"Betterment" cars

[jmlaboda - RIP]

Or my personal favorites- the L&N cars with wide sealed picture windows, and clerestory roof.

As they are mine... yet L&N subsidiary Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis rebuilt two sets of cars, one group with riveted sides and a second group that had welded sides, looked for all practical purposes like lightweight cars (note that the sliding windows were applied by the Clinchfield when these cars were in excursion service on that line)... (photos are my own)

Jerry, how many books have you written?  I find your knowledge of such things very fascinating. Are thes bits on your site?

One of the greatest joys in my life has been to learn so very much about passenger cars and I still have a lot to learn.  Passenger trains have been a big part of my life, between riding Southern's Tri-weekly passenger train between Asheville and Salisbury, the Southern's Piedmont and Crescent Ltd., gallery cars of the C&NW, IC and RI in the early days of Chicago's RTA, South Shore heavyweight m.u.s, B&M's RDCs out of Boston, Amtrak up and down the Atlantic coast, not to mention a couple of excursions back before the N&W "J" and "A" were refurbished and placed into service.

While I have flown I really don't like too so passenger trains, when possible, were my preferred way to travel.  My only regret is not being able to travel on one of Espee's California trains... the San Joaquin Daylight before it was discontinued... but I was still a bit young back then... and not having the money now to ride North Carolina's Carolinian and Piedmont, which would require me to drive roughly an hour away to board them.  But maybe one day...

[thomasjmdavis]

Jerry,
I am guessing you already know- but the welded NC&StL cars (for the CIty of Memphis) are available as sides from Union Station Products.  I would think it would not be too much hassle to mate them with a HW underframe as streamline roof.

[Angus Shops]

Really interesting conversation, especially for a passenger car fan like myself. I've always liked the oddness of the modernized/betterment cars

Thank you Jerry for defining the terms. In the CPR's case, the R series 12-1-2's are defined as modernized cars because of their thermopane (sealed) windows, while the U series cars are technically betterment cars. The U series were tourist sleepers "modernized" for use with the new Budd built cars on The Canadian. They received fluted stainless steel on their sides and roof, but retained their old heavyweight sash windows. Leads one to ask why they didn't receive sealed windows when the CPR already had added sealed windows to the R cars, particularly when the U cars were to be used on their premier train and they were making such an effort to make these old heavyweights blend in with the new Budds.

The R series cars are definitely on the list of future resin projects...

I also noted a call for a solarium car. I have a solarium-observation-buffet-sleeper (CPR Cape series) resin model available through Central Hobbies if you are interested.

Geoff

[Puddington]

Yes; yes he does have a solarium... I own several....



I highly recommend them to all.

[sirenwerks]

Jerry,
I am guessing you already know- but the welded NC&StL cars (for the CIty of Memphis) are available as sides from Union Station Products.  I would think it would not be too much hassle to mate them with a HW underframe as streamline roof.

Where can you find (online) pics of the prototype cars?

[thomasjmdavis]

Where can you find (online) pics of the prototype cars?

NC&StL is not easy to find on the web, but here are a few...

http://www.american-rails.com/city-of-memphis.html
http://condrenrails.com/MRP/MemphisUnionStation/NC&StL-Memphis-Pass-Pixs.htm

http://passcarphotos.info/Indices/L&N.htm (the NC&StL is at the bottom of the page- car numbers 1101, 1102, 1103)

good shots of the obs as it looks today- http://www.ncstl.com/equipment/passenger/cityofm/cityofmemphis.htm

basic diagrams of the cars
http://unionstationproducts.com/nashville_chatanooga_st_louis.html

[jmlaboda - RIP]

They received fluted stainless steel on their sides and roof, but retained their old heavyweight sash windows.

Maybe they ate up the budget for these cars spending it on Budd corrugation?

http://rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-coull-jpa.jpg

[sirenwerks]

Maybe they ate up the budget for these cars spending it on Budd corrugation?

http://rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-coull-jpa.jpg

Union Station makes N scale etched fluting if you're interested in creating that car - in Budd style http://unionstationproducts.com/budd_fluting.html and P-S style http://unionstationproducts.com/pullman_standard_fluting.html

[sirenwerks]

Here's the B&O variety of rebuilt coach:

[Angus Shops]

Maybe they ate up the budget for these cars spending it on Budd corrugation?

http://rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-coull-jpa.jpg

Strangely, the fluting applied to the car sides did not match the Budd fluting; it was more of a square profile rather than Budd's cove type fluting. The roof fluting was a closer match to the Budd standard. I don't think CP sourced their fluted panels for these cars from Budd. I guess they were using 'modeller's licence'.

I make a resin version of this car, available from Central Hobbies.

Geoff

[jmlaboda - RIP]

I am guessing you already know- but the welded NC&StL cars (for the CIty of Memphis) are available as sides from Union Station Products.  I would think it would not be too much hassle to mate them with a HW underframe as streamline roof.

Actually I do... I have them listed on the L&N page at the N-scale Varnish User's Guide...
http://n-scalevarnish.info/index/varnish/UsersGuide/L&N.htm

[jmlaboda - RIP]

I make a resin version of this car, available from Central Hobbies.

This is good to know... guess its time to update the CP page again at he User's Guide.