Rebuild a Modern Passenger Car
You’ll need modern, streamlined coaches to handle your passenger business, so let’s take a look at building a scale-length 85' Budd 48- seat chair car. There were 45 of these cars delivered to the Santa Fe for use in their premier coach train, the El Capitan, in late 1953. They served on that train until the “Hi-Level” cars were delivered in 1956, and then served on the Super Chief and San Fransisco Chief until they all, for the most part, went on to Amtrak in 1971. The coaches carried Santa Fe numbers 2816-2860 until Amtrak numbered them in the 4800-series. They rode on Budd outside swing hanger trucks that Santa Fe liked so well they started using them on a lot of their older revenue equipment. Since there are no full-length
Budd core kits or ready-to-run cars for sale, this kit from Union Station Products (#9613-135) produces a styrene “wrapper”with all the parts needed to replicate the Santa Fe chair car. The rectangle on the bot- tom has .010” styrene name and number boards to be attached to the fluting. Above that is the large flut- ing that goes below the windows; next the wrapper that has the fluted roof cut in. The clear window sides will be used as a template for cutting
TOP: We’re going to convert this American Models 85’ streamlined car into a stainless steel fluted side Santa Fe chair car. All exterior detail has been filed smooth. ABOVE: The contents of the Union Station Products styrene “wrapper” kit (No. 9613-135).
out the window areas of our base car and also the window glazing. A cou- ple of strips of styrene are provided for the two ribs that ran down the center of the Budd roof. The base we are using is an American Models 85' streamlined car. To start, take a file and remove all
items that stick out on the base car that are in the area to be covered with the wrapper, such as roof vents, door and window frames, and so on. Since these areas will be
s6 BUILDING IN S SCALE • SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN MAGAZINE
covered by the .020 white styrene, only moderate care needs to be tak- en in this procedure. Next, remove the clear window template from the scrap backing and use double-sided tape to tem- porarily attach it to the car so that you can mark the area to be cut out. This makes sure none of the existing shell shows through the new win- dow areas on the wrapper. Using a Dremel with a cutting wheel, cut out the window areas that you marked
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