Did/Does Any Manufacturer Offer A Full, Big or 3/4 Dome Passenger?

AJtheTeacher

AJtheTeacher

In Texas
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Hello Fellow G Scalers!

I have been using search engines, perusing old catalogs etc. looking for pictures a G scale/g gauge American full length dome, "big dome" or 3/4 dome passenger car. Does anybody know of a manufacturer that offered a full dome in G?

I just finished cleaning up the last horribly painted Aristo-Craft streamlined passenger coach that I have and was thinking that it might be a good basis for a Santa Fe big dome or Southern Pacific 3/4 dome. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks. AJ the Teacher
 

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THE definitive s/s dome cars are made by USA Trains - beautiful scale-length models in 1/29th. However, they are not cheap - currently around £400 - so 'modifying' one to the full-dome might not be an option. There ARE people here in UK who would build you one - the G1MRA has a number of passenger car builders, but you'd need to be very open with your wallet. In 1/32nd scale, Accucraft make a series of generic smooth-siders, but AFAIK, no dome car of any kind - I have a full set of CP cars, so I might just be right.
 
Greg Elmassian said:
I'm not sure I would invest the labor in making a short one... it will be a fair amount of work.
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Hi Greg,

Thanks for suggesting that it might not be a good use of my time to modify a short car from an Aristo-Craft. I think that is very wise.

I have read George Schreyer's Aristo Streamliner Passenger Car Tips page and and there is a lot of really good information there.

If I am not mistaken; Aristo-Craft streamline aluminum extruded cars are roughly 27.5. If my math skills serve me well (Anybody here please feel free to correct me or my math!) then if they were more to 1/29 scale, then they would need to be about 29 inches. Not a huge difference but I am sure much more accurate. I am sure that there were other differences in details. Having more details would probably have not been cost effective during the production of an aluminum passenger car made of an aluminum extrusion.

I think that Aristo-Crafts aluminum cars were only offered with 2 axle/4 wheel trucks. I think that I have seen pictures of streamline passenger cars with 3 axle/6 wheel trucks depending on the function of the car, manufacturer and the railroad that ordered the car.

I know that only an insane person would ever consider machining an aluminum G scale car. It would take a lot of time.

Any thoughts or observations would be appreciated (Please, not on my mental state!) on streamline passenger cars. Thanks. AJ the Teacher
 
AJtheTeacher said:
Hi Greg,

Thanks for suggesting that it might not be a good use of my time to modify a short car from an Aristo-Craft. I think that is very wise.

I have read George Schreyer's Aristo Streamliner Passenger Car Tips page and and there is a lot of really good information there.

If I am not mistaken; Aristo-Craft streamline aluminum extruded cars are roughly 27.5. If my math skills serve me well (Anybody here please feel free to correct me or my math!) then if they were more to 1/29 scale, then they would need to be about 29 inches. Not a huge difference but I am sure much more accurate. I am sure that there were other differences in details. Having more details would probably have not been cost effective during the production of an aluminum passenger car made of an aluminum extrusion.

I think that Aristo-Crafts aluminum cars were only offered with 2 axle/4 wheel trucks. I think that I have seen pictures of streamline passenger cars with 3 axle/6 wheel trucks depending on the function of the car, manufacturer and the railroad that ordered the car.

I know that only an insane person would ever consider machining an aluminum G scale car. It would take a lot of time.

Any thoughts or observations would be appreciated (Please, not on my mental state!) on streamline passenger cars. Thanks. AJ the Teacher
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Aristocraft used to offer heavyweight Pullman cars with six-wheel trucks, where appropriate. While appearing to be the leg articulations of the bee, they were a pain in real life, and were not the success that you would imagine them to have been. USA Trains NOW produce some VERY fine 1/29th heavyweights, but they are, like the Aristocraft offerings, of the steam era, and look it. GRS has them in stock, but the originals came way before the era of dome cars of any kind.

Here is a nimage of the USAT fluted streamliner cars - a nod here to USA Trains for using their image - but being near-scale it is 35.5" long. The old Aristocraft cars that you have were very much shortened to make them more readily useable for many smaller layouts, much in the style of LGB and their famous rubber ruler. Making them into 1/29th scale is a pointless exercise, as they would be shorter, not longer.

1640963811821.png
And here is their latest offering - the older-style heavyweights - again, almost a yard long and looking great behind an FEF - IF you have one. :) Got six-wheel trucks, tho' ;) The sole reason I have not bought a single one is that they don't make Canadian Pacific livery cars, or else I'd be having a dozen or so to haul behind my Royal Hudson.

1640964037927.png
 
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I bought the 10 car HW set from USAT, and sold all my Aristo HW, kept the full baggage and RPO from Aristo, and it is indeed an impressive 12 car train, but what a lot of drag! It has the old style carbon brush pickups and the blackened wheels combine to make a lot of drag, had to get rid of 2 S curves in my layout to keep from stringlining.

But back to the streamliners, I would start with a USAT Car, or really if you could find a used aristo smoothside, they were scale 80 foot length...

