gap to leave plenty of margin, as the floor/base is cast metal and you don’t want a short! You can see that I started to do the other side, then stopped to take a pic before I obliviated the detail as I wanted to show it to y’all. These cuts were wide enough for a test fitment, but not enough for use. I have opened it up a lot more since.
Well, if you don’t have the MicroTrains window inserts, the NCE light-it is a perfect fit... with them there isn’t enough space because the inserts make the walls thicker. But I have an idea I will play with tomorrow, of grinding back the edge of the window inserts a mm or two to give room for the light it to sit flush on the floor, between the windows that are spaced further apart. I also stuck a piece of the kato diffuser atop the built in light, but it still needs to be turned down a bit and possibly warmed up in tone a bit too. Overall it does seem like this is going to work out pretty ok, to me anyway. In any case, this is where we are leaving off for the night. Without the shell on... With the shell set in place but not fully on... notice the little flat areas on the back edge of the shell? That’s where the marker lamps should go!
Pleased, the light it’s have 3 function outputs for 3 LEDs, and about 10 functions to choose from and they are dimmable in DCC. I turned the onboard down from 255 to 60. I haven’t decided if I want to set the light to random on/off yet, I will if I ever get lanterns on it. And I still need to address it to 614 in JMRI. Just need someone in the caboose, and the lanterns now. Next time I take it apart I’ll paint the interior light green.
Fortuitous accident: part 1&2. Part 1: My daughter ordered this on eBay when I left my iPad unattended and unlocked. Decided to rip the MTL trucks off the model power Overnight box car and use them here instead. Part 2: I shot the matte clear before the panel line accent was totally dry, so it crazed and turned whitish. Instead of freaking, I let it dry and buffed it. Gives it a weathered and sun faded look IMO.
We aren’t done with cabooses it seems, I just read an article in N-Scale Magazine, aug 2009 about building a proper c-30-4 out of a concor body and centerframe, with atlas/Rivarossi (modelpower too) underframe ends, and gold medal roofwalks and end pieces. Dunno, seems like a cool project... Paging Carl Sowell, king of N scale painting, what say you?
For a little inspiration, here is one I did many years ago: ConCor car with GMM details (I may revisit this - do a little updating) Wolf
Wolf: So VERY sorry to tell you this. The large gothic 'billboard' lettering started in 1955...at the same time SP was painting the entire bay window and ends of the caboose Daylight Orange. Prior to that bay window cabooses were entirely 'mineral red' (like your caboose) with a selection of different color ends but it would have had SOUTHERN PACIFIC in 9" lettering and 7" numbers in SP's variation of railroad roman lettering (no lines above the lettering or below the number). 1946: Cabooses were painted 'mineral red'. Some cabooses had a black roof but this was due to tar or 'roof sealer' being mopped on to waterproof the roofs. SOUTHERN PACIFIC in 9" letters and 7" numbers in SP's version of railroad roman lettering with 1" strips above the name and below the number 1947 and 1949 (new cabooses only: C-30-4/5/6): New cabooses had red (vermilion was the official color name and was approximately Daylight Red or SP Scarlet) ends with the remainder including the bay window painted 'mineral red'. No old cabooses were painted this way 1948: Lines were dropped from above the name and below the number. Handrails were painted white 1954 (March): Two cabooses in each division were painted with silver ends to test visibility compared to the newer cabooses with red ends. 'Watch Your Step' was added to the caboose steps 1954: 'Radio Equipped' stencil began but was only painted on the rare caboose that had a radio installed (the antenna is the round disk mounted on the roof). Radios were still very rare in the cabooses before 1956 because they required a power source (a generator driven off or one of the wheels). Most cabooses had radios by 1958. The cabooses used a heavy duty coaxial style antenna extending slightly above the freight car roofs. The 'pizza pan' antenna wasn't used until 1960 1955 (October): Daylight Orange was made standard on cabooses system-wide and began to receive that new end and entire bay window color. The 'billboard' lettering was also adopted at this time 1958: Cabooses began sporting the larger Gothic style SP lettering 1961: Daylight Orange paint was only applied to the sides of the bay window At some point I had way too much time on my hands when I was building cabooses...I LOVE your work Wolf but in this case I am, once again, sorry
