GGD "Harriman" V2.0 Upgrades - (Part 3) Pre-Production Upgrade Parts Arrive

It's been nearly a month since my last post in this series.  In this time I got sick and been wiped out for a couple weeks.  I was able to peck at a couple things, and have done some pre-production test installations in the last few days.  

We're getting into Diaphragms, Weights, and touching on Draftgear.

Again, this is all pre-production tinkering, production parts may change.  The production steel weights have arrived, and I've used them whenever possible in this post.

Installing Weights

Underframe Mods

75-CS Lounge frame with stock weights removed.

In the last post, I covered flipping the pickups around to the other end of the car, but not really covering the changes and modifications needed to fit the new OwlMtModels 9040C Weight. The corner fences for the original weights are removed with my flush cutting sprue-cutters. There's also four tabs along the copper pickups, which I cut down flush.

Original planned insulation, but too thick now.

Originally the plan was to insulate the steel weight from the pickups with some 0.010" or 0.015" styrene or washers.  However, when the weight material was increased to 0.104", it means that we have to go down to tape-type insulation.

Weight Insulation

Insulated weight with blue tape. (note this is a prototype for future runs of these weights).

Currently I've tested "blue masking tape" and clear plastic packing tape.  While neither is official insulating tape, they have worked so far.  Of course holes are opened in the tap for the centerline four large screw-mounting holes, the four small pickup alignment plastic pins, which all I want to do is have for alignment and to keep the pickups in alignment under the weight.  The two 'pogo' contact pin holes are opened, but I actively wanted to keep the tape bits pushed into those holes, so the 'pogo's don't hit the weight.

Weight Specs:

Stock GGD Car weight = ~5.0oz

OMM 9040D = Diner Weight = 9.6oz (max size for cars with no vestibules)

OMM 9040C = Coach/Lounge = 9.2oz (combined weight)
Modified Weight = 8.2oz (simplified weight with ends removed, for future OMM 9040 production runs.)

I'm going to briefly mention some of the weighting decisions.  Ideally, in my experience, the ~80ft passenger cars in HO scale should be around 8-9 ounces.  The MTH Daylight cars with full-width diaphragms seem to like 6-7.5 ounces for ~60ft cars, again bumping up the 4.5-5.0 ouch stock weights a bit, due to the diaphragms adding forces that want to derail the cars if they are too light when they are in contact from 'close coupling' operation on 40-50" radius curves.

Also in consideration on these cars is that the trucks, like the Daylight MTH cars, have very fine needle-point bearings.  There's a limit to how much weight this type of bearing can handle without undue wearing and failure.  Thus, I'm aiming for a 8.0-9.5 range of weights to operate with brass passenger cars or longer 15-car plastic passenger trains.  Obviously, I'm wanting to do some test operations on friend's layouts, but I've not had time to do those tests as of the last week of Oct'26.

Interior Floor Mods

Underside of stock 75-CS Lounge interior.

The stock interior has a number of lateral ribs which will foul the new larger weight in the car.  I roughly removed them with my flush-cutting sprue-cutters.

Underside of modified 75-CS Lounge interior.

Then I cleaned up the remaining material with my Dremal with a composite cutoff disc.  I also smoothed out the ejector pins and made sure the extensions of the interior detail parts are flush as well.  I also take this opportunity to transfer the electrical 'pogo' pickup holes to the vestibule-end of the car via the holes in the weight.

Diner interior underside modifications.

Note that the Diner and some of the other cars use metal walls, with long tabs through holes and bent over.  I generally glued the metal walls in place after painting and then used the Dremal to clean off the extra material.

Fixing Window Sills

There's been some debate on-line about the lower window sill's size.  I started modifying this part of the GGD cars in the last part of this series.  In this post I'm wrapping up the current work on this part of the kitbash.

SP Diner with modified window sills needing paint touch-up.

While I did mostly hand-carving with a sharp No.11 blade on the Diner, I switched over to using my flush-cutters to remove the bulk of the sill 'block' and then scraping with a chisel blade at near 90 degree angle to the body on the Lounge.  Then cleaning up the Diner a bit more before touching up the paint.

Left side of the Lounge waiting for touch-up.

The four windows for the bar and barber room are probably the most tricky to do without over-cutting and leaving a off-plane marks into the body.

Right side of the Lounge waiting for touch-up.

This car wasn't so bad to do with the chisel blade cleanup on the window sashes... While I'm not quite mentally ready to deal with the 72-IC Subs just yet, they are not impossible to do.

