Building SP 5199 (Part 5)

In the last post of Building SP 5199 (Part 4) I roughed in the couplers, this time we finish the mechanicals and the outside of the car's paint.

Right side of SP 5199 in the afternoon sun

Couplers and Low Riding Cars

Checking the car against the Kadee Coupler Height Gauge, it shows the car sitting about 0.025" high. I temporarily made some 0.015" shims of sheet styrene to lower the coupler boxes.  I usually don't like to use more than one shim, as it makes the car ride too high.   I did a bit more investigating around the underframe.  As I suspected earlier the plumbing running under the bolsters is fouling the trucks.

I cut away the plumbing above the trucks.  This keeps the details under the main body, but again like the detail parts of the bolsters, it clears up the space above the trucks.  I cleared a bit of extra material from the edges of the center sill flanges to clear the arc of the truck swing with my Dremal burr tool.  The truck bolsters are still too high, I shave them down with the Dremal as well.about 0.020".  Checking the ride height every so often against the Kadee gauge.  I kept the 0.015" Kadee shims.  The shim will provide a good bearing and also will allow the truck to track over vertical curves.

With these modifications the car now rides at the correct height.

Overcoating

SP 5199 with decals overcoated and flat finish applied - Windows still masked.

During the finial building steps after the decalling, there were some chips on the painted grab irons and stirups.  The modifications for the ride height also caused the underframe to have many rub marks and was much in need of touchup.

The interior was painted at this step as well.  I didn't have the exact color match to the US Mail's standard cream color for the mail apartment, so instead I used Tamiya Wooden Deck Tan.

Touch up work around the grab irons was done with StarBrand Dark Olive Green and I repainted the underframe again with my off-black mix.  I wanted to touch up the inside of the side sheets as well.  I put the underframe back into the body.  Using a piece of plastic card-stock to mask off the finished outer car sides I shot the black mix around the inside of the car side.  Taking the floor out again, I did some additional touch ups where the frame details masked the touchup work.

Flat Finished undrframe of SP 5199, the axle-belt electric generator will be installed later.

I also painted the trucks and wheels with the black mix.  The StarBrand paint leaves a glossy finish, so I over spray the underframe and trucks.  The Flat Finish really leaves a dead flat finish, which is not what we want for the car sides.

Many SP headend cars did weather quite heavily and would look pretty flat, this RPO was most likely repainted in late 1947 or 1948.  The car's paint then would only be 4 or 5 years old.  The car was repainted in 1954 or 1955 into TTG.  I don't want the car to look totally decrepit so.  I used Testors Wet Clear to overcoat the car sides and seal the decals.



The Wet Clear is super glossy, which is a bit more glossy that would look appropriate.  The car is basically pre-weathered by using the off-black color for the underframe and roof.  To blend the finish of the car together I dust on the flat finish to the carside by bouncing it off the spray table.  I wanted to make the car look like it's faded and flat from the road dust.  The flat finish comes about half way up the bottom side sheets of the car and then fades out as it goes up the car side back to the high gloss.



After each of the rounds of touch up and over spraying I left the car to "gas off" in the warm summer heat for a day or so.  I did check in on it every hour or two, making sure the parts were not getting too hot.  The StarBrand paint is a lacquer and doesn't need to be "baked" like enamel paints, however I do like to be sure the paint has finished nice and hard before putting down any more paint.

The Unmasking

Windows demasked looking into the RPO section from the right

With the body off I carefully started removing the masking from the pre-laser cut windows.  With the heat from the car being out in the sun drying, I think the masking also baked on too!  It was harder to get off than I remember from doing the windows on the SP 5124.  It took the better part of an hour to do.  Being VERY careful not to scratch or cut through the masking onto the clear window glass.

One window popped out during this process.  I removed its masking and then remounted it with Testors Canopy Cement from the inside with the window in place.

