Model Railroading > Amtrak HEP era Budds

Many of the old Budd Cars that lasted into the HEP era of Amtrak received some sort of modifications.  Almost all if not all of the dining cars had their kitchen door moved from one side of the kitchen to the other.  I can only assume this was to standardize the kitchens between all the cars.  For this ex-NYC dining car I spliced the car up and moved the window over to the correct side.  The larger fluting I was able to putty and sand to match but the small fluting I ended up using styrene fluting from UnionStationProducts.com 

The 3124 is a former PRR lounge and continued in lounge service on Amtrak.  These cars would eventually be replaced by Amfleet II lounge cars but would also substitute the Amfleets when needed.  This car simply required some window blanks and a service door added to each side.

I had also repainted a Kato baggage car into Phase III since Kato has stubbornly only offered it in Phase VI.

-18lbs

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The baggage car.

-18lbs

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Nice job.  But to be correct, the NYC diner and the PRR lounge are on the wrong trucks.  This was common on some of the early 2000's (otherwise very well done) Walthers HO passenger cars.  These cars are on outside swing hanger disk brake trucks, instead of inside swing hanger tread brake trucks. This is a major faux-pas by Walthers as it is equivalent to putting ARR type B trucks under an F unit. Also, the design of these models is such that doing a simple truck swap is not an easy task. 

Good eye, yes these trucks are the ones included with the model. I hope that walthers will run the individual trucks again some day so I can pick up a few to swap out.

-18lbs

Very nice!

Being a Amtrak modeler in N love to see what other folks are doing.

Thanks for sharing.

Northridge Switcher

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Glad I'm not the only one scratching my head on Kato's refusal to do a Phase III baggage car!

I'd like to see Walthers re-run their Budd 73' baggage in phase III.  It' next to impossible to find those.

Kato did a Phase III baggage car.

It was combined with an ex-Santa Fe transdorm.

P/N 106-7122

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Kato did them in N scale in Phase III but not in HO scale.

-18_lbs

DevalDragon Wrote:
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> Kato did a Phase III baggage car.
>
> It was combined with an ex-Santa Fe transdorm.
>
> P/N 106-7122

Yes.  N-scale.  I bought the set.  But I'd like both those cars in HO.  It is actually easier to build a correct mid-1980's Amtrak California Zephyr in N-scale using KATO passenger cars than it is in HO.  Phase 2 and 3 Superliners cars are hard to find - and people are asking silly insane high prices on eBay that are 4 to 5 times the prices they originally sold for.

Thanks for posting and nice work. Always interested in seeing Heritage Era Amtrak modeling.

Randy in PHX

Definitely great work!

Very nice work on these!

- Jeff Carlson

Love the ex-PRR parlor come lounge....these were common here in New England on the Boston Lake Shore, both pre and post HEP conversion.

Dave