VIA Rail Super Continental (or is it the Canadian?)

[craigolio1]

Hey all. A little while back I decided it was time to build a model of the Canadian as run by VIA Rail in the late 80’s. I remember going to see it pull through Port Coquitlam on the way into Vancouver when I was a kid. At the time it was a mixture of stainless ex-CPR cars and blue ex-CN cars, which many I’m sure thought was a terrible travesty, but I loved it. I specifically remember it being pulled by FP9A units. After reading a book on VIA Rail consists I learned that it was most likely the Super Continental that I was remembering and so that’s what I’m calling this one. My train isn’t quite done yet but it’s close so I thought I would post a few shots of my progress thus far.

FP9A:

This is a Kaslo Shops/Central Hobbies kit. It will sit on an Atlas GP38 chassis. I chose 6525 as it was the last FP9A to have the red VIA logo on the nose and it kept it until past the era that I model. As you can see it’s not yet complete but should be in the next couple of weeks. The Central Hobbies kit allows the modeller to make an extremely accurate model of either a CN or CP FP9A, or a US FP9A. The kit includes a resin body, resin parts inserts, and frets of etched stainless parts for all details, and is a challenging, but well designed kit.







F9B:

This is a stock Intermountain model to which I only added the steam generator details and repainted the roof.



Steam Generator (SGU):



Photo credit to @CNR5529

This one is the subject of the Mystery CN SGU thread started by @CNR5529 here:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=43241.0

Fredrick did a fantastic job improving the quality of this model and detailing/finishing it. I’m super excited to have it in the consist.

Dining Car:



This car is a slightly modified Concor car. I didn’t go so far as to rearrange windows. I’m going for more of a close enough type of model.  I removed the skirts and repainted it using a black enamel base coat and three coats of Alclad II Chrome, followed by a Testors gloss clear coat. The blue stripe is painted and the VIA logogram is a CDS drytransfer on decal film. I chose the name Empress as my family spent a lot of time on Vancouver Island and I always enjoyed the Victoria inner harbour where the Empress hotel is.

Manor sleeping cars:



These two cars are approximations of the Manor series sleeping cars and received the same modifications as the dining car. I chose Craig Manor, because how cool is it to have a sleeping car named after me !? And, Dunsmuir Manor again due to my connection with Vancouver Island (Robert Dunsmuir built the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway which was sold to the CPR in the early 1900’s, officially completing the transcontinental railway).

Skyline dome cars:



These two cars received similar modifications to the others. The windows in the domes have been tinted a little as per the prototype. I had seen pictures near my era of both green and black tinted windows. I went with black because that’s what I had in stock.

Coach:



This car was a very close match to the VIA car. I removed the skirt and filled in a couple of windows at the non-vestibule end.

Park car:





This car received the largest number of modifications. It has modified skirts and a couple of filled windows at the vestibule end. I also removed the large light at the rear on the roof and replaced it with a smaller scratch built light that more resembles the VIA Rail cars. It also received tinted some windows. The prototype had a lighted drum head on the rear. For now I have a decal in place but thanks again to @CNR5529 I now have a Tomar lighted drum head to install at a later date.

 I chose Tremblant Park as I have raced in two Ironman triathlons at Mt. Tremblant and it’s a beautiful part of the country filled with memories of pain, suffering, and dehydration. Why not commemorate that with a passenger car? 

That’s all for now. I’ll add the Rapido cars later, as well as more of the FP9A once complete.

Craig

[jjb62556]

Great looking train so far. I'm working on a Canadian also with the cars we rode on in 2016. It was a GREAT bucket list trip!

[GhengisKong]

Agreed with jjb, an excellent looking train. Are all the cars Alclad II chrome?

[CNR5529]

I cant wait to see the completed consist in person. Great job man!

(and thanks for guaranteeing that a manufacturer will now make this train for the rest of us...)

[jjb62556]

Amen!

[craigolio1]

Agreed with jjb, an excellent looking train. Are all the cars Alclad II chrome?

Thanks everyone.

Yes all of the stainless cars are Alclad II Chrome.

Craig

[cv_acr]

Hey all. A little while back I decided it was time to build a model of the Canadian as run by VIA Rail in the late 80’s. I remember going to see it pull through Port Coquitlam on the way into Vancouver when I was a kid.

Port Coquitlam was CP's Vancouver terminal, wasn't it?