What's Left on the Outside

The car still needs to have the door windows mounted.  The diaphragms are also riding a bit low on the couplers.  The baggage-end coupler is sometimes fouled and will not center by the striker.  I will be fixing this issue with a small wire spring to tease the striker up toward the top of the free-play in the diaphragm, but I'll leave that for next time.

Interior Progress - CAD and 3D Printing to the Rescue?

The interior's the next major project on the car.  If interior lighting is not going to be mounted, then this portion of work really wouldn't be seen.  However as I plan to put lighting in the car, that pushes the issue of scratch building all the bag racks and letter cases for an RPO, which is a daunting task.

Current status of car's interior

I'm not really an advocate of doing **EVERYTHING** with 3D printing.  While there are amazing models being made with it, often there's a LOT of clean-up work to do.  Sheet styrene can make thinner parts and we're sure of the long term stability of styrene and ABS plastics.  I do believe there are certain times that a one-off 3D print will really make a project shine, I feel this will be one of those times.



I spent about 2-3 hours drawing up the car body and floor in quite a bit of detail.  This is critical to making following parts fit correctly.  I even modeled the styrene blocks I used to mount the body to the floor.



Pouring over the standard RPO drawings, photos of the interiors, and the video linked in my RPO page on this blog I was able to work out what the interior of a 30ft RPO Apartment should look like when it's working.  Rivarossi has made interiors for their RPO cars, however they worked only off the drawings and didn't read the fine print that says that both sides of the car had "Bag Racks" and both sides also had "Paper Boxes" along the windows.  The Bag Racks folded down off the interior wall where the windows are and the Paper Boxes were bins over the windows with a door to dump the contents of the bin into a bag suspended from hooks at the bottom of the bin when dumping the bin.  The interior of RPO cars were truly an amazing exercise in practicality and form matching function.

Additional bags and modular sorting tables could be set up on center floor stanchions to work the Bag Racks, Paper Box bins.  The center stanchions were cut 8" shorter so there was room at the letter case at the car-center end of the apartment.

In the Baggage section I drafted up the desk, stove, enclosed toilet partitions, water cooler, safe, and electric locker.  The baggage door windows and the one center-car window will be the only way to view these, so again, it doesn't have to be too fancy.

The drawings are based on plans for SP 5164 & SP 5166, but it's the only 69-BP-30 floor plans shown in the SP Passenger Cars vol.3: Head End Equipment book, so you work with what you have.  Also as mentioned in the RPO video, each route could have different setups for the sorting table, etc.  While it would be esoterically cool to be able to look up what the proper setup for the Tehachapi Mail (Nos.55 & 56) or the Owl (Nos. 57 & 58) RPO would be in 1952, I'm not going to loose any sleep over it!

I didn't bother drafting the storage mail stanchions or the RPO door dividers, those will be either made from scratch or omitted if they can't be seen from outside the car.  I do want at least something resembling the letter case as viewers might be able to see into that part of the car with the interior lighting.

Dropping the Mail

Where we're leaving it now - Left Side

Where we're leaving it now - Right Side

That covers it for Part 5.  Building SP 5199 (Part 6) will be coming along when the 3d printed interior parts arrive, probably about a month or so.  I'm sure some of you are probably ready to go "Postal" with all these posts about RPOs...  I hope to work on some other blog projects for the next few postings.

Jason Hill

Related Articles

SP 5199 Part 1

SP 5199 Part 2

SP 5199 Part 3

SP 5199 Part 4

SP 5199 Part 5

SP 5199 Part 6

SP 5199 Part 7

SP 5124, Modeling San Joaquin Daylight RPO (Part 1)

SP 5069, Modeling San Joaquin Daylight RPO (Part 2)

Modeling SP HW Passenger Car Index Page

Building SP 5199 (Part4)

In the previous posting, Building SP 5199 Part 3, I put down the final coat of Dark Olive Green paint and decalled the car.



Today we will cover installing the Hi-Tech Diaphragms (Western Short in this case) and installing the couplers at the right spacing for close coupling.  These two steps are highly critical to the operations of a passenger car, primarily to ensure there is no fouling of the diaphragm or binding which often cause derailments.

