Upgrading SPMW Pullman Bunk Cars (Part 1) - New Paint & OwlMtModels Decals

It's been at least 20 years since I last worked on my Rivarossi SPMW Pullman cars, and I think it's about time to do some upgrades!  While not as perfectly accurate as the Walthers and Branchline plastic-tooled passenger cars of the early 2000s,  So, they can be had at swap meets and on-line websites second hand.

Starting Point & History

Time to upgrade my SPMW Pullman Bunk Cars!

One nice advantage of using the old Rivarossi cars is that they're not to expensive and they also have the non-air conditioned roofs!  The lack of A/C makes them perfect for modeling these bottom-grade tourist cars, several hundred of the older "Tourist" Pullmans were sold to the SP during 1948 in the lead up to the disposition of the 9000 Pullman cars to the railroads at the end of the year.  This makes since as the court's anti-trust order came in 1945, the railroads and Pullman had been negotiating exactly which cars would be sold off, scrapped, or would be bought for continued service after the Pullman company owned pool was broken up in December 1948.

Several other large batches of Pullman cars which the SP bought in 1948 were retired by the SP in 1953 as they wore out and weren't needed with the LW cars the SP bought in 1949 and 1950 for the Cascade and Sunset Limited.  Then another large group of HW Pullmans were retired from revenue service in 1955-56 after the discontinuance of all the SP's 3rd rank passenger trains at the end of 1954.  Most of SP's premier HW Pullmans didn't last past 1956 in regular service.  The remaining SP HW Pullmans were held, leased, in the new railroad owned Pullman Pool until the 1962-1966 time frame when the US Government finally cut off the requirement to keep a national pool of passenger cars for national emergency military movements.

SPMW System Outfit Consist, circa 1960 Lone Pine  - owensvalleyhistory,com - ebay47_lone pine_sml

While I'm keeping my modeling in the pre-1958 era, this consist certainly could have existed in Freight Car Red scheme before 1958.  So I'm going to do some upgrades to my old Rivarossi Pullman SPMW cars.

My original starting point for these three models were my 25-year-old models using MicroScale decals and minimal research materials, resulting in cars that were only retired in 1954-56.

One of my original SPMW Pullmans from the early 2000s. - Jan 2020 at LMRC, Jason Hill photo.

 

In the last 15 years SPH&TS has printed their series of Passenger Car book, including one dedicated to the SP's Pullman cars, which covers much of the prototype information.  Plus Pulllman Panorama has more information on Pullman series, arrangements, plan numbers, basic dispositions, etc.  And now in 2023, Ken Harrison has released his wonderful SPMW book with many photos.

Unfortunately, my cutoff has been circa 1953 for my fleet since I settled on steam-diesel transition era modeling and even with the Jawbone Branch's cutoff date now being pushed back towards 1954/55, these cars are really pushing the limits of my 'comfort' bracket for modeling.  Also one of the numbers I chose 25+ years ago should have been a 16-Section Tourist Sleeper, so basically totally the wrong basic model.

Repainting

These issues have finally pushed me to redo my SPMW Pullman cars.  

SPMW 4807 before decalling, left side.

The cars that became the 4807 was repainted using a custom mix of StarBrand paint from P-B-L of SP Freight Car Red and I was out of the Light Freight Car Red, so I mixed in some Depot Buff to make the paint look like it's been sun-faded a bit.

SPMW 4807 before decalling, right side.

The car was easy to repaint.  I removed the interiors and roof/window section.  A piece of scrap sheet styrene was used inside the windows to keep paint from wondering around the already painted interior of the cars.

SPMW 4812 before decalling, left side.

The 4812 used a nearly straight mix of StarBrand SP FCR, which is actually quite a bit more saturated.  So I'll just say that this car's been more recently repainted to full FCR colors.

SPMW 4812 before decalling, right side.

The I had already painted the roofs aluminum/silver a number of years ago, so no need to do that again.  I did swap a couple of the roofs around again, to make the two FCR cars come out with aluminum roofs and the car below got the only non-aluminum roof.

They're Green?!

The third car received some special treatment, when I went back through Ken Harrison's SPMW book again, I found several photos of freshly retired Pullman Tourist Car.  These cars didn't receive FCR paint immediately, but instead continued in Pullman Green with patching for SPMW within a couple of months of being sold to the SP in 1948.

Left side SPMW 4866 before decalling.