Patching Exterior Paint

SP 10105's right side with patched window sills.

I went ahead and started decalling this Diner as the SP 10105, which will need a Green scheme interior... so my tan painted interior in this model may need to be swapped to one of my other diners.  Oops.  One of the "1" also moved on me... so I'm considering lifting these decals and renumbering the car as 10112 or just fixing the "1".

Diner's left side with patched window sills.

In these photos, I knocked loose the painted stock windows for the kitchen, so one of the other modifications I'll do when the windows show up is seal and paint over the three lower left kitchen windows, and get that paint patched up before the window glazing goes into the rest of the car.

Lounge's left side with patched window sills.

This first Lounge that I'm working on is becoming the SP 2934, one of the cars which has the Green Scheme interior applied, so that will be fun to apply too.

Lounge's right side with patched window sills.

The right side of the car doesn't have the reporting mark and type decals applied yet, but it will all come together eventually.

Different Ends, Different Coupled Lengths

Diner 77-D-3/4 (Top) and Lounge 75-CS (bottom)

It turns out that GGD didn't use the same coupling length on the underframes, even though they used the same parts for the swing-extending draftgear, they installed different length Kadee couplers, which I think may explain some of the issues with the longer couplers on the dining cars having more vertical problems than the other car types.

This is requiring OMM's draftgear parts to have at least two versions for proper close-coupling for the Diner and non-Diner GGD V2 cars.  There will probably need to be another version for modelers desiring more 'extended' installations.

77-D-3/4 Diner Diaphragm Test Installation

Drilling Jig used on the Diner's ends.

I up-sized the drill bits from the Hi-Tech's instructions 1/32" drill (0.0315") to No.56 (0.0465") drill bit, to account for the extra rubber on the parting line of the rubber leaf springs.  The OMM drilling jig is designed to be flipped over and act double-sided so that I can use it on square-ended Diner or the "Angle-ended" Lounge, or other cars in the series of cars.  The large tab at the bottom is designed to key into the coupler opening in the shell and align it before drilling the holes.

OMM 4099 Hi-Tech Diaphragm drilling jig (for "Common Standard" Hi-Tech 9000-series diaphragms).

Given this is the first pre-production and testing of these parts, the production jig prints will have clearance notches for the angled grab irons on the end of the dining car.

Rubber leaf springs installed on the Diner.

Notice the light scribing from the back of a No.11 Xacto blade which I ran around the inner edge of the jig to mark the opening in the end of the car for the outer bellows of the Hi-Tech Diaphragms.  I'm planning to 3d print new 1937 'porthole' doors, so I can remove the original 1920s wooden panel doors completely.

Body-side bellows installed on Diner body.

The interior profile of the jig is designed to fit inside the Hi-Tech diaphragm, as most installations, I've found that I need to use a Dremal with burr bits to clean out a bit more material so the bellows of the diaphragm can properly compress and not 'go solid' against the end of the car, which can lead to derailments from the two cars binding against one another through the locked up diaphragm.

Drilling out the doors on the 77-D-3/4

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of diner body that I was drilling out, so this is a mock-up picture using another stock car body.

Kitchen end, diaphragm mounted.

I drilled about 6-8 holes with approximately 1/16" between the holes.  My flush-cutters worked well to connect the holes, then No.11 and No.17 Xacto blades were good for cleaning up the inside edges.  I'm doing this for 3d printed more modern doors to fit.

Direct end view.

The interior wall took the hits from the drill... oops.  Should have probably take the shell off before doing the drilling, note for future diner modifications.  The 'late' 1937 rebuild of these cars, saw the wood panel door replaced with 'art-deco' style doors with round window end door will cover up the various levels of interior and weights.

Other side of the Kitchen end diaphragm.

Lastly, I'll airbrush the SP Dark Olive Green paint over the diaphragm bellows and then apply the etched metal striker plate.  Normally, I like to install the diaphragm first, so I can see where the mating line of the diaphragms will be, then fit the draftgear and coupler to get a good close coupling, but not "too tight" of spacing.

Bottom view of the diaphragm and coupler draftgear.

This draftgear application is the early pre-production 3d prints, which will have some small changes before going into full production version.

77-D-3/4 with Hi-Tech Diaphragm, slightly too short of draftgear.

The diaphragm on this test car came out slightly too long compared to the length of the draft gear, putting the coupler a bit too short.  Normally I want the coupler's knuckle inside edge to be slightly visible beyond the striker face.  This installation will result in the diaphragm being a bit tighter and needlessly press about 0.015" of force into the coupled joint.

