Modeling SP passenger cars, Part 16: head-end

In previous posts in this series, I have addressed a wide variety of Southern Pacific passenger cars, many of them head-end cars. (Previous posts are easily found by using “modeling SP passenger” as the search term in the search box at right.) 

In the present post, I return to head-end cars. Although some SP passenger cars may appear generic, in fact the great majority had individual characteristics, especially the Harriman-era heavyweight cars. This post is about such cars. 

Probably the best and most complete options for modeling several of the Harriman heavyweight head-end cars are the kits from Southern Car & Foundry, or SC&F. (I briefly described these in an earlier post, which is at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/10/modeling-sp-passenger-cars-head-end-cars.html ). 

I had Dennis Williams build two of these kits for me, except for window glazing, and paint them the standard SP color, Dark Olive Green. In my post about that work, I mentioned my two choices of commercial paint that are quite accurate for this color, from Star Brand and Tru-Color (here is a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/07/modeling-sp-head-end-cars-part-6.html ).

One of these SC&F kits represents a 60-foot Harriman baggage car, the underframe of which was shown being considerably stiffened in the earlier post, linked in the preceding paragraph. I lettered the car with the excellent Thin Film decals, set HO-160, lightly weathered it, and installed the window glazing and diaphragms. With those additions, the car was complete, and could be joined to its underbody.

The second car is another SC&F kit for a head-end car, this one a 70-foot baggage car, distinctive with a pair of windows on each side. The SP owned quite a few of these, so they are really an essential part of an SP mail train. But there is one small defect in the SC&F kit: it is for the slightly different Union Pacific version of this Common Standard car. The difference? The windows are wider. 

 

Having kitbashed one of these cars with a lot of work from a couple of Athearn baggage cars (you can see my magazine article about it at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/06/my-baggage-car-article-in-prototype.html ), I saw the different window proportions right away. The UP window is 2 feet, 8 inches wide, while all the SP windows were 2 feet, 5 inches. Now many would not notice, but having worked directly with these windows, I can’t miss it. Ah well, it’s a lovely kit, and few visitors would notice, anyway, so I’ll go ahead and use it. 

 

I wanted to show the nice design arrangement in these kits for installing windows (created by SC&F principal Jon Cagle). In the one-piece body, on the interior, are pockets into which the glazing parts drop in perfectly. Here’s an interior view into an as-received 70-foot body casting, showing one such receptacle for the end window.

 

Then the SC&F kits give you a very nice way to paint the windows: the acrylic “glass” has a peel-off paper cover, that has been laser-cut so you can peel off the part covering the window frame, while leaving the paper over the window glass. These window parts are shown below (four end windows, four baggage-door windows), next to the inside of one of the baggage doors, again with a pocket into which the glazing drops.

Ordinarily, the modeler would simply peel the frame covering, install each window, paint as part of the overall body, and lastly remove the paper over the glass. Since my car body was already built and painted, I had to pre-paint each of these end windows, then install them in the car body, then decal letter. This car, like the 60-foot car, had the body not yet attached to the underframe. 

In addition to the window installation, I also needed to stiffen the underbody of this car, not as extreme a problem as it was with the 60-foot car (that issue was described here, repeating the link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/07/modeling-sp-head-end-cars-part-6.html ). 

 

Once again, I used K&S Engineering brass rectangular tubing, stock no. 266, which is 5/32 x 5/16 in size, as a stiffener. This is supplied 12 inches long. I cut an 8-inch and a 4-inch piece. These were glued with canopy glue and clamped. Below you see the long stiffener being glued. The original weights, stacks of pennies, are visible.

With the stiffening completed, and windows inserted, I had the car nearly complete, only needing addition of diaphragms. I used modified American Limited diaphragms, using only the inner part of the commercial product (you might wish, for example, to see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/passenger-car-diaphragms-part-4.html ).

 

This completes work on my two SC&F head-end cars, both beautiful models and with correct Harriman underframes, nice to have. They will surely be included in the extra mail train that runs as part of most of my operating sessions.

 

Tony Thompson