Because I do generally consider 1946/1948 as the early edge of my modeling, I decided to repaint one of my Pullmans from FCR into this 'original' scheme when these cars came to the SP.  Specifically, I chose the 4866, which was converted in Feb'48 and was still in patched green scheme later that year when photographed.  Ken has a photo of this car in the book, which mostly matches up with the old Rivarossi models I'm using.  The car has single aisle windows, but one minor change is it has four full size windows on the A-end lounge room.  I don't really feel like rebuilding the windows, as I'd have to change the prism glass in the roof.

Right side SPMW 4866 before decalling.

It is hard to tell in the prototype photo if the letterboard was patched with SP Dark Olive Green or maybe black.  I pre-painted the black patch on the side and also the letterboard between the panel joints.  Then masked the lower center panel per the photograph for the reporting marks.  The old Pullman Green was custom mixed from StarBrand SP DOG, with a bit of black to get towards my 'standard' Pullman shade (less "warm" red-brown) and then Depot Buff was added to bleach and pre-weather the green color.  As this green coat is actually going directly over weathered FCR, it creates an interesting reverse-modeled appearance.  The letterboard was then lightly oversprayed with the 'Pullman Green' custom mix, which let much of the pre-shading black come through.  This effect is commonly used by aircraft and armor modelers to create special effects around panels and panel lines.  In this case to creating a color difference around the center letterboard panel, which would have been patched out.

Decalling!

So now the question is who's decals to use?  I've seen MicroScale's offerings, but they really don't give good return for the space of decal paper used.  Too much space is spent on very rare and specialized MW equipment that I don't even plan to own anytime soon, but not enough of the common car types.  I found an answer when Todd Allen Osterburg told me that he was developing several new SPMW decal set, which are now being offered by OwlMtModels and printed by Bill at PDC in Canada.  

SPMW Pullman Conversions - OMM #1224W

The OwlMtModels 1224W & WS set is available at OwlMtModels' new store-front.  Two versions are available; one with solid lettering (W), and the other with 'stencil' bars remaining (WS).  The set is designed to decal up to three cars from the common number series of SPMW's Pullman bunk cars.  Included are "Occupied Outfit Cars" signs which can be fabricated to hang on the end-grabirons and on the switch stands of the track the cars are left on, effectively 'blue-flagging' the cars so they aren't coupled to.  Often these standing outfits when set up for 'camp' mode would not be moveible without some amount of work to stow and clear away the various stairs, ladders, water, electrical, etc connections to the ground. 

Examples of OMM's stencil reporting marks, and warning signage from OMM #1225WS set on B-50-2 Ready Boxcar.

OwlMtModels is also offering decal set #1225 SPMW Boxcars, which covers many assignments for B-50-8/10/11/12/13/14/15/16 classes. and #1218 for SPMW Supply Boxcars.

SPMW 4807

SPMW 4807 Decalled Left Side

The 4807 was lettered with 'typical' arrangement for reporting mark placement, and I chose to add the Danger/Peligro warnings, which tended to move almost anywhere along the lower car side.  The left side still needs a "LT WT" stencil applied to the left of the weight 152000 stencil. - Just noticed that I missed that when I took these photos.

SPMW 4807 Decalled Right Side

The SPMW 4807 still has some kludged roof vents, which I'll probably be removing.  The 4807 actually did have a T-smokejack which was closer to the center of the car, in the corner of the main 12-section part of the car.

Vents clipped off, sanded, and 'patched' with light gray GellyRoll gel-pen.

I went ahead and removed the extra centerline roof vents.  I used a sanding pad to roughly clean off the scars in the roof, but that of course exposed black colored original roof. 

I'll be doing some tricks to hide that.  I decided to try using the same Gel-Pens that I used for chalk marks to roughly get the same color on the roof, then I'll do some more roof weathering blending.  Might be interesting to draw in more of the roof panel lines on the un-detailed roofs.

SPMW 4812

SPMW 4812 Decalled Left Side

The SPMW 4812 is more 'typical' of the most retired Pullmans in Ken's book before the late 1958s when propane tanks for cooking and heating were cut into the side of the car.  Cars with these modifications are certainly interest, requiring ladder/stairs and doors, etc.  Many of the cars in the book also show swamp coolers and even fuel-oil tanks installed in vestibules with the doors sometimes removed.

SPMW 4812 Decalled Right Side

But these cars are pretty much done now.  I'll probably do a bit of weathering to slightly knock down the brightness of the white decals.