Hey Jeff, Great write up!! Since this is a straight on shot, it is hard to see -- but, the bay ends and ends of this caboose are indeed daylight orange. If you look real close -- you can see the orange. I'll take some angled shots for better clarity. (I have to find her first) If I remember correctly -- which is doubtful -- I built and painted this caboose from a photo. Thanks again!! Wolf
Rman, By no means am I a paint wizard, I just get lucky once in a while. As far as the caboose goes, you have the talent and the ability to do it. So, as Nike says "Just Do It". BTW, you are getting advise and comments from Jeff, Wolf, and Mike who just happen to be 3 of the best SP modelers on the internet, bar none. Whatever you do, have fun, Carl
Thanks Carl, Mike, Wolf, and Jeff. I’m a total noob, so all the ideas and advice are always appreciated. Many new skills to master, including identifying what I am looking at! I decided to revisit my observation car tonight. I was not at all happy with the lack of illumination in the last few seats of the obs, the big mount for the light guide for the rear marker lamp is there, so no diffuser lighting reaches it. I took a piece of clear sprue from something, grabbed my mini files, chucked it on the drill, and made a lamp. It is a little over scale (hopefully not super noticeably so) but I felt I needed the size to ensure enough light. It has a dedicated 402 led on it. I’m bending the rules a bit, as the obs actually had two lamps, one per side... but Kato did also when they put the huge hump (conversation table?) in the floor to light the drumhead from the same led that lights the roof markers. It made sense to me and looked “right” in my mind’s eye. And now hopefully you can see my little family enjoying the sights. I’m also installing a dedicated 1206 LED for the Drumhead neon as I was not happy with the dim lighting for it either, nor the whitish light bleed. I did some canopy glue over the LED itself to diffuse it a bit, but if I am still unhappy, I have the translucent red tamiya lens paint to tint the LED. My grandpa owned a sign shop, and I blew my first neon sign in 1982, age seven, for a science fair... so I’m a little picky about neon looking right! I did install light blocks made from a piece of cardstock packaging to separate the U channel into drumhead section, lamp section, and marker light section to prevent light bleed between sources. Will post additional pics as soon as I am finished with this part of it... Doing both of these with dedicated LEDs, then frees up the factory led to be dedicated to rear marker duty... which makes using an fl4 to do auto-mars on the red rear marker possible! It would SEEM to be a perfect fit in the area just forward of the light board itself... I tested the original board for polarity so I can correctly isolate it from the contact strips, and run it off the fl4 with no resistor. It must have a bridge rectifier on it somewhere as it is polarity insensitive! This should work nicely to make it controllable and also simple to wire.
Test fit FL4... looks like it fits to me! I’m knocking off for the evening, but here is how we wound up, I have the two LEDs that will need resistors coming thru one hole, and the one that doesn’t thru the other. I needed two holes to keep the wiring out of the way of the kinetic coupler. I did put some kapton tape to hold the wiring in place, and a dab of canopy glue in one area also. That far sharp corner I had to use CA since it was such a tight corner but I needed to keep the wiring organized and out of the way of the light guide for the upper light. I also put a strip of kapton on the edge of the weight since it has a rough edge, before reinserting it after this picture was taken. It sits atop the wiring on the lower section and keeps it snugly in place. This is also a good view of how I used light blocks to divide up the tunnel. To finish, I used a thin coat of canopy glue to make a diffuser for the neon drumhead, the 1206 led sits just a few mm back from the opening, and is already almost the size of the Tunnel, which makes this effective. Of course, Because I was filming, I could NOT seem to get it to stay on solidly, but you get the idea. The diffuser works, and the lamp doesn’t get any lightbleed from it either. Thanks for following along!
Richard, Model Train Technology has released LED light boards that work with the Kato Passenger cars as well as several others. It has the DCC decoder built in and also comes with red LED's for rear marker lights. They give the cars equally balanced lighting and even the ability to modify the light in several ways. It drops into the cars quick and easy!
If it's from a photo, it must be correct then. -- I hope so. But, I've been known to misinterpret what I see. Black and white photos can fool you. Wolf