Diaphragms

Left-to-Right: Striker (etching), Plastic Strikers (right one with installed bellows), Bellows sprue, rubber leaf springs, etc.

Diaphragms are fitted to any passenger car in which persons must cross between while the train is in motion.  They have bellows on each side made out of rubber or heavy canvas.  A Striker plate which is designed to rub against the striker plate of adjoining cars or engine Buffer Striker.  The striker plates are sprung with leaf springs top and bottom.  Some diaphragms are also fitted with anti-rattle bars which apply spring force to the left and right edges of the diaphragm to ensure the striker doesn't pivot left and right and risk opening up a gap between the strikers, which would highly dangerous.  Often the diaphragms between two coupled cars are made safer by connecting across rubber aprons from the door frame of one car to the door frame of the other car to ensure no fingers or hands are caught in the press of the two strikers plates.

Hi-Tech's diaphragms are very nicely rendered in multiple materials.   On this car I'm using the Western Short type diaphragm kit.  Hi-Tech also offers a Common Standard profile as well.  The kit includes plastic inner striker plate, and bellows to mount to the car end and another set to mount to the striker plate.  There are rubber leaf springs.  Once the springs are glued they don't allow the striker to fall off the car.  There is also a pair of stainless steel etchings for the actual striker faces.

Partly assembled Hi-Tech Diaphragm kit.  Notice broken section at lower right.

I've installed at least a dozen of these diaphragms so far.  The particular set I pulled out for this car had some breakage on one section of the bellows.  This isn't a real problem as the break happened on a piece that will be glued together and will be plenty strong when complete... Just don't loose the parts until then!

Prior Prep Work

On my SP 5124 and SP 5069 builds I found that it's ideal on Southern Car & Foundry passenger cars to have extra clearance for the inner bellows of the Hi-Tech Diaphragms for more retraction of the bellows into the car-end while negotiating curves.  I start these modifications by marking out the area to remove with Dremal motor tool with a burr-type bit.  Burr cutters are ideal for this as they have multiple cutting knobbs and will always keep several cutting edges in contact with the work, reducing chatter.  Normal fluted endmills, even 4-fluted ones tend to chatter too much for free-handed cutting.

ALWAYS BE CAREFUL using any type of motor tool for cutting.  I always rest my forearms, palms, etc against solid objects during this operation to keep the work and motor tool steady..



Double Check that the area to remove will be enough for the "outer bellow" to still fit.



Rough milled end of car.  Some cleanup with a file and No.11 Xacto blade follows.



Small amount of filing at the top of the car end to flatten it so the bellows will fit flat and properly.  Testors Canopy Cement is used to glue the outer bellow onto the end of the body.

Assembling the Strikers

The I start by removing the diaphragm bellows from their sprues.  There are two parts; one which is a thinner part with a flat back, this mounts to the plastic striker.  The other is a full form of one scallop of folded canvas.  This glues onto the thinner part to form one-and-a-half folds of bellows on the striker part of the diaphragm assembly.  This assembly telescopes into the bellow half that is mounted to the car end.

Because of the broken thinner bellow part, I mounted it to the striker first.  Then I glued the broken fragment in place with liquid plastic glue.  Once this is done, the fracture can't be seen.  The full bellow piece is then glued on top of the thinner one.  There is a front and a back to this part.  Make sure that it sits properly into the thinner part before gluing.

 

There's some glossiness from the liquid glue on the back of the striker.  This will all be covered with paint later so it doesn't matter.  Notice there are two small nubs at the bottom of the plastic striker.  These are to mount the anti-rattle bars, if used.  Most of SP's older Harriman/Arch-Roof HW cars didn't have the anti-rattle bars.  A few of the diners and lounges upgraded in the late 1930s seemed to have been fitted, but it was a car-by-car basis.

