Some decisions to make regarding my 10-wide Budd stainless steel cars

Guest Sat Apr 26, 2014 2:19 am

I'm currently making a bunch of 10-wide Budd coaches, but I can't make up my mind on some details. Initially I was going to make the original Super Chief train set consisting of these locomotives and cars:

A. EMC E1A Locomotive #2
B. EMC E1B Locomotive #2A
1. Baggage-Mail #3430
2. Sleeper Isleta (8 sections, 2 compartments, 1 drawing room)
3. Sleeper Laguna (8 sections, 2 compartments, 1 drawing room)
4. Dormitory-Lounge #1370 Acoma (also included a barber shop)
5. Fred Harvey Company Diner #1474 Cochiti (36 seats)
6. Sleeper Oraibi (2 compartments, 2 drawing rooms, 6 double bedrooms)
7. Sleeper Taos (2 compartments, 2 drawing rooms, 6 double bedrooms)
8. Sleeper-Lounge-Observation Navajo (3 compartments, 2 drawing rooms, 1 double bedroom)

While I already have the bodies for 5 cars built, I could easily convert them into something else. At 80' long, these cars are 'shorties' while the dining car is still 2' short at 83' long. Most cars that Budd produced in the 1940s and onward were the standard 85' long. I could either leave mine how they are, scaled to the original Super Chief, or extend them to 85 studs long, and give them a different window configuration. Although the Super Chief cars had underbody skirting, I chose instead to eliminate this on the underbodies of my cars, and instead model them after the Walthers HO scale Budd coaches.

What it comes down to is that I could either keep building the Super Chief, or I could extend all of my cars to 85 studs long and make either a later Super Chief train set with cars such as the Pine Series sleepers, a different Santa Fe train altogether, or a New York Central streamliner, since some of the cars are almost identical to those. I'm having a tough time making up my mind.