SP 2701 (Part 2), 60-CC-1 from a Model Power Coach

Well, some progress has been made on the SP 2701 since Part 1 of the build.  I will also mention that I've done some improvements to my SP HW Passenger Car Index page with new example photos and a few new car classes represented now.

Interior & Walls

Leading this update is the construction, painting, and installation of the chairs and some partitions around the toilets, and painting of the interior.

Interior added to SP 2701 - Note the dark green window shades.

I should first mention that I used dark green manila filing folder material for the dark green window shades on this model.  Some SP coaches, All-Day-Lunches, and News Agent cars had this.  Best to look at photos to see which cars had it, and which had a light tan shade.

Similar strips of PSC seats prepared for SP 1005.

The seats are Prescision Scale Co. 33312.1 (Chair Car) seats, they are injection molded in pairs with small legs on them.  I started with the uncolored gray seats, and painted the floor strip of .400" x 0.020" strip styrene a nice shade of "Seafoam" green from StarBrand, which is actually a pretty good match for the interior color used on Athearn's Streamlined 77-C-3 chair cars.

I then masked the floor and painted the seats with a mix of Freight Car Red (FCR) also StarBrand.  This again was a pretty close match for the colors used on the MTH and Athearn Genesis Daylight chair cars.

The seats were glued to the styrene strip 0.460" apart.  At the front end of the car there will be a set of seats looking back, however I did not install those at this time.  The lighting bar-strip was not glued in and I removed it for this part.  Checking the drawings I glued the seating strips in to get a good location compared to the windows of where they line up.  This is really a matter of choice, as the Model Power is missing one large window.  So in the middle of the car you can either let the seats not line up with the windows and have the right number of seats, or you can have the wrong number of seats, but line up with the windows.  I chose to have the right number of seats, and oh well about the windows.  I might have decided to go the other route in hindsight... but it's too late now! - (More on my thoughts of changing models after the fact).  At this point it's not reached a high enough mark on the "Really Annoying" Meter to worry about.

Photo from before the interior was installed - Notice the major hole... WATCH YOUR STEP!

Styrene sheet was added down the middle of the car as well to cover the major holes that were left in the Model Power body tooling.  This will help hide the holes as seen in the photo below.

SP 2701 with interior mounted and partitions around the ends of the seating area.

The partitions are 0.02" sheet styrene cut 36" wide and even with the top of the carside.  Notches are cut in the edge nearest the carside for the roof flange to clear.  Extra scrap squares of sheet styrene are glued over the "end windows" in the car interior.  I am not sure why both MDC and Model Power (copied) have these end windows into the toilets... Not kosher for 1910 certainly!  Probably they did one set of tooling for the end windows in the end wall of the observation car and put them in all their models as a general endsill wall.

The left end window (bottom left in the photo above) is also is covered with non-"Magic" Scotch Tape, which causes the "fogged" look, usually associated with the toilet windows on coaches and chair cars not fitted with expensive "etched" glass or prismed windows.  This can also be seen below.

Another view of the interior, also we can see a bit of the roof with the vents painted.

The soldering tabs can be seen above at the end of the LED strip.  The wires from the trucks and markers will attach there.

I'll end this update with a photo of the car showing what the car looks like without installed marker lights.

Non-marker end of the SP 2701

In some ways installing the markers after the HiTech Diaphragms are installed is more of a pain, but on this model it will need to be done.

That does it for now for Part 2 of the SP 2701 build.  In Part 3 I'll be showing the installed OwlMtModels marker kit and finishing the underbody frame and installing assorted detail parts.

Jason Hill