The Etched Striker Plate is glued to the outer face of the plastic Striker with ACC glue.  I "painted" the etching once installed with Sharpe markers.  I generally use black (grease) and brown (rust) colored markers.  Sometimes I'll do a little bit of paint as well, but whatever you do, Don't make the striker sticky.  They must slide effortlessly on one another while going around curves, etc.  The Sharpe will tend to rub off if there's any serious contact or scraping.  Which actually looks realistic as there would be some bare metal parts of the diaphragm strikers where the friction rubbed off the rust and grease.

I trimmed a small amount, about 0.015", off the bottom of the striker bellows to ensure that they will easily fit into the car end bellow.

Mounting the Strikers

The rubber leaf springs hold the striker to the car body.  There are two ways I do this.  The Hi-Tech recommended way is to drill holes for the "legs" of the leaf springs to be mounted into the car body.  On car bodies that I can easily drill into this works.  On brass car bodies, I prefer to cut off the "legs" and ACC the rubber leaf springs directly to the car end.  Since this is a resin car body, I drilled No.61 holes at the top and bottom of the car end bellows.  I've found that I like to go slightly narrower with these holes than the instructions state.  Making them narrower will force the leaf springs out farther from the car end.  This is good on the models because it will keep the bellows from "going solid" against the end of the car body.  This is why I milled out the inner profile of the bellows on the car end several steps previously.  Also this extra space gives the diaphragms extra movement for tighter curves etc.

The upper holes are drilled just below the eave-line of the roof.  On some models there's no option but to make a pad higher on the roof line and mount the upper leaf springs higher.  The bottom holes are drilled about half way between the bottom of the car-end bellow and the bottom of the end sheet.

I always mount the diaphragms before the couplers so I can adjust the coupled length to the actual diaphragm length.

The leaf springs have a small tab which is designed to fit into the square hole in the back of the plastic striker.  Usually I ACC glue the leaf spring to the striker.  On this car with the legs still on the leaf springs, I reversed this and mounted the leaf springs to the car end first.  The trick is always mounting the second side, whichever way you have started.  I put a small drop of ACC glue on the tab and then carefully pressed it into the hole on the striker.  This is a bit trick, as it has to be done accurately the first time.

One slight problem was that when the upper leaf spring was glued it, it took a downward set.  This will cause it to sag down against the coupler.  I plan to fit a piece of phosphor-bronze wire as a spring to keep the diaphragm pulled up.

Shaking Hands... Coupler

The ideal place for the couplers to be mounted is with the inside pulling face of the knuckle fingers should be even with the face of the striker or slightly proud of it.  I do this by assembling a coupler in it's box and measuring the spacing from the center of the coupler screw mounting hole to the inside face of the coupler knuckle.

I trimmed back the centersill members and filed the remains down flat with the frame.  I don't glue the box on at this point, I expect that I will need to change the ride height of the car and the coupler still.



As seen in this photo above, the inside face of the knuckle is even with the face of the striker.  Perhaps 0.005-0.010" proud of the striker, this will allow a slight gap between the diaphragms.  Some cars will be even or slightly tight.  Keeping it slightly proud will also help when attempting to uncouple a pair of cars without a stick to pull the magnetic pin to the side.

Also per LMRC standards I rotate the uncoupling pin off about 15-20 degrees further to the side.  This will allow the car to couple to engines with pilots without fouling and causing uncouplings.

Starting the Interior & Weighing the Car

I cut a section of sheet plastic for the bulkhead between the RPO apartment and the baggage sections of the car.  I measured the distance between the two side walls as far up in the body as I could with my calipers.  Then scribe transferred this measurement to the sheet styrene with the calipers.  Next I measured up to the first step where the body narrows behind the letterboard.  I roughed out the roof contour and cut the marked bulkhead from the sheet plastic.

Bulkheads placed temporarily in the interior of the car.

Weight becomes an issue now that I'm working on the interior.  I measured the width of the floor, coming up with a width of 1.125".  Weighing the car on a postal scale at 3.4 oz., the car would need to weigh about 7 to 7.25 oz.  A quick check of brass bodied cars of equal length show at least 9 oz.  This means I need to add between 3.5 and 4 oz of lead to the car.

