CB&Q Twin Cities Zephyr

[keeper]

Somehow I got hooked on the CB&Q Twin Cities Zephyr.

So far I have gathered this:

Motive power
Two Kato E8 or
One Kato E5A and one Kato E5B*

Passenger cars
Coach Silver Birch
Dome car Silver Stream



These two above were originally Santa Fe ones from one of the Kato 4 packs.

I have secured two other Dome cars
Silver Vision and Silver Island

Maybe I will be lucky in regard of other cars...

According to Fred Klein's page about the TCZ, the coach could either be an additional car or a replacement for a Dome car.

http://www.trainweb.org/fredatsf/twin.htm

I have a question about the E5s.
The E5A I have is one with the red stripes on the nose. Up to now I found out that they had black stripes and a name on the side when they were delivered.
Sometime at the end of the 1950s the stripes changed from black to red.
The question is, did they loose their name with the black stripes?
I haven't decaled the E5B yet, so I'm not sure of I should add the name or not, because the E5A doesn't have a name on the sides.

Thomas 

* Kato E5 mech with a shell from Bill Denton

[CBQ Fan]

The Burlington Route Historical Society has a bulletin on the E5 and all E units for a very reasonable price!  All the info you need.  The names were removed by the Q in 1952-1953. The C&S and FW&D did not remove the names. 

[keeper]

This was posted on one of the Weekend Updates a while ago.
I thought to add it here as well to show the progress.

Thanks to @skytop35 and his shells for the Dome Obs and Baggage Buffet Lounge I got a good step ahead.

First test fit of the dome glass inserts.



This is what I have so far.



With the unfinished shells.



The biggest challenge right now is finding the glass set for the CZ dome obs which is out of stock at Kato and it won't be re-stocked until the CZ might be re-released.
The other challenge is to find the diner. It is the same as for the CZ but again, all parts are sold out at Kato and no one seems to sell this car as a single and why would they. 

Thomas 

[keeper]

Meanwhile, the two shells are awaiting some paint and all the glass is tinted with 50/50 blue and green clear color from Tamiya.
The only exception are the windows of the observation end. I haven't decided yet what to do with them.

I found someone on ebay who is selling some Kato CZ cars as singles. Unfortunately he is not selling the Diner....
I bought the 16 section sleeper of course for the trucks and I thought that maybe the windows might fit for the Baggage Buffet Lounge car but they do not fit. Och well..
Then I found out that the frame is the same as the casted one from Bill except for one detail, namely a tank instead of a battery box. I found a battery box in the left overs
of an American Limited core kit so I cut off the tank and glued in the battery box.

[Sokramiketes]

Nice!  I'll have to take some photos and add to the thread.

If you haven't decided on paint yet, Mr. Color Silver #8 is great, sprays better than the Tamiya silvers.  And Tamiya smoke over the top to get it to look like the Kato CZ paint. 

[thomasjmdavis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't several of the original Kato Budd cars (the ones sold in 4 car sets in the 90s or early 2000s) accurate for the Twin City Zephyr?  Some are different from those offered in the CZ sets.  Would one of those diners work?  That diner is different from the CZ diner Kato did later.  Also, I believe Con-Cor did a CB&Q diner which I thought was a CZ diner.

EDIT- LOL...I stand corrected....see next several entries.

[keeper]

The Dome Coach and Coach  from the 4 car sets are accurate for TCZ as far as I know.
I'm not sure sure about the Diner as I haven't seen one from the 4 car sets. I thought the one from the CZ is also correct for the TCZ.
One could also use the Diner from one of the Amtrak sets and re-paint it.

[skytop35]

The diner from the CZ set is correct for the TCZ, they are virtually identical. The diner from the original 4 car Kato Budd sets is a prewar WWII car, not correct but who's to say it wasn't used as a substitute on rare occasions.

[Sokramiketes]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't several of the original Kato Budd cars (the ones sold in 4 car sets in the 90s or early 2000s) accurate for the Twin City Zephyr?  Some are different from those offered in the CZ sets.  Would one of those diners work?  That diner is different from the CZ diner Kato did later.  Also, I believe Con-Cor did a CB&Q diner which I thought was a CZ diner.

The ConCor diner is the same prototype, but the standard Q features of full skirting and letter board corrugations are missing.  The CZ Kato Diner is the right one.

Bill Denton did a comprehensive article on modeling this train in N Scale Railroading... maybe 2016 timeframe.  Even the CZ's 16 section car that was a coach later in life ended up on the train. 

[thomasjmdavis]

Thanks for the clarifications on the diner- and I apologize for confusing the issue.  I wasn't thinking about pre-war vs postwar, but of course Skytop is correct.  I've been using the Kato pre-war Budd diners as stand ins for ATSF diners ever since they came on the market.  And, of course, Mike is also correct on the Con-cor cars....Con-cor seemed to be trying to make all their Budd cars as "generic" as possible.  I recall their ads prior to release that claimed their cars were virtually identical- or words to that effect- to ATSF cars.  I bought several of the coaches and baggage cars sight unseen, and was disappointed when they arrived and I got a good look at them.

Dare I ask about the domes in the early Kato sets? Hopefully, I haven't notched the skirts of 3 of them for the Wabash Blue Bird to now discover I should have used CZ domes....

[thomasjmdavis]

The Dome Coach and Coach  from the 4 car sets are accurate for TCZ as far as I know.
I'm not sure sure about the Diner as I haven't seen one from the 4 car sets. I thought the one from the CZ is also correct for the TCZ.
One could also use the Diner from one of the Amtrak sets and re-paint it.

@keeper - I recommend the advice from Skytop and Sokramiketes on the diner.  Photos make it clear you and they are correct on the CZ diner.  I've been retired too long, and my academic rigor is fading.  I need to get back into the habit of consulting my library rather than going with recollection.

[skytop35]

Dare I ask about the domes in the early Kato sets? Hopefully, I haven't notched the skirts of 3 of them for the Wabash Blue Bird to now discover I should have used CZ domes....

The Vista Dome Chair Cars that were used for the TCZ were made by Kato in their original release of Budd Corrugated car sets.

[keeper]

The diner is an interesting topic.
As long as I don't have the CZ diner what else is out there which could be used as a substitute?
Bill mentioned the pre-war diner as a possibility.

What about a heavyweight? I saw one or two heavyweight diners which were painted silver.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=5137812

I'm not sure if the MTL diner would be correct for that car but it is available. Would that be an option?

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It would be very interesting to see the other versions of that train, @Sokramiketes - @skytop35 - and who else? 

[Sokramiketes]

Ok, grabbed some photos of my version. This will help those that didn’t get in on the Skytop Models casting for the baggage lounge. Sorry they are just shots in the display case.

When that car wasn’t available, Q used a baggage car and a GN mountain series obs run a$$-forward.

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So we do three E-7s, BLI detailed by Bill Denton:

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[Sokramiketes]

Pre-war Budd baggage car from Kato original corrugated release.  Prototype CB&Q car.
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ConCor Mountain series observation, detailed with antenna, silver window frames, skirts at vestibule.
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Centralia Ex-400 coach, skirts removed, fixed step boxes added.
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Kato Pre-war Budd coach. 
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