Just for fun!

Making things realistic like the real historic prototype is in our DNA at Wheels of Time. Here was a fun project that kept my creative juices flowing. I modified and repainted an Intermountain N-scale dining car. This car no. 10205 represents S.P. Class 83-D-1 which was originally assigned to the City of San Francisco and S.F. Overland trains. During the early 1960's, this car and sister car no. 10203 substituted for the expensive-to-maintain triple-unit dining car on the S.P. Coast Daylight during off-season. At this point in history S.P. was famously looking for ways to cut cost on their passenger trains - and before the introducing the automat (automatic buffet car).

The model - (click on the photos for larger images)

Some of my modifications to make it more prototypical: center skirts were shorten; added stove top roof vents (originally designed to work with the many tunnels on S.P.); new scale width diaphragms which I fabricated; all new underframe details including new bolster to fit the GSC 41-N-11 trucks (from Rapido). Noticed how the A/C, battery boxes, and propane lockers hung below the underframe. I made a proper width housing for the pressurized water tanks. After stripping the original paint and lettering, I painted the yellow color first before masking and applying the gray. Decaling the red stripes takes much patience! Window shades of varying positions was made from paper to add to realism. In the future, modification of the car interior lighting is in-order -  to receive track power by using wheel wipers for electrical pickup instead of the on-board batteries. Enjoy!