5 JnJ CZ shells for $ 30.00

[Puddington]

Sometimes you listen to the angel on your right shoulder; sometimes it's the devil on your left....not sure which one got me to buy the 5 JnJ Cal Zepher shells off Evilbay, but I think I'm glad I did.

Got one baggage car, one dome lounge, two dome coaches and a dome observation, with shell and base for $ 30.00.....

Now; these are a bit "rough around the edges"... I mean there's 30 hours of cleaning and sanding here BUT; for $ 30.00 I think I've got the heart and soul of the Puddington Valley Tourist train I've started and stopped a few times. Add three Kato coaches that I have and you've got a neat tourist consist.....

Anyone have any experience with these shells... I mean; the Kato CZ they ain't; but buying Kato cars equal to these would cost a damn sight more, if I could find them without investing in the entire set... and suffering though stripping Kato cars...yuck !

This could be fun..............

[Sokramiketes]

I picked up the 11 Bedroom car from this series, since Kato didn't model that car, but haven't touched it yet.  Other than trying to get flush windows in it, it looked like a great start. 

[wazzou]

But what of the GN SDP-40?

[Puddington]

But what of the GN SDP-40?

Oh, it's in the line up... have the SD 40, the SD 45 shell; the SD 45 deck and hand rails and a scrap unit to donate the doors.... all I need are the "stones" to cut into a Kato SD 40 undec................. :-[

The passenger train is a long term project... ;D

[Puddington]

I picked up the 11 Bedroom car from this series, since Kato didn't model that car, but haven't touched it yet.  Other than trying to get flush windows in it, it looked like a great start. 

That will be a pain; I might give in a backmount but time will tell... the shells are so thick that backmounts will suck huge..... Might take the time to scan the side and print it out on the clear plastic; adjust for stretch and shrinkage and then cut them out... we'll see.

[wm3798]

4 million years ago, I did up some of these that I got at a show.  I bought mine from the factory rejects bin, so they were pretty rough.  The sides were cast unevenly, so there were varying thicknesses going from front to back, the flashing in the windows was severe, and of course, there was no floor, so fabricating that became a challenge unto itself.  I ended up hatcheting up a bunch of Atlas boxcar floors to get proper bolsters, and just held my nose in terms of other underside details.  (I contend to this day that if you can see the bottom of your rolling stock with any degree of frequency, you're not a successful model railroader...)



On the dome/observation, the dome casting was so terrible, I simply cut it out and rigged in a piece cut from a Bachmann super dome.  I doubt this resembles any prototype at all, but it worked for my modest needs at the time.

For windows, I ran the decals first, let them dry and set using Solva Set, then went back and carefully sliced out the openings, I then used some Micro Krystal Clear to do the glazing, after I painted a black gasket around the inside edge of the opening.  This resulted in a reasonably good effect from a typical viewing distance.


I really liked the baggage, which represented a fairly typical Amtrak car in my eyes.  Again, the floor was jerry rigged, and there were some problems with the casting, such as a missing chunk of the skirting.  I filled it in with a chunk of scrap styrene, squared off and boxy to make it look like it served some purpose.  I don't recall if it had cast on grabs, but I also don't remember it being an issue for me at that time of my life.

I had a few others, but ended up selling all of them when I clearanced all of my post 1970 roster.  When combined with a couple of Life Like F40PH's, several Bachmann Amtoobs and a ConCor material handling car or three, they made for a respectable early 80's Amtrak consist.



Given that I started out behind the 8 ball with a factory seconds model, I was okay with the outcome, but don't expect competition quality results without a massive amount of effort.

Lee

[Nato]

             Ya did good Pud. The JnJ cars could have got JnJ into alot of trouble, From what I understand they borrowed Oriental LTD.brass zephyr sets to make the resin cars WO getting any copyright permission. They also copied the complete Hallmark POOPER (Super) Chief brass sets. I have both the brass sets and the resin cars. The ones that were not rejected for flaws, bad domes etc. are halfway decient,even have the seperate floors with details in if I recall black resin,which would make the finished cars like an Oriental car plated body with black floor/underbody. I was actually going to complete one of my cars ,a sleeper for test purposes to see how good they would turn out, even bought a can of Chrome Spray Paint for the body. Then I never followed thru and finished the car. I was going to show it to a fellow club member who also had the Oriental CZ and see if he could tell it was resin casting. The complete train sets came with enough MT Passenger trucks to do the whole train,although the trucks were wrong and Con Cor's old passenger truck with  a correct Budd style side frame would have been better even with Crapido Couplers. The CZ and the Super sets were not cheap cost wise they almost equaled brass for price. Mine are stored away, who knows one day I might build one or two.                              Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.