An Eastern Car Works Passenger Car

[nkp_174]

Sitting in front of me is an ECW 4-4-2 Sleeper kit. Also sitting in front of me is pg 6 of The Official Pullman-Standard Library Vol 2 New York Central.

The 4 Bedroom 4 Compartment 2 Drawing Room cars were built by Pullman for the 20th Century & Broadway Limiteds of 1938. The Pennsy added a few more in 1939. The were the Imperial series cars (names such as Imperial Court and Imperial Palace). While the NYC started off with more 4-4-2s than any other sleepers, they never reordered any beyond the first 14 of 1938. The were Lot 6540 and plan 4069 (A & C were PRR, B was NYC).

I knew in advance that the trucks are wrong on these models (the 1938 cars were equipped with the extremely distinctive Triple Bolster trucks...subsequent cars were of designs which all looked distinctive). But, I was curious as to the quality of the rest of the car. I'll share photos soon, but I guess that I'll use the following rule: An AHM era Rivarossi 4-6-4 will be pulling her, so she doesn't need to either be as accurate or as detailed as my South Park cars. I'll probably give her a basic interior more for fun than for showing others...I'll probably replace the "glass" she came with...maybe light her...and possibly attempt to built some correct trucks from scratch. The correct trucks were on the pilot 4-4-2 for Walther's new train (but they have the wrong trucks on the 4-4-2 currently on their website).

I assembled one of trucks just for fun...it rails fairly well...and I was pleased that it actually has 36" wheels (Rivarossi's cars had freight car wheels). Champs makes the correct decals for the '38 Century and I have a set on order. I think I'll nab a few more of these kits for service behind my J-3a. When I get a nicer J-3a, I'll build my highly accurate cars.

It is worth noting, that ECW offers a coach kit...as if it were part of the Century (coaches were too low class for both the Century and the Broadway in their primes...Pullmans only). Oddly, it isn't close to either of the only pre-war lightweight coach designs which the Central obtained from Pullman. One design had stainless steel fluting over Cor-10 steel (a nasty, rust inducing mistake) and the only smoothside coaches were the 2600 series (growing up, my dad restored and sold the real 2600). Equally as puzzling is that ECW doesn't offer a Cascade...the extremely common 10-5 sleepers...I saw one today, there is a C&O Cascade in Latonia, KY...the owner is both a good guy and an O-scaler.

When I get around to building her (after my decals arrive and I buy the correct paints...and wrap up a couple other projects), I'll post some construction pics here.

Both the 4-4-2 and 6-6-4 are reasonable for premier trains on a few different railroads...but the other cars (coach aside) are specific to the Century. The kit looks like an easy built (10min worth of filing & assembly), and the procedure is definitely to paint (and possibly letter) before assembly. For those whom care about it, they are 100% made in the USA.

[nkp_174]

Ok,
Here are the pics...

First, the kit...

Don't let the injection process fool you, the castings are not distorted. They are flash free.


The model vs. the official Pullman drawing.


The sides are slightly too long (slightly) and lack the full width diaphragms (or any!).


The windows aren't right. Neither are the skirts...although the skirts might have been altered for negotiating model railroad curves and are acceptable to me.


The vestibules are close but no cigar...especially with respect to the doors.


The model trucks vs. the real thing. I knew before I ordered that this detail would be wrong.

The cars are actually fairly nice. The trucks, which are less than stellar on their own, seem like solid trucks for a skirted car. The killer for me is the windows being 4.5" too high. While it isn't too much of a problem without paint, it would look terrible once the car is painted up in the 1938 4-stripe two tone gray scheme...the stripes won't line up with any correct or non-ECW cars! Nor will it line up with my J-3a's tender.

I have three options:
-drop it on ebay
-paint/letter it for something else (why didn't I get a 6-6-4 instead...they were more common!)
-build some new sides and trucks from scratch

Regardless, I like the kit. The car looks nice...it is a well built kit...and they're cheap. They'd be great behind a non-streamlined Hudson, Mohawk, or Niagara. If I acquire a K-4 at some point, I'll pick up some of the P-70s for behind it.