75-CS Lounge Diaphragm Test Installation

On the Lounge, I didn't need to drill out the lounge-end's exterior door... as it turns out to be a seperate piece, which is glued in, and can be knocked out fairly easily.

Next drilling target up... oh, wait, it comes out!

In this photo, we can clearly see the holes drilled from the jig into the end to fit the rubber Hi-Tech diaphragm leaf springs.

Stock Lounge with the stamped door installed.

Here's what the interior of the stamped metal door plug looks like.

Surprise! - Knocking out the end door.

Note that I've already installed the Hi-Tech rubber leaf springs in this photo.  I actually planned to start drilling on this door, before it popped and jammed in the opening like this... so I stopped drilling and just popped the door out.

Removed stamped metal door from lounge-end.

I'm not sure why GGD went with a stamped metal door, instead of molding the end of the car in plastic.  I'm guessing that it was to keep the tooling minimal on the body.  The cars with angled-ends have open ends, the diner which has square ends was another mold and had the closed doors molded in.

Diaphragm - Lounge-end, left side

The Lounge end of the car will also get a 1937 "porthole" door 3d printed to fit in the opening.

Diaphragm - Lounge end, right side

Diaphragm - Vestibule end, right side

The vestibule end of the car will still remain open, but still needed the inner edge of the door opening enlarged to allow the bellows to fully compress against the car's body-side bellow ring.

Diaphragm - Vestibule end, left side

Like with the Diner, next will come some touch-up painting on the diaphragm and getting the etched strikers fitted.

Coupled Length Checking on Diner & Lounge

IC-72 stock (left) coupled to modified Diner (right) with diaphragm installed.

The stock "Sub" on the left, has the stock draftgear system which includes about 0.045" extra distance between it's diaphragm striker and the median point of the at-rest coupler knuckle.  It fits nicely against the slightly too short Diner diaphragm and pre-production draftgear, so again, this combination works.  Unfortunately, if the joint is tensioned, the 'Sub's draftgear extends and stretches out, opening the gap of about 3/16", which is way more than looks good.

Coupling of Lounge on the left and Walthers 10-1-2 (kitbashed to 10-1-1) on the right.

I just reached over and grabbed a typical Walthers HW sleeper that I had to hand to check coupling distance on the Lounge.

Diner to the left, Lounge to the right

Here's the way these two cars would be coupled in my Owl or West Coast consists.  The longer coupling distance of the Lounge pairs nicely with the Diner's short coupling with the pre-production draftgear prints.

Lounge to the left, Walthers Solarium-Sleeper (Mission Delores) to the right.

In the Owl, the full lounge was followed by the "Mission" series "Solarium"-Lounge Bedroom sleeping cars, with their lounge space running wards the front.  Again, the longer coupling on the Lounge, actually is too long for 'close coupling' on this pre-production testbed car.  Ideally, I'd want the coupling distance about 1/32" tighter.  Of course this if for my cars that like to run on 42-48" radius curves.  This gap would be about perfect for down to ~30-36" radius operation.

In Closing

This post has turned into a bit of monster, but I guess that's what happens when I feel I have no material for nearly a month and was sick for several weeks of that time too.

I know everyone wants the new draftgear...

I'm side-stepping the details of the Draftgear prints, because I'm tweaking the design of those parts to make their installation more reliable and consistent that I've seen with these pre-production parts.  So when I get the next round of these parts I'll be making a more detailed installation post on them. 

The windows have had some snags, but I'm hoping to have some new samples of those soon too.  I'll also be getting into repainting the interiors of the cars, choosing car numbers, etc to make my models into.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Golden Gate Depot Harriman 2.0 Review - Out-Of-The-Box - Initial thoughts on the new cars.

OwlMtModels Announces development of Golden Gate Depot "Upgrade" Parts and kits. - From Sept 8, 2026.

GGD "Harriman" V2.0 Upgrades - (Part 2) Beginning Prep Work to Upgrade - Starting to make modifications to GGD V2 cars, as first pre-production OMM parts arrive.

SP Passenger Car Interior Colors - August 1950 Assignments - Data from Bob Zenk's collection and consolidated by Jason Hill for modeling interior of our passenger cars based on SP's own Aug 1950 paint drift cards.

