[MoC] Pennsylvania Railroad P54 Passenger Set

[Commander Wolf]

EDIT: See post 39 for the final pics.

Hey all, I'm building some "matching" passenger cars for my PRR T1 and I wanted to get any thoughts before they're actually built.

This is the first time I'm trying to build nice rolling stock!

These are PRR P54 cars built in the early 20th century; they came in a variety of flavors, most commonly (I think), an MU version, many of which lasted into the 70s. I'm referencing models of variants built for the LIRR, which was owned by the PRR during the first half of the century.

I had originally wanted to model corrugated lightweights, which I feel are more timeless and less distinctly American (so I can pair them with other locos), but I couldn't find any such cars that weren't 70+ feet long - too long in my opinion. While I say the cars are "matching" it's "only" in period and railroad... whether the T1s actually pulled these types of cars I'm not entirely sure.

The actual cars are 65 feet long and 10 feet wide, which make the models 45 studs long and 8 wide at 16.5" per stud. There's about 700 parts per car.

For now, these are purely LDD models, but I finally have parts on order for three(!) of them.

One thing that really annoys me is that Lego doesn't have a good small, round window. I feel like there's been several occasions where I've wanted it and haven't gotten it. In most variants the outside windows are round.

I thought these bogies did a good job of capturing the angled flanges inside the actual bogies, but my friend didn't like them too much. Currently the plan is to use BBB smalls, but I'm concerned that the rolling resistance of all three cars will be too high. I've been trying to design trucks with the stock wheelsets, but I haven't found anything I'm happy with.

There are some greebles on the bottom. No interior though; interiors are overrated.

EDIT: Instructions now available for sale on Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-81265/NonsenseWars/148-pennsylvania-railroad-p54-coach-v3/#details

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Commander Wolf

[LegoSjaak]

Looks great! The only thing that i would change is the blocky square underneath the car... i would use some black 1x2 grille pieces instead of the 2x2 tiles....for the rest: Go build it!

[Aaron]

Very nice scaling and attention to detail. My personal favorite coaches are the PRR P70s, and I was thinking round cutout decals over transparent panels would work fine. Are you breaking up the windows with decals? If not, 1 x 1 bricks between them would do the trick. I wouldn't shy away from building 70+ long coaches either, with ME rail wide radius curves on the horizon. The sky is the limit!

[Commander Wolf]

Looks great! The only thing that i would change is the blocky square underneath the car... i would use some black 1x2 grille pieces instead of the 2x2 tiles....for the rest: Go build it!

Hmm, the greebles weren't in any of my drawings, so I just kinda put stuff there based on the prototype models, but now that you mention it that box does seem really big too. 1x4 seems like it might be a little too small though. I'll take a look at it.

[codefox421]

Really great build! I'm curious: how are you keeping those long runs of sideways brown bricks along the bottom sides in place?

I think 2x6 is a good size for the black greeble box, but I'd suggest making it 1 plate thinner. It sticks out a little too far in my opinion.

[Commander Wolf]

Very nice scaling and attention to detail. My personal favorite coaches are the PRR P70s, and I was thinking round cutout decals over transparent panels would work fine. Are you breaking up the windows with decals? If not, 1 x 1 bricks between them would do the trick. I wouldn't shy away from building 70+ long coaches either, with ME rail wide radius curves on the horizon. The sky is the limit!

Now that you mention it, I'm not actually against making round window stickers or something in principle... if I can cut them accurately enough I think I'll give it a shot.

The lack of frame-and-pane side windows is just economics... I've got a budget for maybe $50 per car, and the frame-and-pane windows are about 30 cents per frame and pane. 124 of those would be about a quarter of the budget. The new 1x2x2 panels with the reinforcement work pretty well though... plus we got a ton of them (like 100s) for free from our local LUG -_-

It should really look like this:

This has a new box too.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Commander Wolf

[LegoSjaak]

Nice work...the box underneath is way better (..maybe even perfect..) and fits even better to the wheelsets now! I wouldn't change a thing from now and just add some nice golden 'LONG ISLAND' decals on it...!!

[Spitfire2865]

These are very nice. Would look good in the LIRR lettering, though that may be a little influenced by where I live...

[dr_spock]

Looking good. Freebie windows? Which LUG is this?

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Very nice design!

Beautifl old style wagons!

[Hrw-Amen]

Nice set of good looking old passenger wagons.

[Commander Wolf]

Nice work...the box underneath is way better (..maybe even perfect..) and fits even better to the wheelsets now! I wouldn't change a thing from now and just add some nice golden 'LONG ISLAND' decals on it...!!

These are very nice. Would look good in the LIRR lettering, though that may be a little influenced by where I live...

So this actually brings up a good point: for those who are making decals how/on what do you usually print?

I've been printing stuff with a normal inkjet printer on 3M "full sheet shipping labels" and its pretty much impossible to color match anything, and everything comes out super desaturated... ie the reddest red I can print is still many shades away from actual Lego red.

On the flip side, if you were to print on something clear (such that you don't have to color match background colors), you'd need something that prints more opaque than an inkjet. I also haven't been able to find anything that's adhesive and clear (instead of "frosty").

