Passenger locomotives

[doctorwayne]

Sorry, I should have chimed-in earlier. The baggage car with the arched doors is a former Athearn car - the ribs on the roof are the giveaway. It was likely a coach or Pullman. The second baggage car began life as a Rivarossi coach - the roof vent at the near end is the clue.

The Rivarossi coach is probably the best of the lot for converting to a wooden baggage/express car, although you could also make it into a wooden coach with a little more work. Mister Nutbar had lent me the book "Canadian National Railways Passenger Equipment" and I was quite taken by a photo therein of a horse express car. A quick check of the prototype's specs against a Rivarossi coach which I had on hand confirmed its suitablity, and it didn't take too long to create this:



Construction consists of removing the sides between the ends down to the floor, then removing any vestiges of the sides from the edges of the floor. Wherever there's to be a door, the vestige of the side is left in place and acts as the doorsill. I leave the car's original ends in place, as wooden cars often had their ends covered-over with sheet metal (and it also saves a lot of work making "wooden" ends ). New sides are built-up from Evergreen strips and sheet car siding, as are the doors. If the car is to be shortened, the cut in the floor is made at a point different from that in the roof/window casting, and with careful planning, the shortened car will snap together just like the original.

Once I had rebuilt enough Rivarossi Pullmans to complete a short passenger train, I decided any more that I could find would also become baggage cars, but at about that time, the flow of used (cheap) Rivarossi passenger cars dried up. I did stumble upon a number of Athearn heavyweights, in pretty rough shape, at a good price (three or four bucks each, I think) and decided to try converting them into baggage cars. Because the bodies are one piece, with a removeable floor, they're a little more work to convert (mostly the roof/side joint) but they also need new floors. Here's a couple that were built, like Ed's cars, to match prototype photos. (His got Rivarossi trucks with Kadee wheels, while most of mine have their original Athearn metal trucks and wheels - they roll like a brick. )

Here's an Athearn Pullman/coach converted to a CNR express car. The underbody detail is from MDC, PSC, and scratchbuilt:



...and another, shortened somewhat, and with Central Valley trucks:



Here are a few more Athearns:









This is a steel car made from two half baggage cars (the other halves became a wooden car with smaller doors than those on this car). I added windows, as was common in my modelling era, taken from some of the scrap sides removed from coaches.




And a couple of Rivarossi cars:



...this one's a Rivarossi coach, shortened somewhat, and left with the steel sides with most of the windows plated-over:



This steel combine, made from a shortened Rivarossi diner, was my very first conversion:



...and my doodlebug, "The Bee" was kitbashed from a Rivarossi combine, an Athearn F7, a Mashima can motor, and detail parts from just about everyone:



Wayne