I don't have a good picture of the Aristo smoothsides, but they pop up on ebay every so often,

AristoSmoothsideLoweredWithGeorgeSchreyerBolsterLeftAndFabBolsterRight_IMG_4039.JPG
 
Scratch-building starts like this - basic box plus styrene siding -
1644260321639.png
and a deal of time and scratch-heading later, ends up like this -
1644260448429.png
Lots of stuff going on underneath, of course...BTW, did I mention that my track is over twenty years old?
1644260530990.png
...and on top, too........
1644260666486.png
1644260604629.png
Brakewheels are Ozark Miniatures, trucks are modified Bachmann passenger car trucks with the transverse leaf springs and couplings are Ka-Dee. The door hinges came from the Precision Scale parts, in the USA, and cost me well north of a hundred dollars by the time I laid my hands on them - the original price was around twelve, I recall.
1644261087608.png
The spiffy decals came from the late and much-missed Stan Cedarleaf in Prescott AZ - took him almost five days to produce!!! We'll never see his like again, that's for sure [Hi there, Kay - hope all is well with you and the family].
 
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HI Tac,

I don't believe the CP had paying customers ride their standing-room-only open top Vista View Refrigerator Cars but I'm sure the view was great if they were not too busy holding on for dear life!:giggle:;) NIce model though!
 
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tac foley said:
Scratch-building starts like this - basic box plus styrene siding -
View attachment 295193
and a deal of time and scratch-heading later, ends up like this -
View attachment 295194
Lots of stuff going on underneath, of course...BTW, did I mention that my track is over twenty years old?
View attachment 295195
...and on top, too........
View attachment 295197
View attachment 295196
Brakewheels are Ozark Miniatures, trucks are modified Bachmann passenger car trucks with the transverse leaf springs and couplings are Ka-Dee. The door hinges came from the Precision Scale parts, in the USA, and cost me well north of a hundred dollars by the time I laid my hands on them - the original price was around twelve, I recall.
View attachment 295199
The spiffy decals came from the late and much-missed Stan Cedarleaf in Prescott AZ - took him almost five days to produce!!! We'll never see his like again, that's for sure [Hi there, Kay - hope all is well with you and the family].
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Hi Tac. I appreciate that you took the time to share that information with me. I will try a plastic reefer sometime. But I was referring to G scale made out of aluminum; more like these:Southern Pacific Aluminum 34 Dome.jpgSanta Fe Aluminum RPO Car.jpg
 
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AJtheTeacher said:
Hi Tac. I appreciate that you took the time to share that information with me. I will try a plastic reefer sometime. But I was referring to G scale made out of aluminum; more like these:View attachment 295272View attachment 295273
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I doesn't matter whether you are building a model of a one-hole outhouse or the White House - the principals are the same. My 'plastic reefer' is built of plywood, styrene, brass and alloy tubing, Evergreen sections and bits and pieces I've accumulated along the last sixty-something years that I've been building stuff.

That reefer is not 'G scale', but it IS eighteen inches end to end.
 
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For most of us.. The big problem is the space to run them (if they are to scale length).. They begin to look silly, on our over-tight curves.
I believe this would be a similar length?
16444894458428902786701402523022.jpg
Even this is several scale-feet short..
IMG_20220204_171755.jpg
Luckily, it doesn't really need to couple-up to anything..

PhilP
 
PhilP said:
For most of us.. The big problem is the space to run them (if they are to scale length).. They begin to look silly, on our over-tight curves.
I believe this would be a similar length?
View attachment 295282
Even this is several scale-feet short..
View attachment 295283
Luckily, it doesn't really need to couple-up to anything..

PhilP
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The USA Trains cars, as I mentioned waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, are around 36 inches long. With twelve or fourteen of THEM in tow, the average UK layout gets very short, very quickly.

See -

SPECIAL FEATURES
 
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tac foley said:
I doesn't matter whether you are building a model of a one-hole outhouse or the White House - the principals are the same. My 'plastic reefer' is built of plywood, styrene, brass and alloy tubing, Evergreen sections and bits and pieces I've accumulated along the last sixty-something years that I've been building stuff.

That reefer is not 'G scale', but it IS eighteen inches end to end.
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Hi Tac. I am sure that you are correct. I did thank you for your pictorial tutorial on scratchbuilding and I did thank you for your post and the time that you took to post it. You do quality work and I thank you for sharing it with me. I am not trying to downplay scratchbuilding in ANY way. I apologize if you feel that my usage of the word "plastic" instead of "plywood, styrene, brass and alloy tubing", If you check my other posts, you will see that I have been building things in styrene (and I also am using plywood, brass and tubing) that are of acceptable quality. At least for me.

You are correct. The construction principles are the same. Modeling in aluminum may be similar from that perspective; but aluminum (in my 60 plus year opinion) is MUCH harder to cut and shape than ANY other material that I have EVER worked with. I have had to purchase numerous tools, modify tools and outright manufacture tools/dies to shape the aluminum. Aluminum has a "memory" so that depending on if it has any alloys in the mix or has had an anodized coating (which can be super hard to cut, polish off or remove) making it harder to shape or machine.