Styrene pads for mounting the body, can't let the weights foul these.

The weight was cut to length to provide the desired weight.  I then cut the weight in half.  It is desirable to have the weight as low as possible in the car and also over the trucks.  On some of my baggage cars I have the weight concentrated down the center floor.  However this car I plan to do more interior than most baggage cars, so I'm staying with the sheet lead and keeping it away from the various body mounting screws and pads.

Weights and RTV Silicon for mounting.

I mounted the weight halves with RTV Silicon.  Note the blue lines to keep the weight from getting too close to the coupler body securing pads.

RTV Silicon used to mount the car weights.

This is what the weights look like installed.

Weights glued in and drying.

I wanted to make the interior removable for painting and detailing.  There will also be lighting to install.  Remembering that I had glued pads into the ends and mid-sides of the body shell, I need to keep those spots clear of the extra thickness of the weights and interior parts.

Interior and weights coming together. - The holes for the screws to hold the body on are visible in the 0.015" interior floor

The interior will have the various details yet to install.  The small gusset strip styrene support the bulkhead and will form the base for the letter sorting case.

The notch in the top of the bulkhead is for the lighting installation

The preparation for the lighting has started already with the notch in the top of the bulkhead, it will be installed to have some light in both sections of the car.

Almost There...

Right side in sunlight at this point in the build.

Left side in sunlight at this point in the build.

At this point, the car's nearly done.  I could finish up the couplers, put on the glosscote and install the windows in the doors and call the car done.  However, there's still the interior detailing and the lighting that I want to finish.  In my next post in the Building SP 5199 (Part 5), I will get into the interior, lighting, and working out the coupler heights.

Jason Hill

Related Articles

SP 5199 Part 1

SP 5199 Part 2

SP 5199 Part 3

SP 5199 Part 4

SP 5199 Part 5

SP 5199 Part 6

SP 5199 Part 7

SP 5124, Modeling San Joaquin Daylight RPO (Part 1)

SP 5069, Modeling San Joaquin Daylight RPO (Part 2)

Modeling SP HW Passenger Car Index Page

Building SP 5199 (Part 3)

I last left off with the second part of the Building SP 5199, Part 2 with the installation of stirup steps.  In this part we'll get the underframe mostly finished, finish detailing out the body, painting and decaling.

Decals, smokejack, window plug.

Finish Stirup Steps

The next step is to finish up the bracing on the passenger stirup steps.

Installing Stirup Steps & Braces

The KitBits #87 (Link here to Bethlehem Car Works parts page) steps ended up being a bit more fragile than I like.  In fact I broke one just trying to get the leg into the hole I drilled in the floor! (Oh no!)  Don't worry, we'll deal with that in a minute.

I drilled a hole in the floor, centered down the length of the step and about 1/16" inside the edge of the floor of the car.  This will give the brace enough angle to help support the steps.

I fabricated new braces for the three baggage stirups that I didn't break from 0.025" phosphor-bronze wire.  The holes were slightly oversized for the wire allowing me to adjust the positioning while the ACC was wet in the floor hole side.  I made sure the step ends of the braces were as close to touching as I could get them.  Several checks with the body on to be sure the steps came out to the car side were done and also check that the step legs look vertical in side-view of the body.

Be sure to line up the brace and the bottom rung of the step before soldering.  The extra flexibility in the steps helped here because I could set up the brace and then bend the step back to it.

I put a small drop of liquid flux on the stirup with a dipping stick, and then with only a very small amount of solder on the my little 15 watt fine tipped pencil iron (slightly more than the tinning on the tip).  Quickly touched the iron to the joint.  The liquid flux pulls the solder into the joint instantly.  The total time to solder all four of the braces was about 4-5 minutes.   In and Out, that's the deal... I think it's also a burger place... but not to get derailed... back to the build!

End of brace bent and soldered to the stirup.

