A few months ago I started a PRR Z74 Business car kitbash, starting from a Lima observation car. Below is the build progression.
First, the back wall of the obs is set back into the rear of the car, with side walls having windows. I had to cut that out and move it to the end of the car fitting it with styrene.
This picture shows the wall moved and glued in place flush with the ends of the wall and a set of Keystone Details Lima steps installed.
This picture shows an leftover KD etched door overlay and steps below.
Next I had to fill in the door on the opposite side as the floor plan calls for a heater in that corner of the car. One side of the steps was then removed.
This picture shows the previously removed Lima glass glued onto the KD Lima OBS arched roof.
The next two pictures were taken after removing the vertical supports for picture windows in the Dining area and rear observation area, I taped off the windows on each side of the car that required plating according to the plan.
This picture shows the plating in process.
This is all of the parts needed for the car, just prior to painting the carrbody.
Here I am test fitting the GMM Observaion deck railing.
This picture shows the Micro-Trains PRR Diner car trucks, which are correct for this car according to images I have.
Some time passed, and then I painted the carbody. At that point a crazy diversion to detail the interior occurred, so I started to scratch build the various compartments. Up front, is the smaller kitchen and cook's quarters. The walls are styrene covered with printed photo paper of oak paneling and door panels. Doors were cut out separately and glued atop that. Room side:
Hallway side:
The rear quarters are the longer section with a dining area in between this and the kitchen rooms. This is the observation room fireplace and door to the hallway along the side of the car:
Hallway side after gluing all of the room portions to a brass weight strip that lays on the bottom of the car:
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This is the room side. Its likely fantasy but I added a curved ceiling over the dining area just for effect.
This is the assembly after installing into the car. Small pices of styrene on the floor keep the assembly centered so the roof can install.
After painting the car, I tested the interior inside with some lights above the rooms and the styrene ceilings left an nice room glow.
The pictures above prompted me to further the distraction by installing LEDs on the roof...
Here are the LED's lighting up the various rooms in the dark. Yes I will likely add some form of shades.
The next two pictures are of each side of the car after decaling.
This is right after I attached the GMM railing and painted the curtain.
This is the car as it stands right now. You can see I have added some roof details and will add some more and further, I really don't want to try to piece together four sets of car number 7507... Ugh. The wires hanging out of the back of the car will give way to a battery inside the roof and a magnetic reed switch.