GGD "Harriman" V2.0 Upgrades - (Part 2) Beginning Prep Work to Upgrade

I'm currently waiting for the various new OwlMtModels' GGD Upgrade Parts to arrive, so I'm going to start by working on what I can address on the GGD 77-D-3/4 Diner and Lounge car now, plus a couple comments on the 72-IC-1/2 orientation issue, which is simple to fix.

Stock GGD 77-D-3/4, yes - still with incorrect car number, but I'll get to that...

Lighting Board Swapping Ends

One of the mysteries of the GGD car's designs is 'why did the put the pickup pin "po-go"s in the highly visible dining room end of the car?  For whatever reason... they also decided to put these contacts in the lounge section of the 75-CS Lounge car, and the observation-lounge end of the 72-O-1.  The 72-C-1 doesn't really matter, along with the 72-IC-1/2 'Subs', other than the 'Subs' are actually assembled backwards, but I'll deal with that shortly with some other pictures.

Two new holes need to be drilled in the floor of the kitchen.

Unfortunately one of the holes ends up being right against the corner of the kitchen stoves.  I marked the centerlines of where the hole will be with my calipers.  But I also made a paper template to transfer the locations from one end to the other on the underside of the floor, which has also worked well.

Stock component positions in the GGD car's floor.

Once the four screws are removed that hold down the interior to the underframe, the interior components are exposed.  The two small weights will be replaced if you're planning to upgrade your car with OwlMtModels GGD Upgrade Weight.  For my purposes here, I'll be keeping the stock weights as a place holder so the bronze power strips stay in the right place.

The position of the pickup strips and contact pads after flipping the components to pick up in the kitchen end.

Remove the stock weights, then slipe the pickup strips along the underframe.  This movement will need to go far enough that the strip will clear the pair of retaining slots molded into the floor.  Then once one end is free, slide the strips the other way and remove it from the underframe.  I usually start by moving the strips to free the pickup pads first.  Some light flexing can be done to free the first end, but avoid any sharp bends or kinks to the thin metal strips.

The original guiding channels molded into the underframe of the dining car on the dining end of the car.

The original end where the pads were located have guiding paths cast into the underframe.  The underside of the floor and the top of the underframe do have subtle "F" in the "front end of the car.  It seems that the car designers didn't give any historical preference for which end was "F"... so in most cases I've noticed it, the "F" end was usually operated at the "rear" end of the car in SP's consists.

The capacitor end of the GGD lighting strip.

This is the configuration of the lighting strip after I've turned it around inside the diner's shell.  

The "po-go" end of the GGD lighting strip.

Note that the "Po-go"s are now at the kitchen end of the shell.

I should mention that I've added some chamfers on my new "po-go" holes and as I've not drilled them out to nearly 0.150" diameter, I have to be a bit careful that the "po-go" pins actually do go through the holes in the kitchen floor when I reassemble the car.

Lighting Mods to Lounge

Original position of "Pogo" pickups in the GGD 75-CS Lounge car.

The "Po-go" pickups are visible from many angles, but this provided the best view of both pins.  Let's see if we can do something about that.

New locations of the "Po-Go" pin holes in the interior of the Lounge.

Like on the Diner, I also wanted to reverse the lighting on the 75-CS Lounge car because the "po-go"s came down in the very open end of the lounge's seating area. 

Much less visible.

Yes, this lounge car is having modification to the window sills, I get into that later in this blog post.

I had to ramp up the brightness through the window about 5x to even see the pin in there.

These changes to the Lounge are minimal, but should make the later finishing of the car much nicer not having the "po-go" pins right in the middle of the lounge area.

Lighting Mods to "Sub"

The Subs turn out to have been assembled backwards with the underframe and the body shell.  The fix is quite simple.  Remove the body shell (6 screws), remove the lighting LED strip (3 screws), reverse the LED strip, remount the LED strip (3 screws), reverse shell to underframe, and remount shell (6 screws).

Corrected orientation of GGD 72-IC-1/2 "Sub".

The roof with the vent over the diaphragm should be on the same end as the generator hanging down from the underframe now.

An Experiment - Painting Over Kitchen Windows

Some of the discussion with Alan Houtz, who's been doing some experimenting with the GGD cars had some trouble painting the stock kitchen windows to blank them out, to replicate the way the cars looked typically after about 1940-41, as the SP extended the back-splash of the exterior wall of the kitchen, above the sinks.

Kitchen of SP 10507 or 10513 Hamburger-Grill conversion of the 77-D-4, Bob Zenk collection

Usually the diners until about 1954-55+, had only the three windows towards the doors covered and painted over, so that will be the version I'm going to replicate in my test.