So, one of the KitBit Baggage steps broke a leg when I was bending it during installation.  I didn't feel like being short a one stirup out of the set.  The new legs for the replacement were fabricated the same way as the braces above.  I pulled out all the pieces of the etching that broke off.  (The middle section of the leg broke at the "half-etched" bend points.)  I kept the broken part safe until I was ready to solder on the other braces.

I checked the holes again and drilled them a bit deeper across the floor than before with the etchings.  The wire was bent at about 85 degrees and then about 1/8" below the floor I made another slight bend of about 5 degrees to vertical.  I want these steps to angle outward slightly from the edge of the floor to the edge of the car side when the body is attached.

New wire legs on the repaired stirup step & brace.

I pre-tinned the backs of the double step etching and the new wire legs.  This makes it MUCH faster and easier to solder than if I was having to flow in the solder like I did on the braces.  The challenge in attaching this step was that there was no reference for the height it needs to be.  I ended up eye-balling across the underframe to the other baggage door step that was finished to see where it would need to go.  Holding the broken steps in a pair of self-closing tweezers, I positioned it against one of the legs with the vertical edges aligned.  A quick pass with the iron solders that side and secures it.  This is a bit of a tricky two-handed operation in that you need to have steady control of both the part and the iron.

Find a good comfortable position to be in to do this soldering work.  Another thought is to use one of the magnifying stands with the two alligator-clip "hands" to hold the parts in alignment where you want them.  Then make the quick pass with the iron.

The a bit of bending is needed to get the second leg aligned.  At this point I noticed that the steps were wanting to hang outward and didn't want to reach the second leg.  I ended up desoldering the first leg and trying again.  This time I got it closer to flat on the second leg, but not good enough.  A small amount of gentile pressure from my tweezers pulled it down to the second leg, but this would have built-in tension that I don't want within the step.  Once the second leg joint was secured, I quickly touched the iron on the first joint again to allow it to adjust to the proper position.  It worked very well.

Bottom view of the RPO-end truck, the angle on the step braces were set up such that they did not foul the truck.

This bottom view shows how the RPO-end truck can swing.  The RPO door steps are bent out far enough that they clear the truck's swing and just as the back of the inboard wheel touches the center frame the side frame of the truck almost touches the steps, both at the corner of the car and the RPO steps.

Once all the soldering is done, I cut off the extra length on the new wire legs on the repaired step.  Then I clean and dressed all the brace solder joints with a file cleaning off the extra solder.  Also shaping the cut end of the wire leg to match the step shape.

Don't Loose the Floor

The issue of keeping the body on the underframe is a bit more challenging.  I decided that it would not be a good idea to just glue the body to the underframe.  I am going to add lighting in the RPO section and a single light in the Train Baggage Man desk area in the baggage section.  This means I'll be opening the car and closing it several times.  Of course, if anything ever goes wrong (and it will!) it will be good to be able to open the car without destroying it!

There is a hole for the future screws between the battery box and the needle beam.  Another will go on the opposite side.

I drilled the holes in the underframe earlier in the build.  The sides of the car were tending to bow outward when I was fitting the stirups,  Even with the notching of the inside of the body, the sides are a bit wobbly.

Blocks glued in and match-drilled with #50 drill.

I measure down the thickness of the floor past the ledges with my calipers and scribed a line.  This marks the point where I can glue some plastic 1/8"x1/4" Evergreen styrene strip as an anchor block for a 2-56 screw.  The length of these blocks don't really matter, just that they're over where the holes in the floor are.  This was rather tricky to do as my calipers didn't want to scribe at the angle because of the one-piece body of the car.  I eventually just Sharpied a line in red and roughly glued the blocks in.  I also glued blocks in the ends of the car as a way to secure the floor and body at the end of the car.

End blocks glued in to secure the floor near the ends of the car to the body.

Don't be super concerned if it's off of flat slightly - I planned a little extra gap between the blocks and the future floor which accounts for a bit of error in positioning.  I'd rather have air space between the blocks and the floor when assembled, than having the blocks "go solid" and not let the body sit down low enough on the floor.