SPMW 4866 - "The Green One"

Left side of finished SPMW 4866 with patched reporting marks.

One interesting small detail is that the prototype 4866 had a non-standard stenciling applied to the car in the prototype photograph.  It had periods on the "M.W." which all other cars I've seen photos of didn't have.  I used the 0.5mm White Gel-Pen that I covered using for Chalk Marks last month's blog.

Right side of finished SPMW 4866 with patched reporting marks.

The under body of 4866 is still showing mostly FCR color for now.  I'll probably weather it darker as it would have had coming from old Pullman scheme.

Other Modifications

I am planning to make a couple more changes to these cars, as Ken's book has shown more of what these non-air conditioned Pullman Tourist cars looked like in SPMW service.  One of the big features about these 1948 conversions is that they do not have roof ducts.  Therefore they also shouldn't have the A/C equipment under the floor.

The Rivarossi models come with three battery boxes on one side, and another on the other side.  The prototype photo of 4866 shows the car does have the large water tank and the short-fat air tank, but nothing else hanging under that side of the car.  I'll probably cover cutting these boxes off in Part 2, which shouldn't be too hard with a razor-saw.

I will also say that these cars had some modifications from 25 years ago, including cutting down the fixed 'diaphragms' and not fitting any new diaphragm (which is correct for most MW cars), body mounting KD couplers on closer couplings, and rebuilding the bolsters to lower the car to more correct heights.

Thoughts of Post-1958 Outfit

SPMW System Outfit Consist, circa 1960 Lone Pine  - owensvalleyhistory,com - ebay47_lone pine_sml

Maybe I'll find another body, and do a post-1958 gray with black lettering version, just to do it for OwlMt to show what they'd look like.  I have this great photo of a gray SPMW Outfit at Lone Pine, which probably was stationed there as they scrapped the track back from the end of the branch at Owenyo in 1960, from the owens valley history website.  This consist has three of these older ex-Pullman 12-1 bunk cars without A/C.

In Closing

I'm going to wrap up this post at this point.  Just to point out, I only used the one set of OMM 1224W for these three cars.  Some creative cutting was used to get '80' and '81' and '72' to get the digits for the '07' and '12' number jumble to work out nicely.  '44's were cut up to provide the leading '4's for the '48' series cars.  Extra hundred series numbers pairs of '44' and '55' are provided for the 4400 and 5500-series cars.  We'll probably change future prints to have an extra 48 or two to help if you focus on these cars.

Completed SPMW 4866 with end-reporting marks too.

Edit, 2023 Nov: After talking with Ken Harrison at the Bakersfield Convention about the patch on the letterboard, I'll probably be patching that section again to full black, as we decided that both patches would have been done at the same time when the SP bought them and struck out the Pullman lettering.

So I'll come back and do a Part 2 with any last touch-ups I do on these cars.  Perhaps, I'll do it on the gray scheme with black lettering...  At some point in the future, if I want to add lighting to these 'camp cars' so that I could do cool night-scenes on the Jawbone Branch, I may refit these cars with Walthers metal trucks as on SP 5199 (Part 1 & Part 7).

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Chalk Marks - A newer blog on using GellyRoll pens for chalk marks by clerks and carmen on freight cars.

SP 5199 (Part 1 - My build-blog on a 69-BP-30-1 from Southern Car & Foundry.

Freight Car Overview Index - A list of my modeling blogs on various SP & Multiple RR's cars, including many SPMW cars.

Owens Valley History - Website with hundreds of photos of Owens Valley and the Jawbone Branch, which I'm modeling.

Mt Nebo (Part1) 10-Section-Obs-Lounge

Don't overlook that "old" or "cheap" passenger car model!

That's the lesson I learned from building the Mt. Nebo.

Pullman's Mt. Nebo, right side, as completed before lighting

Pullman's Mt. Nebo, left side, as completed before lighting.

About two years ago a friend sent me a photo of a model he was looking at in a hobby shop.  I pretty quickly identified the model as a 10-Section Observation Lounge, which I'd been keeping an eye out for modeling the Owl and West Coast, as well as the SP 120, San Joaquin business car.  After confirming that the La Mesa Model Railroad Club would have use for such a car, he bought it and sent it to me to be upgraded to club mechanical and detailing standards.

New in-box of what the Mt.Nebo started life as

It turns out the model was a late production old metal Walthers passenger car kit.  These models had stamped metal sides, wood floor and underbody details, and the late production models had an injection molded roof.