I don't know If I'll build this kit or not. I'll check out the Pullman order book the next time I visit my dad's place and decide which road she'll be lettered for. In the mean time, I have the correct decals on their way to my house...so I'm going to have to start scratch building a couple cars. I believe that the other ECW cars have the same "window" problem.

[nachoman]

very weird how the windows are the wrong size...Was the manufacturer working from different plans? Most of the time when dimensions are wrong, i assume it to be from 1) a compromise to allow the model to run on tight radius curves, 2) a means to use existing detail parts or dies; 3) the manufacturer not having access to accurate dimensions. I'm scratching my head as to why those windows would be wrong.

[nkp_174]

very weird how the windows are the wrong size...Was the manufacturer working from different plans? Most of the time when dimensions are wrong, i assume it to be from 1) a compromise to allow the model to run on tight radius curves, 2) a means to use existing detail parts or dies; 3) the manufacturer not having access to accurate dimensions. I'm scratching my head as to why those windows would be wrong.

They are actually the correct size, but located in the wrong place! The killer for me is that the vertical location ruins the striping.

I suspect that the tooling was done before 1987...when the official records were published. The plans I have are better than looking at a surviving car...they are Pullman's as-built plans and are accompanied by the builder's photos...including interior shots. If you like lightweight passenger cars, they are the ultimate books: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rpcbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=23">http://www.rpcbooks.com/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=23</a><!-- m --> They are re-printing the AT&SF because the initial run 20+yrs ago was too small and they were selling for $500+.
I just can't understand how they got the window placement so wrong...car sides usually look rather symmetric...vertically.

I guess I don't really need to build any of these cars now. I've been so excited about it that I've been studying all of the plans and thinking about building all of the cars. My locomotive to pull them is sub-par, and so it would make far more sense for me...if working in HO scale...to build NKP cars. My hudsons could use 80 series coaches and 18 roomette sleepers. It won't kill my decals to sit...they were only $6.50...and I have NKP decals coming as well...must finish On3 cars first.......

[jglfan]

Gee, the lines match up well on my Rivarossi tender! See photo
   

[nkp_174]

Gee, the lines match up well on my Rivarossi tender! See photo

Are you suggesting that I re-letter the tender? Raise the stripe. It is a decent idea. Did you use Champs decals?

Or are you saying the some of the Rivarossi engines had the stripe at the wrong level and so ECW prepared their tooling to match rather than getting it correct? A reasonable assumption if Rivarossi had some miss lettered tenders.

[jglfan]

Heh, I'm just playing with ya, funny story how I came to wind up with the 38 Century. Back around 1980, I told my wife I would like a brass J3a that had just come out. I was not thinking of the streamlined version, but guess I never mentioned that. I got the streamlined loco for Xmas. Many years later, maybe ten years ago, I went to the NYC Historical society's show in Cleveland. The brass loco had sat unpainted all this time. At a table there someone had the 7 car set of the 38 Century by Eastern Car Works, all built up. So I bought them. When i got home I found they had not been assembled terribly well. They did have full width diaphrams on them, which were very stiff and had to be removed to get them around my 30" radius curves. But I still had derailment problems and I found the trucks were not assembled square. A bit of tweaking improved all but the observation car, which even had its body glued on at an angle so it was higher at one end than the other! The trucks don't roll well either, but the brass loco is a strong puller and it hauls the 6 cars up a 2% grade ok. But when i pull the string by hand it is obvious the drag is much greater than say Walthers cars.

Anyway, I had a painter match the colors of the cars to paint the loco, (turned out to be difficult, the greys are not just black/white) and I bought a Rivarossi tender to replace the centipede tender that came with the loco. We just painted the tender and put the stripes to match the cars, I never realized they were in the wrong place! I was on a NYC forum some years ago and found someone with the 7 car set unbuilt and so I bought it. Have not done anything with it, but would like to find the correct trucks and then build the cars, I'll have more sleepers this way, and an obervation to replace the bad one. I'll repaint the coaches for my freelance road.

Here are a few pics, the original brass tender waiting for a use (may upgrade a J1 someday) the boxes for the unbuilt set of cars, and the side of the observation, as you see prepainted, so most folk will never realize the window problem, till they couple up to a loco such as yours. Bummer. You could just reapint the tender.