I match drilled the holes in the floor up into the body.  Be sure to hold the sides of the car firmly against the floor while doing this.  Once these holes are located and drilled the sides won't be able to wobble anymore, so get this right!  One option is to use rubber bands to hold the carsides.  I had too much detailing on the underframe at this point to risk doing that, so I just held the sides firmly against the floor.

I will point out here that, like with anything dealing with a model like this, I'm not using very much force.  The resin is extremely forgiving and has some flex to it.  Even the pressure from a firm hand-shake would likely crush the body of the car without the floor installed.  Also with all the detailing around the car care must be taken to handle the car with as light a touch as you can.

The holes in the side blocks are then tapped for 2-56 machine screws.  I did over-size the tap holes in the blocks slightly to allow for easier tapping.  Hold off on drilling and tapping the end blocks until the coupler position is figured out later.

Body mounting screws installed, holding the body to the floor.

The piping, stirups, and screws will be painted again before the under frame is finished.

Grabirons!

Overview of the 5199 with grabirons installed and stirup steps finished.

The holes for the grabs were drilled several steps ago.  I ran a drill through the holes again to be sure they're clear.  The grabs are hand bent, the more you bend the better you'll get at it.  I'm using 0.015" phosphor-bronze wire from Tichy Train Group.

Left Baggage door with stirup and grab iron. - The center of the car and RPO apartment are to the left.

First, bend a 90 degree angle on the piece of wire.  Insert the bent angle into the hole and then grabbing the wire with a pair of good tipped pliers, mark the point where the second bend will need to be made.  Remove the grabiron from the carside and make the second 90 degree bend where the edge of the pliers are holding the wire.  Make sure that the bend lines up with the first bend.  Cut the newly formed grab iron off, leaving about 1/8" of leg on each end to go into the holes.

Grab irons installed and some slight chips in the primer coat of Dark Olive Green paint.

After, each grab was bent and test fitted I trimmed off the excess length from the legs.  The lower leg of most of the grabirons would interfere with the floor, so it's best to trim them flush when the grab is pushed in against the body.  Then pull the grab away from the body and glue in place with ACC.  Usually I did this from the inside.

If the hole has enough clearance that the ACC will form a good bond all the way around and not pool on the surface of the model, then putting a very small drop of ACC on the wire leg before inserting in the carside will work.  If the hole is too close of a fit to the wire, then the glue will not be able to get into the hole, and be skreeted off on the exterior of the model.... and we certainly don't want that!

Star of the Baggage

Since this car will be modeled as it appeared after upgraded Train Baggage Man (TBM) facilities were installed, and the forward baggage window on the right side was plugged as I showed before in  (Part 2).  At this point, only the smoke jack for the stove remains to be installed.

Smoke jack and plugged window on the right side of the car.

I've found more useful things from salvaged medical items, of course dispose of or destroy all sharp or dangerous items in the recommended methods so they can't be reused or otherwise get into trouble.  However, as I've found the harmless components, such as syringe plunger seals from 3/10cc insulin syringes, make great pipe fittings, bolted caps, etc.  It turns out that the plungers themselves with the seals removed make great smoke jacks too!

I drilled a hole in the roof, located per photographs of the SP 5199.  The plunger was slightly too large in diameter for the drill I had handy, so I quickly filed and sanded the diameter down slightly.  Always test fit something like this!  I think the top of the smoke jacks were a little higher, but as I know I'll have the car on its back several more times during this build and I don't feel like replacing this part several times, I kept the height to match where the max height of the other roof vents to protect it.   I glued the plunger into the hole and conveniently the block that I glued in for the screw to secure the body with was in the right place to support the bottom of the pipe.  I decided to keep the stack long, so it will be visible when the detailed interior is in place though the windows.  I cut the plunger off even with the bottom of the body block at the floor level.