What have people been doing to mitigate these kinds of issues if anything?

EDIT: I just thought of something else: I'm making a baggage car-power car with 9v motors, but the geometry of the train motors is less than optimal:

I want to have the coupler thing (red) in the position shown, but the only part I know of that can get it there is the actual buffer piece. This isn't too bad of a solution, but 'Murrikan trains don't have buffers. Is there some other piece or method that I'm not thinking of that will work? I can't use a fishplate on top of the motor with the coupler thing underneath because it'll be a plate too high. I can remove the crap behind it if need be.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Commander Wolf

[dr_spock]

I've used Avery mailing labels for my PRR Class BB1. Yellow on Avery inkjet clear sheets didn't work out. Also the Avery clear is not really clear like water decals or vinyl. They're kind of frosty.

PRR Class BB1 by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

Another option might be to outsource the sticker printing to a print shop. Some of my LUG members had good results with that.

[Redimus]

I've had a company called Reprolabels do me custom Transformer stickers before (their stock in trade is replacement and upgrade stickers for Transformers) and I know there's 1 or 2 Lego dedicated custom sticker guys too. Been meaning to get quotes on stickers for the loco in my sig.

[garethjellis]

Great roof detail, captures the angles nicely!

[zephyr1934]

Very nice scaling and attention to detail. My personal favorite coaches are the PRR P70s, and I was thinking round cutout decals over transparent panels would work fine. Are you breaking up the windows with decals? If not, 1 x 1 bricks between them would do the trick. I wouldn't shy away from building 70+ long coaches either, with ME rail wide radius curves on the horizon. The sky is the limit!

I would echo that, to my eye the individual windows are a key characteristic of the 1920's era passenger equipment, and as Aaron suggested, using brown 1x1 bricks between the clear panels would probably be an okay tradeoff (though I think the frame windows would look better... maybe an upgrade to do in the next round of lugbulk?). Your rendering with the window frame really nails the commuter cars of that era. If you go with the brick spacers, you could then stack two 1x2 trans clear bricks to mimic the middle split of the windows (most but not all passenger cars of this era had double sash opening windows, though some had a single sash).

Now that you mention it, I'm not actually against making round window stickers or something in principle... if I can cut them accurately enough I think I'll give it a shot.

A couple of thoughts, color matching is a !@#$% with clear stickers since they will come out differently when printed and probably will not be sufficiently opaque for your needs. You might be able to do it with white stickers though. To get the hole you can use a crafting hole punch. If you go this route, I'd suggest printing off a "test strip" sort of like the paint chips, with 1/4" squares of various hues to find the one that matches best to the lego brown. You can also use clear packing tape to add the "shine" to the stickers.

Though if you are not against modifying bricks, I think what might be the best way to get the hole is to drill it into a 1x2x2 panel and then sand down the edges.

EDIT: I just thought of something else: I'm making a baggage car-power car with 9v motors, but the geometry of the train motors is less than optimal:

I want to have the coupler thing (red) in the position shown, but the only part I know of that can get it there is the actual buffer piece. This isn't too bad of a solution, but 'Murrikan trains don't have buffers. Is there some other piece or method that I'm not thinking of that will work? I can't use a fishplate on top of the motor with the coupler thing underneath because it'll be a plate too high. I can remove the crap behind it if need be.

If you can move your coupler one stud further away from the motor, then you can fit a 2x3 plate with hole to hold the coupler, then use tiles above the motor and some combination of plates below the coupler to attach it to the motor.

Of course the cheating way would be to just cut the buffers off of the buffer beam.

[Cale]

I would echo that, to my eye the individual windows are a key characteristic of the 1920's era passenger equipment, and as Aaron suggested, using brown 1x1 bricks between the clear panels would probably be an okay tradeoff (though I think the frame windows would look better... maybe an upgrade to do in the next round of lugbulk?). Your rendering with the window frame really nails the commuter cars of that era. If you go with the brick spacers, you could then stack two 1x2 trans clear bricks to mimic the middle split of the windows (most but not all passenger cars of this era had double sash opening windows, though some had a single sash).

I agree on the windows. To get the look right window frames are worth the extra investment. The car will look so much better for it. Windows aside however this is really nice model with some good attention to detail. It definitely captures the unique look of the prototype.

And now I'm going to put on my OCD train geek hat to pass on some Pennsylvania RR history.

There was no P54 class on the Pennsylvania RR. The official PRR designation for the "locomotive hauled" cars was MP54, but the PRR used "mP54" and "mp54" variations in official paperwork as well. All MP54 class cars were initially constructed as unpowered locomotive hauled coaches for suburban commuter operations, however the Pennsy anticipated converting many of these cars into self-propelled MU (Multiple Unit) cars as they electrified more of their routes so the cars all carried the M designation (for MU) even if they were never converted. As non powered MP54 coaches were converted into MU electrically powered cars these coaches were given an "E" suffix at the end of their class designation to denote conversion to MU status thus becoming MP54E.