Stock GGD Kitchen Windows removed from the car.

As Alan had warned me that there was problems painting the windows, I decided to lightly sand the panes that I'm going to paint with some 600 grit sanding stick.

I'm applying Tamyia masking tape to the windows I want to keep.

I masked both inside and outside of the windows, so that I could paint both sides to get good light blocking effect.  Lighter painted cars, like the SP Yellow or Daylight painted cars, I'd say that very dark gray or black would be needed for the light-blocking, and then a light colored primer, either white or light gray, before moving on to the car's exterior color is applied.

The first few light coats of StarBrand really did have trouble evenly covering.

As Alan experienced, the interior side of the window strips had a lot of trouble getting even coating of the paint into all the nooks of the windows.

Tamyia Spray of Dark Olive

Exterior of Tamyia sprayed windows.

Between coats I was checking against either my bright shop lights (10k lumens) or against the bright sky when I was outside painting.

Interior of Tamyia sprayed windows.

After two coats, I decided I could put down another pass of SP/UP Dark Olive Green to adjust the color slightly to match the rest of the car.

Masking Removed

Masking removed from interior side, notice windows are upside-down.

Now that the windows are painted, there is enough light block, but I'm also thinking there was some light prisming happening pulling light in from the edges of the windows.  So this is another aspect that I won't have to deal with if I do my permanent kitchen window blanking with solid styrene pieces.

Masking removed from exterior side.

My next chore is putting the windows back into the shell.  I actually found them to be 'loose' so, I've added a couple small drops of Testor's Canopy Cement to the spanning sections of the plastic between the windows to temporary keep the windows in place, but I can easily remove this experiment when I want to do the permanent version.

Completed 'stock' GGD window painted and installed.

While this works, I'm not thrilled with the gaps at the edge of the painted panes and the window frames.  When I fit my more in depth version of this process, I'll have the blanking pieces fit tighter, although slightly offset in depth, probably about 0.005" depressed compared to the frames, but the gaps will be eliminated.

Patching the Wrong Car Number

Another mystery is how the factory that did the lettering got the wrong series of numbers on the Dark Olive Green SP cars.  They put SP 10002 and 10004 on the cars, which are 72-D-3 class, which were very different cars than the 77-D-3/4 class cars, which we have the models of.  So I'm still debating exactly which car number this model will be, I'm planning to paint it with tan walls, which means it's in the "Apricot Scheme".

Over spraying paint, doesn't really hide the 3d aspects of the pad-printing gel-ink.

This is the result if the existing pad-printing is over-sprayed.  The pad-printing is thick enough to still be seen.  Now it's possible that the future decals will draw the attention to their color and away from the uneven surface underneath.

Simply removing all of the lettering and some of the paint too.

However, the better method is to remove the pad-printing first and touch-up the paint.  I used my trusty fiber-glass brush from P-B-L to gently remove the lettering.  It also stripped some of the paint from the rivet heads, so I'll have to patch this area with my airbrush and some StarBrand SP/UP Dark Olive Green, which is out of production now.  Tru-Color's SP Dark Olive will work equally well.

Reporting marks area patched over with new paint.

I masked off the letterboard with some Tamyia tape and airbrushed Star Brand SP/UP Dark Olive onto the area "for now".  It turns out I'll have to do more extensive touch ups before I can put on the new decals for the reporting marks, etc.

Painting the Interior for 77-D-

Aisle-side for my 1st 77-D-3/4 car receiving the 'Apricot Scheme'.

I decided to start this 'rough' interior painting with Tamyia Wooden Deck Tan, which has been one of my 'go to' colors to paint OwlMtModels Lumber Load kits.  Most of my painting was done by 'angle-masking' and I only used actual tape masking around the dining table section of the interior.  Most of the green floor is not going to be visible through the windows.

Kitchen-side of the diner with 'Gloss Aluminum' Tamyia paint in the kitchen.

I originally tried using some Tamyia Gunmetal paint in the kitchen, but I've decided to switch over to the last bits of Gloss Aluminum from my Santa Fe "Shadowlining" projects from earlier this year.

Fixing the Window Sashes

Aisle-side of SP 10112 - Bob Zenk collection

The SP cars which received Air-Conditioning, had nearly non-existent lower window sashes.  Some of the smaller bathroom windows had very subtle ones.  The regular larger windows when rebuilt were basically fixed in place, and possibly had second panes hung from the inside, as on the new streamlined cars typical of the 1937+ cars.

