Modeling SP passenger cars, Part 18

In the previous post, Part 17, I showed the completion of painting and striping applications to the two cars of different floor-plans that I am working on, a 13 double bedroom car (13 DB) and a 4 double bedroom–4 compartment–2 drawing room (4-4-2) car.  You can read that post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/09/modeling-sp-passenger-cars-part-17.html .

In the previous post just cited, I mentioned the problems of decal availability. I do have one of the Champ Lark sets (Champ PH-110), and could go ahead with lettering. This represents compromises. The Champ lettering is white rather than SP Lettering Gray (though on these gray sides the difference is minimal), and the lettering does not have the 1/8-inch wide black outline that SP continued to apply until 1956. In HO scale, those compromises aren’t crushing.

There happens to be an alternative. Todd Osterberg has recently completed artwork for several Southern Pacific streamlined passenger trains, including the 1941 Lark. These are excellent renditions and do include the outlining that was in use in the year I model, 1953. These decals will be available in a few weeks or so, and will be sold via Owl Mountain Models (their website is at: https://owlmtmodels.com/ ; that’s not a link to the decals, as they aren’t up yet). Here’s a sample. You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.

The car number shown, SP 9352, is the number I will apply to my 13 DB car.

The background on the locations of lettering on Lark cars, and the car numbering for the cars modeled, was described in a previous post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/05/modeling-sp-passenger-cars-part-15.html ). The first interesting lettering pattern for these two cars is for the 4-4-2, which had the distinctive small windows in pairs for the upper berths in the compartments. The prototype photo below (Lawson K. Hill, San Francisco, August 1953) illustrates the lettering part of the problem: the road name had to be located well off-center to clear those windows.

This was of course how I lettered the model, adding the car number below the Lark emblem. The car shown above is SP 9106, and I chose that number for my model. Below you see the same side of my model 4-4-2 as in the above prototype photo (the bedroom side). The off-center road name is certainly distinctive. Note, incidentally, that the remnant skirt seen above is reproduced on the brass car side used for this model.

You may also note above that a diaphragm face plate has been attached to the car end, and brass wire used to represent the diagonal stabilizer bars that are so visible on prototype diaphragms (for more discussion and illustration of this point, see my post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/06/passenger-car-diaphragms-part-3.html ). Here’s a better view of such model bars, shown on an AHM 10-6 car (repeated from the preceding post in the series, cited in the first paragraph, above):

Note in the photo above that there are handrails either side of the door. At the other end of the car, the blind end (no vestibule), there was a single handrail and a step for the use of brakemen or switchmen. The photo below (Pullman-Standard photo, Rob Evans collection) shows this on a brand-new 13 DB Lark car in March 1941. The handrail was cadmium-plated, the step was painted body color.

On some of my streamlined car models, I have added the handrails with wire; on others with a length of 0.010-inch styrene rod.

Another issue that arises with cars like these is that they were “all-room” cars, that is, all accommodations in the car were rooms with doors. That means that you could never see through such a car (unless someone was just opening a room’s door). But these AHM cars have no such interior. I have made full-length view blocks, using 0.020-inch styrene sheet, braced with 1/8-inch square styrene strip along the bottom (which also provides a gluing surface). 

The side that will be toward the aisle-side windows should be a passenger interior color (I chose an ivory shade), and the back of it (lower one below) is dark gray. That means that from the bedroom side of the car, you won’t be able to see anything inside, which is realistic. I might mention that I once went to the trouble to draw room doors with pencil on an aisle-side view block. However, these were almost impossible to see through HO-scale side windows, and I haven’t ever repeated the exercise.

These need to be installed inside the car relatively close to the aisle-side windows. Aisles in these cars were only about 30 inches wide, so that scale distance is appropriate. I attach them with canopy glue, taking advantage of the bottom bracing. Below is the aisle side of the 4-4-2 car with view block installed (this side of the car was lettered with the Osterberg decals).

With lettering well along and view blocks installed, the main remaining task is to deal with diaphragms. I want to install full-width ones on one of these cars, and will return to that topic in a concluding post.

Tony Thompson