Did the T1's ever haul MP54 coaches? Generally no. However you can never say never and as they say in model railroading "There is a prototype for everything". The T1's like many PRR locomotives could on occasion turn up in some pretty weird assignments, I haven't seen photos but there are stories of T1's even turning up on freight trains. Usually such odd occurrences happened as locomotives were coming out of the shop after major repairs, the engine could be assigned to any available train so that it could be given a test run before heading back out to it's normal assignment. In regular service though the T1's wouldn't have pulled MP54 cars as they were ill suited to the short, suburban commuter runs that the MP54 cars were assigned to. The T1's would have been assigned to the PRR's big name trains like the Broadway Limited and the Red Arrow early in their careers. Later in the T1's short life they often found themselves assigned to express and mail trains as diesels took over on the premier passenger trains.

Cale

[Commander Wolf]

how are you keeping those long runs of sideways brown bricks along the bottom sides in place?

Missed this, but sadly it's not actually that exciting, just a handful of 2x2 corners:

maybe an upgrade to do in the next round of lugbulk?)

I agree on the windows. To get the look right window frames are worth the extra investment

Well, I was on the fence, but you guys have convinced me; I'll pick 'em up if I can get 'em cheap.

So it seems like for the stickers the consensus is to get it done professionally... or barring that, use ink on white rather than ink on clear. I will probably just keep doing the latter then.

For the windows I do think a regular hole punch will make a hole of the right size, so I'll do some testing on that... the more I think about it, the more sold I am on that.

And now I'm going to put on my OCD train geek hat to pass on some Pennsylvania RR history.

There was no P54 class on the Pennsylvania RR. The official PRR designation for the "locomotive hauled" cars was MP54, but the PRR used "mP54" and "mp54" variations in official paperwork as well. All MP54 class cars were initially constructed as unpowered locomotive hauled coaches for suburban commuter operations, however the Pennsy anticipated converting many of these cars into self-propelled MU (Multiple Unit) cars as they electrified more of their routes so the cars all carried the M designation (for MU) even if they were never converted. As non powered MP54 coaches were converted into MU electrically powered cars these coaches were given an "E" suffix at the end of their class designation to denote conversion to MU status thus becoming MP54E.

Did the T1's ever haul MP54 coaches? Generally no. However you can never say never and as they say in model railroading "There is a prototype for everything". The T1's like many PRR locomotives could on occasion turn up in some pretty weird assignments, I haven't seen photos but there are stories of T1's even turning up on freight trains. Usually such odd occurrences happened as locomotives were coming out of the shop after major repairs, the engine could be assigned to any available train so that it could be given a test run before heading back out to it's normal assignment. In regular service though the T1's wouldn't have pulled MP54 cars as they were ill suited to the short, suburban commuter runs that the MP54 cars were assigned to. The T1's would have been assigned to the PRR's big name trains like the Broadway Limited and the Red Arrow early in their careers. Later in the T1's short life they often found themselves assigned to express and mail trains as diesels took over on the premier passenger trains.

Good bit of history there; I called 'em P54 because the site from which I got the model pictures called 'em P54, but that might've been the LIRR designation? Re-reading the Wiki article does suggest that PRR only called 'em MP54(X).

Anyway, the BL parts are coming in; hopefully I can build a complete one this weekend.

[cgarison]

Cale, your knowledge of Pennsy RR history amazes me.

[zephyr1934]

Missed this, but sadly it's not actually that exciting, just a handful of 2x2 corners:

While very simple, it is also very clever, that is a great effect.

[Commander Wolf]

So I did actually build some of these this weekend.

No panes yet, though.

Still trying to figure out what to do about the round windows... it looks like a hole punch is too small, so I'm trying to print black circles, but I'm not sure how happy I am with that solution.

Still need to get the size down too.

So I was originally going to wheel these with BBB smalls, but it looks like I can get official smalls for less than half the price on Bricklink. If I remove the tires the rolling performance seems to be just as good as the BBB wheels... is there any reason that I shouldn't get those official wheels over the BBBs?

[codefox421]

So I did actually build some of these this weekend.

...

Still trying to figure out what to do about the round windows... it looks like a hole punch is too small, so I'm trying to print black circles, but I'm not sure how happy I am with that solution...

These look great! The trans panels work well enough, though should you find the windows cheap enough they will make it come to life even more!

The hole punch seems to give the best effect, definitely better than the black circles, though like you say it looks a little too small.

By the way, have you considered wrapping a 1x2 trans brick with a hole-punched sticker? It would eliminate the offset due to the window pane.

[TerminalTitan]

Nice train! Attention to details. I like it

[SavaTheAggie]

The small BBB wheels are thinner and the flange is slightly smaller, meaning you can pack more details around them in smaller spaces. I have a flatcar that wont roll with LEGO wheels but will with BBB because the larger flange on the LEGO wheels rubs against the anchor for the truck facade.

If space isn't an issue, then go with what you can get.

--Tony

[dr_spock]

Looking good. You could try cutting out a larger hole in the sticker with the blade of exact zero. (X-Acto).