"The Canadian" was formerly CP's trans-con train, and ran over CP rails.
"The Super Continential" was formerly CN's trans-con train, and ran over CN rails.

After the VIA cutbacks of the mid 1990s, the "Super Continental" was removed and the "Canadian" moved to CN rails (or, the "Canadian" removed, and the "Super Continental" renamed, take your pick).

So if the train you remember was on CP rails in the 1980s, it was the Canadian. If it was on CN rails, it was the Super.

[craigolio1]

The time period I’m thinking if was probably about 1985 or 1986. Port Coquitlam was the last westbound stop before the train entered Vancouver. It switched from the CPR tracks to the BN in Coquitlam and went through New Westminster and then onto CN tracks and on into the CN station which was the Vancouver terminus for VIA Rail. VIA used both the  CPR and CN station in Vancouver only in 1977. In 1978 they put all traffic into the exCN station.

I figured the trains I watched in Port Coquitlam would be the Canadian (because as you point out it was the CPR line). But in a book of consists I have, the specific train I remember that was a varried combination of blue and stainless equipment (including E-sleepers and the blue smooth side baggage - the Canadian usually had an exCPR baggage dorm) and in this book most of those were Super Continentals so I just figured that’s what it would be. I personally don’t care what the train is called. Haha. I just wanted to model a mixture of blue and stainless.

Craig.

[craigolio1]

So it turns out the great Railwire crash of 2018 deleted the rest of this post and my gallery images with it, so here they are again.

This is the factory painted Rapido baggage car:



Rapido Leg rest coach aka “Daynighter”:



And the E-sleeper. For the E-sleepers I chose Edmonton and Eureka because I have family in Edmonton and because, well, why wouldn’t you have a car called Eureka! If you could. :



I still think the blue Rapido used is way too dark and that paint used to paint the loco and SGU are much more accurate so part of me wants to repaint all of the Rapido cars, but I’ll put that on the back burner for now.

The Brampron Train Show was this weekend and @CNR5529 graciously invited my to run with The NTrack Roadshow again this year so the big push was to get this train completed by this weekend. I almost had it. I stayed up late last night installing the lighting and decoder, and speed matching the FP9A to the B. I got all that done but wasn’t able to get the finish detailing on the A unit completed. Here is a shot of the A unit assembled and lit up:



And some shots of the consist at the Brampton Train Show.





The A unit has Lee English Z-Scale couplers on it and it really makes the front of the train look good up close. Sorry the photography is so terrible.

The train ran very well, except when the rear truck fell off the park car.

 Next up is to finish detailing the A unit which includes fixing fine details and paint that I’ve damaged, and adding grabs, handrails, windshield wipers, window glass, number boards, some underframe detail, and a little weathering.

While the park car is apart it’s going to get marker lights and a lighted drum head with a constant lighting circuit.

I have some video of it at the train show but when I try to embed it I get an error 404.

Enjoy your weekend!

Craig

[BCR 570]

Beautiful work!

Tim

[muktown128]

Craig,

Nice job on the stainless cars.  They really look good with the Alclad II Chrome paint.

Scott

[craigolio1]

Thanks guys.

Scott I’ve experimented with Alclad II stainless, aluminum, and chrome. The stainless to me is too dark, like a fridge door. In my opinion the Aluminum looks really good for stainless. The Chrome looks like freshly washed stainless.

I got a little more done today. The Park car got Kato trucks, a constant lighting/bridge rectifier circuit, and a Tomar lighted VIA drum head. I used a cool white 0804 SMD instead of the included micro bulb. In real life it looks very good. Not like it’s lit by the sun. I just don’t know how to take pictures with my phone.

Next up marker lights.

[mandealco]

Nice work Craig.  I don't remember the big red and black cables running through our bedroom in Tremblant Park.  I'll look harder next time.
Cheers
Steve

[craigolio1]

Ha!  Good thing. That would have been a very uncomfortable ride.

[craigolio1]

I finally figured out how to post a YouTube video.

I got started on the marker lights.

This is the circuit that Peteski posted for me to use in my dinner train cars. I’m using different current limiting resistors. 10k for the drum head  and 3.5 k for the marker lights.

The LED is a chopped down Kato RDC light board which provided a perfect mount, and the markers are fiber optic. They will be aligned with the LED using 1/8” styrene tube and some shrink tubing.