GERUNIMO625 wrote:... I really wanted to find a way to make the gallery diner/lounge car, but its hard to find pictures of both sides, I'm not sure if they were symmetrical. Videos I've found suggest they looked nothing like whats pictured here...
What I wouldn't give to pick the brain of the gentleman you worked with. Ah well, guess I was born into the wrong generation....
It's almost certain they weren't symmetrical. While they layout of dining cars was pretty well standardized by the beginning of the heavyweight era, the details were another matter. The model in your photo is pretty much what I remember from the few times I saw it. This is the kitchen side of the car, which is easily spotted by the high sills on the windows adjacent to the pantry door. Typically, by the height of the streamline era, the aisle side would have a pantry door opposite or nearly opposite it's counterpart on the kitchen side. Inboard from that would be, again typically, three or four full-size windows at the same level as those in the dining area. I remember these in this car, but I don't remember how many there were.
I suspect the C&NW's car was a sister to those used on the UP, given that C&NW participated in the same equipment pool along with the SP and the Wabash. The two photos, below, of a model of the rebuilt example currently in UP's office car fleet, may be helpful. I don't know who took the photos, only that they're not mine.
Building a model from scratch would be a bit of a job. Alternatively, it might be possible to do what C&NW did by taking an existing car and adding a child object to raise the roofline. At least it wouldn't involve bending and welding metal ...
The C&NW guy I worked with was on the staff of one of the consultants we hired, and later went to the Reading, where he set up the pull-pull operation that company and in its later days of passenger service. While this particular contract resulted in the purchase of the M-4 electric multiple units, his contributions to he job ultimately laid the foundation for push-pull operation on the MTA's commuter railroad properties. PM me if you have any questions about this, and I'll be happy to share what he told me about Chicago operations.
buzz456 wrote:http://www.trainweb.org/ultradomes/others/cars1.html
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I'd completely forgotten about this one, Buzz. I saw it once, the first time I rode the Flambeau 400 to Green Bay, back when the train still ran to Rhinelander and Ashland. That equipment was still quite new at the time, and I wondered what new marvels there might be in the way of modern passenger trains. It took a bit longer than I'd expected to begin to see that question answered.