Time to get the DOG on (Airbrush Painting)

Right side painted with Dark Olive Green

With the grabirons, drip strips, stove smokejack, and all on, it's now time to paint the car with the final coats of StarBrand SP Dark Olive Green (DOG) on the sides and a dark gray blend for the roof.  This will cover any of the scuffs that happened when I was installing the grabs, etc. as well.

Left side painted with Dark Olive Green

Then I painted the roof and underframe with a custom mix of StarBrand Black and a bit of DRGW Gray which make a nice gray-black which looks like slightly faded black.  It's easier to paint this color as a base than to try to later over spray and weather the car to get this color.  I free-hand masked the edge of the roof and body with a piece of sheet plastic with a straight edge.  I only did about 1/4 of the length of the car at a time as I really prefer not to slip and get black on the letterboard.  If any does then I reverse the process and mask the black of the roof and reshoot the letterboard with the DOG.  The ends of the roof are shot the same way by holding the card against the diaphragm bellow and "rolling" the airbrush over the space following the curve of the end-roof down to the car side.  This takes some practice to get used to doing, but done right it doesn't take long.

Underframe and body securing screws painted dark gray-black.

The roof paint came out a bit grainy, but that's ok as the sealing "car cement" (a.k.a. tar) was slobbered on with a mop.  I plan to do some extra weathering on the roof at the end anyway so the extra texture there will help.

I applied the paint in several light coats and made sure to leave a glossy surface for the decals to go onto.  Rough paint will make removing the air bubbles from under the decals very hard later.  Best to just get a good smooth coat to start with.

Let There be Lettering

The decalling actually went very quickly on this car.  ThinFilm 160 set was used with the post-1946 "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" letterboard per SP standards and photos.  Thankfully the SP did have a pretty consistent set of painting and lettering standards for their passenger fleet.  However there are some documented variations from car to car and class to class.

Right side of the 5199 after decalling.

In the photos of the SP 5199 in 1947 the reporting marks were off-center slightly towards the baggage end of the car, so this was followed.  The 5199 looks a bit weird at this point, so close to being finished, but with the windows still masked.  The masking will stay on until the car is finished.

Left side of the 5199 after decalling

The "UNITED STATES MAIL - RAILWAY POST OFFICE" lettering was centered up under the RPO apartment's three windows.

SP 4119, the Lark Protection RPO, with the "US Mail" lettering centered on the car body on 60ft RPOs.

Since we're talking about the lettering, it should also be pointed out that the "US Mail - Railway Post Office" lettering is ONLY applied to cars that are internally setup the the apartment for use as US Railway Post Office.  Fifteen-foot RPO cars were lettered with a more condensed version, "US Mail - Railway - Post - Office."  RPO cars that were removed from RPO service had this lettering painted over.  The big 60ft apartment RPO cars had the same "UNITED STATES MAIL - RAILWAY POST OFFICE".

Cars that were used for Train Baggage (for passengers) were so marked with "BAGGAGE".  Cars available for lease to the Railway Express Agency were also lettered for that service.  Of course the SP covered its bases by lettering basically all of their cars for both.  Of course the SP also moved company express in these cars as well, so the "BAGGAGE" lettering also seems to cover that too.

Notice the little star above the "SP 5199", that shows this car to have improved TBM facilities on board.

The star above the reporting marks is the mark on cars that had the improved TBM facilities.  Train Baggage Men would ride on the "working baggage" car in the train which would drop off and pick up any baggage along the route.  Non-TBM baggage cars moved either sealed US Mail, sealed REA express shipments, or other sealed company shipments, such as checked baggage that was traveling the full route of the train.  Railway Express Agency also sent Agents with some of their more valuable or perishable shipments (including live animals).  These cars could also have private "messengers" sent to ride along with other valuable loads not shipped by the railroads or REA.

Next Time - Building SP 5199 (Part 4)

That concludes Part 3 of this series on building the SP 5199.  In the next part I will show how to fit the Hi-Tech Diaphragms and couplers.

Jason Hill

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