Modeling business cars for the C&O and Pere Marquette

摘要

When I saw the Kato HO scale Baltimore & Ohio Budd business car in blue and yellow, I knew I had to have one for my Chesapeake & Ohio fleet as well as one for my Pere Marquette roster. However, as beautiful as the B&O cars were, I had to make some changes. In addition to changing the road names, I wanted to add lighting and some life to the interior and exterior of the cars. Out of the box the cars run well, and the rear beacon above the observation platform works flawlessly. The car comes with grab irons and a B&O tail sign which are to be added by the modeler. Step one was to remove the couplers and the trucks, and then to remove the body from the frame. The body includes the entire passenger compartment of the car and the interior details. Once the couplers and the trucks were removed, round toothpicks were inserted between the body and the frame at several locations to spread the shell enough to separate the two pieces. Although the roof does come off, I found it is difficult to remove without separating the body from the frame. If you need to remove the roof, do it from the inside once the body is off.