The actual photos were taken mid Feb 08 in North Carolina

Car sides, Dome roofs and many other parts have been order to build three additional cars, the Buena Vista, Virginia, and the Carolina.

The Body:
While waiting on the car sides from Laser Horizons work begins on the Buena Vista Observation car.  The Walther's standard diner car is completely stripped, and prepped for new sides.  Leaving only the metal strips, interior light contacts, and the underbody we are ready to begin rebuilding.

To help support the frame of the stripped car you will need to build a new floor, .20 sheet styrene will do the job.  Using the original holes in the underbody drill through the new floor you can add the screws back to give the car some stability. 

Next you will need to hold your car sides in place to mark where the frame will have to cut, other wise parts of the frame will be visible in the windows.
In some windows I've opted to leave the frame showing slightly at the top of the windows.  I will paint this white later to suggest window shades.

Once your sides are glued into place you will next snap or hold your roof piece into place while you measure the open end of theater car.
Without any plans or drawings I had to carefully study several photos of #23 car.   What I did find is that this end has been changed several times or the years. I settled in on the latest photos available. Using sheet styrene I cut out a solid end section out and worked with it before making  just the open frame.  Next you will need to measure and cut out the entire center section of the end piece to make ready for the Plexiglas. Once this piece is glued into place you can move to the roof and the other end of the car.

ROOF:
 Start by gluing one end piece to your roof.  Remember you only need one of the rounded end pieces, as the open end is finished differently.
To make the roof section with the end cap fit correctly down into the car side several modifications had to made. For starters the end caps have a support beam that runs across the width of the roof.  Notches will need to be cut out to allow the roof to sit on inside the car sides.  Also to use the original end with the door you will need to file down the top of this doorway to allow the end of the roof to fit into place. You may also have to file down the interior frame a little as well. 

Before moving to the other end of the roof, you will need to shorten the length of the roof.  Snap the roof in place to mark open section for cutting.  Using a miter saw I removed about 1/4  from this end.  Next you will trace your half moon roof end onto a piece of sheet styrene.   Cut this piece out and glue it into place closing off the end of the roof.   You are going to need some very small light sockets at this point to setup the four flood lights and the two marker lights that get mounted into the end of the roof.   .10 sheet styrene can be used to make the dual flood light mounts, as well as the small marker lights at ground level of the car floor. 

With the ends now securely in place on both the roof and car you can turn your attention back to the details of the roof.  Again without plans you are going to have to study as many photos of the roof tops as you can. 

To keep the light wires secured up in the roof 4 rectangle piece of sheet styrene were cut and slid into place above the groves along the side of the roof.  These were cut to fit snuggly thus it was not necessary to glue into place.  The wire ride along the top of these strips keeping them out of the way.

•  
  Using Walther's Roof top AC components you can make the satellite dish, and the large rectangle vents over the diner end of the car. 
• The small square screen sections along the side of the roof were made from left over F unit fan covers. 
• The small vent was purchased from Bethlehem Car Works.
• The grab irons were made from thin brass rod.  This was also used for the grab irons on the car sides.

Underbody: Remove all of the components mounted underneath, such as battery and tool boxes, compressors etc.  Some of these were used again after some alterations. Other parts can be attained via _____ and ____  will add names later.    You can also scratch build some of these boxes out of sheet styrene. 


Interior:
Building the theater seating is a little tricky, I ordered high back streamlined double seats from the Palace Car Company. By cutting a piece of sheet styrene to fit in the area the seats go you can begin layout the seating. The plans call for six rows of these double seats with 2 seats per row, separated by an aisle up he middle.   Using the window tops as a guide you need to build a raised floor for each. These seats gradually go up as does the flooring between the seats.

Curtains:
Using the photos that I took of the car I outlined and removed several sets of curtains using Paintshop Pro.  PSP was also used to lighten the curtains.
To size them for HO scale each set curtains was copied into MS Word.
Once the sizing was correct several sets of each different curtains were printed on white card stock

Rear Lights
The multiple lights on the rear of the car have proved more difficult than originally expected.  We mounted 4 white flood lights in the top of the roof with a red flashing light on each side of the top section.  I will have photos as soon as we can get the bulbs to stop burning out so quickly.  Even though we have used resistors the life expectancy has been about 5 minutes. 

I will list all the bulb and decoder specs as soon as we get it stable.
 

Roof underside photo coming later



 

 
Curtain Example