Parts in-box, notice the stamped metal sides.

I didn't get any good photos of the car before I started working on it.  Recently another old metal 10-Section-Observation Walthers kit has come into my possession, so I am including the photos of it here to show what the construction of the Mt. Nebo looks like if I'd been the one to build it up from the kit.

Here's the parts spread out for what will become the 10-Section Observation "Mt.Breckenridge".

This new kit that I have, I plan to eventually build into a model of the "Mt. Breckenridge", which was a historically accurate 10-Section-Lounge-Obs used on the Owl when it derailed at Lerdo in 1947 (Link to my Modeling the Owl - Part1).

Repainting and Researching the Mt. Nebo

The built-up model was painted in Pennsy Tuscan with Pullman lettering.  The paint wasn't holding up too well and the decaling work wasn't anything to write home about.  So the car was obviously going to need to get a new coat of paint before being put back into service.

I did some poking around and already knew that the La Mesa Club could use a 10-Section Lounge Observation car.  The Superintendent of the San Joaquin Division had his car, the San Joaquin (SP 120), kept in the Pullman Shed at Bakersfield.  The SP 120 was converted from a 10-Section Lounge Observation, however further research showed that the SP 120 was heavily modified and would be a major project to convert this stamped metal sided model to represent.

A bit of research into the cars retained by the Pullman Pool after 1948, showed that the prototype series of 10-Section Observations (Plan 3521) were of some interest.  Many of the cars in this lot were never sold off, and stayed in the Pullman Pool until the early 1960s.  I like choosing long lived prototypes, so that if someone wanted to run a late 1950s train, it would still be plausible that the car could still be around in the earlier Green scheme.  Many extra Pool cars were kept in Government storage until they're release from the Pool and sold for scrap in the 1960s.  One car name in the Mount-series stuck out to me in particular, the "Mt.Nebo".

The Mt. Nebo was a Plan 3521A 10-Sections and Lounge Observation built in Lot 4998 of 30 cars in November and December 1926.  The Mt. Nebo specifically was retained by the Pullman Pool in 1948, and was sold for scrap in June 1961.  One advantage of staying with a Pullman Pool car is that in modeling the car in the 1948-1954 era the we can use the car for a Korean War troop train (MAIN Train) on either ATSF or SP, extra passenger service on either the SP or the ATSF, or we could use the car for a 1947 Owl consist.

I also had another reason to choose this car name, the La Mesa Club's original layout was built in La Mesa California a building called Nebo Hall, I decided it would be a good name for the rebuilt car.

Work on the body of the car was started by repainting it with a mix of SP Dark Olive Green and Engine Black paint by StarBrand.  This mix is a close match to Pullman's Green, which is not the same as SP's color.  The "Mt. Nebo" was decaled with pieces from the various other car names in the UP Tourist Pullman decal set (87-????) from Microscale.  I used the same set's "PULLMAN" for the letterboard.  While the set has car names and Tourist Car numbers for cars that were historically run or assigned to the UP, the set is really good for making 6-8 HW tourist sleepers for troop trains and other trains needing Tourist Cars.

Mt Nebo after repainting and with A/C ducts installed. - Notice the old Pullman 1910-trucks under the car.

Starting at the Top

Work on the roof of the "Mt. Nebo" started with taking it off.  The roof is held on by a very long screw (about 4-40 thread) through from the bottom center of the underframe.

Unmodified roof from the kit that will become the "Mt.Breckenridge"

The roof was of the clerestory type and did not include A/C ducting, which most cars of this type had after the mid-1930s.  New England Rail Service A/C ducks would be fitted and the roof painted a custom mix of my "off-black" which has a bit of gray to represent sun light faded roof paint.

Mt Nebo with the roof off showing window glazing being installed.

By this photo I had already reinstalled the glazing after the car was repainted.  At first I was a bit concerned that the stamped metal sides wouldn't hold up against scrutiny with higher level brass and injection molded HW passenger cars.  Most of those concerns were unfounded after the car was repainted in Pullman Green there's not much light that will actually bounce off the details of even the nicest models.  The challenge of gluing the glazing in with canopy cement will probably be better on the future kits like this that I build up from kit form.  I plan to include a interior superstructure of styrene inside the metal sides to which the glazing can be mounted.