Oversized window sashes on the 77-D-3/4 Diner's Aisle windows.

On my first Dark Olive Green I used a chisel-blade to carefully cut and carve off the over-sized blocks of material.  

After I carefully carved down the lower window sashes.

On the Diner's aisles and dining windows, the modified version, should have a row of rivets.  So sadly, I'm thinking I'll need to lay in a row of Archer Rivets before I touch up the Dark Olive Green paint on these diners.

Small toilet window & Aisle windows did have thin sashes.

I carved down the height of the two small window sashes on the 77-D-3/4.  Taking about 2/3s of the height and then cutting from the bottom.  I may still shallow the relief of these sashes to be shallower off the car's side.

SP Dark Olive Green Diner, Kitchen-side after window modifications

I'll be redoing the kitchen's blanked windows again before I repaint and decal this car to apply the car number.

SP Dark Olive Green Diner, Aisle-side after window modifications

But for now, the car's looking good.  I'm not really looking forward to making these modifications to the Daylight and TTG cars. --- but at this point there's not really any other option that I see on the horizon if the modeler wants to make this improvement.  So I see color matching and patching in my future.

On the Diner, I'll need to put some Archer Rivet strips along under the windows where I've removed the over-sized sashes.  I'll first need to be sure I'm done adjusting that surface before I actually apply the rivet decals.

Faster Method?

Very sharp P-B-L Flush Sprue Cutters.

When I moved to the higher number of areas needing work on the 75-CS Lounge, I pioneered a new method, which is using my flush-cutting Sprue Cutters (from P-B-L) to good effect, only needing minimal cleanup.

SP 2938's more plentiful window targets to modify.

I know I'm deviating from the Dining Car focus of this post, but I want to point out the simpler method to make this window modifications on the cars with more and smaller windows.

The Lounge 75-CS after I made the rough cuts with the flush-cutting sprue cutters.

Sadly on the Lounge cars, there should be NO evidence of these sashes.  The windows by my estimate should actually be a little taller compared to the 'belt' rail of rivets.  So given that there's laser cut windows on the way to fit the stock openings, I'm not going to be modifying the size of these windows on ALL of my 75-CS Lounge cars.

Right side of 75-CS Lounge Car after window mods.

Yes, for those wondering... I looked up in my photos if the "Subs" should or shouldn't have these sashes, they should not.  *sigh*...  So I foresee lots of snipping and patching paint schemes on my IC-72-1/2 and my friend's which I've offered to do the upgrades on.

Left side of 75-CS Lounge Car after window mods.

So for now, here's the progress on the 75-CS Lounge Car.  I have also flipped the lighting bar on this car, so that the "Po-go"s land into the sofa in the Barber's space, which I think will still work better than landing in the middle of the Lounge Space, just outboard of the truck bolster.

Removing Solid Diaphragms

I'm getting slightly ahead of myself by doing this now, but no harm in starting to plan out my next couple of steps.

75-CS Lounge 'blind-end' as I'm removing the diaphragm.

In future posts, I'll be going into my process of installing Hi-Tech Diaphragms to these cars.  For now, don't be surprised if you see some of the models without their 'solid' Golden Gate Models stock Diaphragms anymore.

75-CS Lounge with the solid diaphragm and leaf spring removed.

The process of carefully getting the diaphragms off is a bit tedious, so take your time and get it done without damaging the car end or yourself!

I will point out at this stage that there are four pins holding the diaphragm in place, and the two holding the ends of the leaf spring.  I will be reusing the leaf spring holes and redrilling them, plus adding new holes at the bottom of the door for the lower spring for the Hi-Tech springs.

But we'll get into all of this more next time!

In Closing

In this shop and still looking pretty good, the partly stripped down GGD DOG Diner, waiting for the next round of upgrades.

I think this is more than enough for this week's update on what I'm doing on my GGD fleet.  I'll be making a couple more updates as I work on the various steps to upgrade my cars.

Feel free to comment below, please include your name.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Golden Gate Depot Harriman 2.0 Review - Out-Of-The-Box - Initial thoughts on the new cars.

OwlMtModels Announces development of Golden Gate Depot "Upgrade" Parts and kits. - From Sept 8, 2026.

SP Passenger Car Interior Colors - August 1950 Assignments - Data from Bob Zenk's collection and consolidated by Jason Hill for modeling interior of our passenger cars based on SP's own Aug 1950 paint drift cards.