When a modeler can cut .080 styrene in a matter of minutes could take a person working in .080 anodized aluminum much longer. if you make an "oops' mistake in styrene you can sometimes fill it or simply cut another piece.

Brass can be cut, filed and is relatively soft.

Aluminum is not easy to work. If you make a mistake, you can scrap hours of work in seconds and have to start over.

By the way, the two pictures I posted are of MY prototype Southern Pacific 3/4 dome project (An inquiry about which started this thread.)

Did/Does Any Manufacturer Offer A Full, Big or 3/4 Dome Passenger?​

(Yes, I know that it has the wrong trucks at this time. They are temporary) and MY Santa Fe RPO in aluminum. Both are G scale and have taken many hours to get to the stage that they are in. (They are not finished.) The SP 3/4 dome is based on a 73 foot prototype that Southern Pacific built in their own shops (It was their 1st 3/4 dome) and the Santa Fe RPO is 63 foot.

I said thank you for sharing your quality work with me and your information on scratchbuilding. You are welcome to criticize my two aluminum car projects. I will be sharing the construction techniques with this forum at a later date. Thanks for your input and refreshing perspective. AJ the Teacher
 
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AJtheTeacher said:
Hi Tac. I am sure that you are correct. I did thank you for your pictorial tutorial on scratchbuilding and I did thank you for your post and the time that you took to post it. You do quality work and I thank you for sharing it with me. I am not trying to downplay scratchbuilding in ANY way. I apologize if you feel that my usage of the word "plastic" instead of "plywood, styrene, brass and alloy tubing", If you check my other posts, you will see that I have been building things in styrene (and I also am using plywood, brass and tubing) that are of acceptable quality. At least for me.

You are correct. The construction principles are the same. Modeling in aluminum may be similar from that perspective; but aluminum (in my 60 plus year opinion) is MUCH harder to cut and shape than ANY other material that I have EVER worked with. I have had to purchase numerous tools, modify tools and outright manufacture tools/dies to shape the aluminum. Aluminum has a "memory" so that depending on if it has any alloys in the mix or has had an anodized coating (which can be super hard to cut, polish off or remove) making it harder to shape or machine.

When a modeler can cut .080 styrene in a matter of minutes could take a person working in .080 anodized aluminum much longer. if you make an "oops' mistake in styrene you can sometimes fill it or simply cut another piece.

Brass can be cut, filed and is relatively soft.

Aluminum is not easy to work. If you make a mistake, you can scrap hours of work in seconds and have to start over.

By the way, the two pictures I posted are of MY prototype Southern Pacific 3/4 dome project (An inquiry about which started this thread.)

Did/Does Any Manufacturer Offer A Full, Big or 3/4 Dome Passenger?​

(Yes, I know that it has the wrong trucks at this time. They are temporary) and MY Santa Fe RPO in aluminum. Both are G scale and have taken many hours to get to the stage that they are in. (They are not finished.)

I said thank you for sharing your quality work with me and your information on scratchbuilding. You are welcome to criticize my two aluminum car projects. I will be sharing the construction techniques with this forum at a later date. Thanks for your input and refreshing perspective. AJ the Teacher
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Sir, I have never worked with aluminium in the sizes that you are aiming for. As such, I'm not in a position to criticise your efforts. Greg has already mentioned the incredible difficulties facing any home builder trying to emulate a mass-produced, machine-made article. I know of a couple of people who DO just that, one being Mr Alan Wright in Ontario - here is one of his efforts, but note, a smooth-sider. This car cost well north of CAN$900 by the time it arrived on my doorstep. Hence I have only the one. Without paying out a truly monumental amount of money to ALCAN for a custom extrusion die to make your ribbed/fluted siding, that is, IMO, about all that you can do. I also have a set of six Accucraft smooth-siders for the CPR, but they, of course, are seriously mass-produced in very large numbers.

1644501713027.png
 
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tac foley said:
Sir, I have never worked with aluminium in the sizes that you are aiming for. As such, I'm not in a position to criticise your efforts. Greg has already mentioned the incredible difficulties facing any home builder trying to emulate a mass-produced, machine-made article. I know of a couple of people who DO just that, one being Mr Alan Wright in Ontario - here is one of his efforts, but note, a smooth-sider. This car cost well north of CAN$900 by the time it arrived on my doorstep. Hence I have only the one. Without paying out a truly monumental amount of money to ALCAN for a custom extrusion die to make your ribbed/fluted siding, that is, IMO, about all that you can do.
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Hi Tac. Ye sir. I have had problems manufacturing the ribbed/fluted siding. But I may have it figured out. I produced severaI pieces of ribbed siding yesterday.

I am unable see a picture of your car built by Mr. Alan Wright. I would be THRILLED to see a side view. Would you please upload a picture of the smooth sider? THANKS so much! AJ the Teacher
 
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