Underframe and Mechanicals

For a time I thought about completely rebuilding the underframe of the car with my standard plastic version, however the original builder of the car did a VERY good job attaching the stamped metal parts to the wooden core.  Even after 30-40 years it was still holding strong.  The car sides near the front vestibule were slanted in slightly, but this wasn't worth trying to fix, and the stampings did flex somewhat.

Original trucks removed and new centersill and bolster for use with modern Walthers Trucks installed.

The original metal trucks that do not meet the LMRC's mechanical standards were removed and a new section of centersill was fabricated from strip styrene to mount the Walthers Pullman 242 trucks.  The old coupler boxes which were mounted too far out for use with the new diaphragms were also removed to be remounted.  The original floor was kept and for the moment the wooden underbody details are also retained.

Forward end of the Mt.Nebo's underframe rebuild mostly done.

Completed rear end of the Mt.Nebo's underframe rebuild, ready for installation of the trucks.

The bolster screw locations were worked backwards off the size of the trucks and the offset mounting holes that I drilled in them to clear the vestibule steps and underbody detailing.

The car weight is plenty with the wood and metal construction and the additional interior and Walthers 242 metal trucks that will be installed.

I did my usual rebuild on the Walthers trucks to get them to roll really well and also regauge the wheelsets slightly wider in gauge.

Here's the Walthers 242 Trucks completely disassembled and ready for upgrading.

The axle bearings in the sideframes are usually painted over by Walthers and are also a bit too narrow on gauge, especially when I regauge the wheelsets, which makes the tip-to-tip of the axles about 0.015" longer than stock.  Usually I need to ream about 0.010" out of each sideframe to get the wheelsets to roll properly in the trucks (and much better I will add).

Reamed bearings in sideframes ready to be reassembly

Even if the bearings don't need to be made wider, I usually would take a pass on them on metal trucks to make sure there isn't anything in the end of the bearing or paint on the pickup surfaces of the bearings.

I almost **Never** have to do this work on plastic trucks of freight equipment, because the engineering plastic truck sideframes with metal wheelsets is an ideal bearing already.  Only ream engineering plastic truck bearings if there is flashing inside the bearing from the injection molding process, and then keep it to a minimum.

Center marking and drilling new bolster hole for 2-56 screw.

With the trucks reassembled, I can now mark the new bolster screw location on the truck for a 2-56 machine screw.  The trucks are painted with the same mix of "off-black" that I use for the roof and underframe, this includes the wheel faces.  The painting is then followed up with a small Q-tip dipped in thinner to remove the paint from the treads and flanges of the wheels.

Note: Many manufacturers don't clean the cutting oils from their wheelsets any more.  This "dirty" oil doesn't help the pickup of the models or the layout on which they are run.  Make sure to clean the wheels of your new cars before running them!  This can be as simple as dropping the wheelsets out and washing them in dish soap for 10 minutes or running them through an ultrasonic cleaner before painting.

Interior

The interior sheet styrene floor marked for the various partitions and 

The majority of the work on the "Mt. Nebo" was spent on the interior and rebuilding the truck and coupler mountings on the wooden underframe.  The interior is made on a sheet of 0.015" styrene from Evergreen.  The lounge seats are Palace Car Co. and partitions, mirrors, and men and woman's salon/lounge were salvaged parts from an Athearn-Genesis 77-C-3 that unfortunately melted in a car for about 2 days in the heat.

The melted Athearn-Genesis 77-C-3 frame and interior next to the new scratch built Mt.Nebo interior

Looks like the Athearn bathrooms and men's and woman's lounges will transplant nicely!

I decided to salvage as much of the wrecked 77-C-3 interior as I could.  The men's lounge walls were pretty badly warped and as the 10-Section-Obs car's men's lounge was a bit smaller and different configuration, I decided to scratch build those walls.

Some of the salvaged parts from the Athearn car.

I started on the new interior with the forward vestibule wall and womans toilet. The sinks, walls, chairs, and curtain from the woman's lounge that I removed from the 77-C-3 frame were going to be reused on the new car.

Woman's lounge and toilet, the vestibule wall is to the left, and the 10-sections to the right.

I fabricated sheet styrene walls for the sections that the salvaged walls wouldn't work for.  Marks on the floor of the interior showed where the walls were to be glued.

3M Scotch Tape used for the etched glazing on the toilet windows.

I didn't bother with installing the toilets because the windows to those rooms would be covered with 3M "foggy" Scotch Tape and not be visible anyway.

Women's Lounge and forward isleway complete with fabricated walls.

