Has anyone made a non-ducted roof for the MTL Heavyweight Sleeper?

[wcfn100]

As I'm going through my boxes and trying to unload some stuff, I get to revisit many, many projects.  One of which is CGW MOW car W301 which was an ex-tourist RR sleeper car converted to MOW use.  It look like the MTL sleeper isa good starting point, except for the ducting on the roof.  I looked at the coach but it's too short.

Has anyone done something like this?

edit: Forgot to put Sleeper in the topic.

Jason

[peteski]

MT made this type of a roof for the Lowell Smith observation cars.  Right? Hopefully they will start selling it as a spare part someday.

[chicken45]

MT made this type of a roof for the Lowell Smith observation cars.  Right? Hopefully they will start selling it as a spare part someday.

I bet if you emailed them, they'd hook you up.

[wcfn100]

MT made this type of a roof for the Lowell Smith observation cars.  Right? Hopefully they will start selling it as a spare part someday.

That's the opposite of what I'm looking for.  Maybe I used bad terminology, but I thought the roof on the sleeper had ducting on it for air conditioning.  I need a regular roof like the coaches.


Jason

[peteski]

That's the opposite of what I'm looking for.  Maybe I used bad terminology, but I thought the roof on the sleeper had ducting on it for air conditioning.  I need a regular roof like the coaches.


Jason

Oh, I got it. You are looking at the original clerestory roof with no ducts.  I thought that all MT heavyweight cars were the same length (except for the baggage RPO car), so roofs would have been exchangeable. Sounds like that is not the case.  Maybe you could splice 2 coach roofs together?  That should be fairly easy to do.

EDIT: Doh!  I meant RPO not baggage. 

[wcfn100]

Maybe you could splice 2 coach roofs together?  That should be fairly easy to do.

I hoping that can be plan B.

I haven't even looked to see if there's another MTL heavyweight to look at.   I have the sleeper, coach and RPO and the latter two are shorter.

Jason

[Angus Shops]

I've been thinking about this same project for a while myself. The 'no ducted' roof would be a useful item for us CPR modellers. It's one of those ideas that's been floating around in the back of my head for a while but it hasn't had a high priority, and the 'simple, obvious solution' hasn't occurred to me yet.

I thought about splicing together a pair of the RPO roofs, but they seem to have a different cross section profile and a different end arrangement. I don't have a coach, but it can be done with one splice I'd think that would be the best solution.

I thought about using an old atlas heavyweight roof but it's too short and a bit too narrow.

Microtrains heavyweights are limited on my CPR layout to foreign roads sleepers on my 'Mountaineer' because of the roof issue, so a non ducted roof would allow me create more realistic home road 12-1's. Incidentally, I've been more actively planning to convert the RPO's full clerestory roof into an arch roof that would make the MT RPO into much more appropriate CPR style car.

Geoff

[thomasjmdavis]

Clerestory width has become one of my big questions as I try to model cars.  I've noted that sleepers, coaches and parlors had different width clerestories.  Coaches seemed to come in several different widths- so I assume that was a customer spec.  Many drawings look "off" a bit when compared to photos- and while often marked for window size or truck centers, not so often for roof dimensions. Which leaves me wondering if sometimes the roof is just sketched in without climbing up there to take an actual measurement. For years this wasn't an issue- the only readily available cars came from Rivarossi, and all their clerestories were too narrow (except maybe the obs with its AC). Now, with several to choose from, I'd like to get it right where I can.

I am currently working on some ATSF 3000 series chair cars- does anyone have an actual measurement on the width of the clerestory?  From photos, I am guessing about 7 feet.

Tom D

[Sokramiketes]

I stretched a ConCor roof for this car. The .010" styrene on top was an attempt to add the overhang so typical of Pullman construction but so missing from the MTL and ConCor roofs because of the cheaper two-part A-B tooling.

[wcfn100]

Very nice Mike. The overhang shows well on the finished model.

If this were a freight car, I'd have more options at my disposal.  As it is, I don't think a have a single passenger car in the parts box. 

Jason

[spookshow]

The MT parlor and obs cars are the same length as the sleepers, but I don't think they have the kind of roof you're looking for. Ditto for the Lowell Smith car.

Cheers,
-Mark

[Sokramiketes]

The MT parlor and obs cars are the same length as the sleepers, but I don't think they have the kind of roof you're looking for. Ditto for the Lowell Smith car.

Cheers,
-Mark

Parlor at least, maybe obs too, have wider clerestories though. 

[bbussey]

Unfortunately, you will have to kitbash roof segments to get a pre-A/C roof. MTL will sell you roofs if you contact them directly. The parlor and obs clerestories are wider than the two sleepers.

[wcfn100]

The parlor and obs clerestories are wider than the two sleepers.

So that would only seem to leave the RPO roof to section together.  Yes?

If I didn't care about the width of the clerestory, could I just use the Parlor car roof as-is?


Jason

[spookshow]

The parlor and obs cars have similar roofs, neither of which are really coach-like. I don't know what purpose it serves, but the two sides are very different -





Cheers,
-Mark