I just noticed that my boxes are marked E&B Valley, not Eastern Car Works, I don't know if one company bought the other, but I believe the kits are the same.
   

   

   

   

[doctorwayne]

Michael, you might want to investigate Brass Carsides (not sure if that's the name of the company) - they offer brass overlays for both Rivarossi and Eastern Car Works cars, in many prototype variations. My LHS even has a bunch on sale - I could check next week when I go down there to see if they have the proper sides.

As for the trucks (it took a little searching), I found a suitable starting point, if you can find them. They're from Model Die Casting (Roundhouse - now part of Horizon Hobbies). They call them Challenger-style trucks - the 1995 Walthers catalogue shows them as part 480-2934, at $1.75/pair. They have the distinctive coil spring hangers/retainers of the prototype and, over-all, look very similar to those of your prototype. The main difference that I can see is that there are two brake cylinders on each side, instead of one.


Try writing (not an e-mail) to Horizon - they may have some left or suggest who might, as some stock was sold to other companies when MDC was taken-over.

Wayne

[nkp_174]

Thanks for sharing your pictures, Gary.

They look like the same tooling. The windows appear to be slightly too high on the side. I'm looking at the Builder's photo of the Manhatten Island and there are a few details which are off. But! $10 or so for an appx correct model is better than $60 for a dead on model in my book. Especially since yours were pre-painted. I'm currently leaning towards kitbashing mine (but the tender will probably need repainted as well). I'm really excited about the prospect of detailing the interior of the 20th century limited. I absolutely love the interior of the Club-Lounge-Dormitory cars (the Inn series). The Islands were pretty spiffy as well.

Yep, the trucks on your Baggage-Mail look like the standard ECW version...they should actually be 6-wheel trucks (same thing with the diners). Oh well. It's cheaper to buy one of them and find the trucks than to buy one of the new $64 Walther's versions of the Baggage-Mail and repaint it (same thing with the recycled 4-4-2s & such of the '48 train).

I'm probably going to attempt the Triple Bolster trucks in resin. I'll post on here how it goes. I want to model them regardless. (No telling how much $$$ Walthers will want for theirs...assuming that they'll sell them separately).

I don't know whether you are an expert on the train or not, but I'll share the consist here since I'm sure that others would enjoy it:
4 total train sets...
4 Baggage-Mail, #5020ish
4 Club-Lounge-Dormitory, Inn Series
44 Sleepers: 17-1 (City, 10), 10-5 (Cascade, 12), 4-4-2 (Imperial, 14), and 13 (County, 8)
6 Diners, #680ish
4 Buffet-Lounge, Island series...the round end cars.
I'd guess that it was typically a 12-13 car train.

I also just noticed that there were actually more 4-4-2s added in '39-'40...with the trucks that ECW has included in their kit!

By contrast, the PRR was "cheap" when it came to the '38 Broadway...only one streamlined K-4 for publicity photos, re-furbished diners, and a few other shortcuts...while the Century was 100% new (of course, the PRR had just finished dumping a fortune into its Electrification projects).

Michael

Edit: good catch Wayne! I'll check those out. I'm inclined to generally steer clear of Brass car sides for the price ($60 for some, $30 for others) I'll probably modify those MDC trucks instead if I can find them...if the wheelbase is correct!

[nkp_174]

I have engaged in open-body plastic surgery. Darn it Jim, I'm a model railroader, not a surgeon!

I'll see if I can modify the car...and if I fail, new car sides...from styrene or commercial sides...will be in order. I'm dying to detail the interior...and that requires that the body be quite accurate.

Unfortunately, the plastic isn't good styrene. It's that stuff like MDC used which tears instead of snapping. It is also tough to cut. One nasty scar...I'll see if I can hide it.

I checked the end profile...the roof and such are close to the AAR standard. I'll emerge from this with a fine passenger car any which way.

Also, I'm probably going to donate the trucks to the 6th Rivarossi car in my set which was a Christmas gift back in 1st grade. It has been missing its trucks since then. Organ donor, baby!