I then moved to the men's lounge and toilet area of the interior.  One section of the wall I was able to salvage had a nice little radius section to it, so I reused it.  I also shortened the wall section as shown in the photo below.

Starting the men's bathroom section.  The main Observation Lounge is to the right in this photo.

Here's the completed men's restroom-lounge

The sofa from the Athearn car's men's restroom was also reused and a new rear wall was fabricated to adjoin the main lounge area.

In this view the partitions are all in place, but the seats have not been installed.

I had a set of 30 Lounge Seats from Palace Car Co. #5004-30 which I picked up several years ago.  I've been using them on various projects over the years.  The Mt. Nebo floor plans call for 12 Lounge Seats in the Observation section of the car.

Lounge seats from Palace Car Co. - Only 12 needed in this project.

In this view not much is left from the 77-C-3 salvaged car, what remains will go to a deluxe chair car someday.

I flipped through some of my reference materials of what HW Observation Lounges looked like and settled on Sea Foam (light green) for the interior walls of the bathrooms and isle ways, tan for the sleeping section of the car, and in the lounge a deep red with brown, gray, and seafoam green lounge seats.  I painted the walls of the Observation section a light tan color as well.

Here's the completed main lounge area, with writing desk and stationary.

Just before painting the interior I read the note that stated that the partitions in the lounge were not full height and cross checking some other photos showed that the walls stopped just above the backs of the lounge chairs.  Correspondingly I cut down the partitions and prepped the interior for paint.

Window Treatment

At the time I didn't have any extra section seats in the middle of the car, so lowered the window shades to hide that fact.  Also with open sections, the screw holding the roof on would be completely exposed with no good way to hide that.

Window Shades for the sleeping sections marked and ready to be cut out.

A ruler and pencil is used to lay out the size and heights for the window shades.  I usually then use a metal rule and No.11 Xacto blade to cut out the shapes.  I try to keep the pencil lines on the inside of the car to keep from being visible on the exterior of the car.

Windows in the sleeping sections installed with Tamiya Painting Tape

The window shades are made from manila file folder stock cut into approprate sized pieces and taped in place with Tamiya brand masking tape.  The lighting I install is pretty dim compared to many HO Scale lighting kits.  I find that the use of the thicker file folder material is enough to absorb most of the light when the car is lit, so that even the light colored shades will not be translucent.

Window shades in place - Left Side

Window Shades in place - Right Side

The final window treatment is fabricating the two sections of safety bars that keep people from being slammed into the windows along the isle ways of the car while traveling on rough track.

Safety bars installed on the isle way windows.

I bent some 0.015 phosphor-bronze wire for the safety handrails that were standard appliance on all isle way windows in passenger cars.  The railing was glued in place with Testors Canopy Cement.

Detailed view of the finished parts on the Mt. Nebo, including the Walthers Pullman 242 Trucks installed.

Diaphragms

The Mt. Nebo is almost done at this point, but the car needs to have a diaphragm installed on the front end of the car.  My standard now is made by Hi-Tech Details.  As I have a couple of HW observations to finish, I am not worried about "breaking up a set" of diaphragms and only using one.

Hi-Tech Details #9003, used for the Mt Nebo's front diaphragm.

I have covered the use of these kits in the past on several other car builds, I'll show a few photos I took of the installation on the Mt. Nebo here.

Here's the coupler and the front end of the Mt Nebo after the old paper Walthers Diaphragm was removed.

Hi-Tech Diaphragm about to be installed

After the Diaphram's installed, I then marked the crosslines for the center for the coupler box.

Mounting the coupler after the diaphragm installation is better because then I can mount it at exactly the right position compared to the diaphragm striker plate.

Here is the Diaphragm and couplere installed on the front end of the Mt. Nebo.

Conclusion of Part 1

That pretty much covered the major rebuilding of the Mt. Nebo and preparing it for service.  I will cover lighting of the car, marker lights, and possibly adding more details to the underframe in Mt. Nebo (Part 2).

Right Side of completed Mt.Nebo

Left Side of completed Mt.Nebo

Mt. Nebo sitting in the Pullman Shed at Bakersfield, California Dec 24th, 1952.

Jason Hill

Links to other related pages:
Mt. Nebo (Part 2) - Lighting
Kitbashing SP 6102 from MDC/Athearn Parts (also rehabbing a 18 year old model).
Modeling Index for HW Pullman Cars
Kitbashing Pullman 16-Section Tourist Sleeper 4242
Modeling Indec for HW SP Cars