Side Shot Saturday starting 25 May
May 25, 2024 14:23:50 GMT
Country Joe, JDaddy, and 4 more like this
Post by harborbelt70 on May 25, 2024 14:23:50 GMT
One car and only one this week but with some extra images to complete my little story behind it. I redeemed this CIWL sleeper from what was effectively lay-away and although it won’t be in its proper place for a while because I’ll be on the road I think it’s worth a look. This is an Italian-made model from (as near as I have been able to find out) sometime in the 1980s and it is of a sleeping car made for service on the Egyptian railways starting around the late19th century:
The compartment window side has no less than 28 windows and as you will see everything inside is prototypically placed; the passage or corridor side shown immediately above has no lighting and I'm debating with myself whether to add some. Anyway, when I first unpacked and handled this car I noticed that the roof seemed a little loose and though you can’t see it in the photos on the top of the roof there are two tiny set screws. In the interest of what passes for my scientific/historical inquiries I took them out and hey presto off came the roof to reveal the lighting bar and a complete set of furnishings:
A removable roof is kind of the Holy Grail for a passenger car interior modeler like me as otherwise you have to peer through the car’s windows to see the details added inside. I have seen a couple of 2rail brass models where the builders added this feature and af3020 has shown some vintage Marklin models that were built with opening roofs. I’ve never attempted this with any of the scale passenger cars I’ve detailed because the cutting of their roofs would be arduous, especially with aluminum-body cars.
It’s occurred to me that my interest in CIWL cars and in particular ones in white livery goes back to a trip to South Africa about 6 years ago where I saw one of these Italian models in a Cape Town hotel display and two preserved Pullman-built cars from the famous 1947 Royal Train in a railway museum. If you look very hard at the top image in this photo you will see that to pull the train over and along the mountains of the Western Cape there were Beyer-Garratt articulated steamers fore and aft of the consist:
I knew nothing about Beyer-Garratts before seeing several examples in the train museum where the Royal cars are preserved. To me they are odd looking beasts to say the least but were in very widespread use in Africa, South America and Asia particularly on relatively narrow gauge railroads and mountainous areas:
Reverting to the white car, I knew at first sight that the Royal cars were Pullman-built because one is a diner and has the identical kitchen design and indeed fittings/appliances as US Pullman diners did right through the Streamliner era. I haven't bottomed this out yet but I think this sleeper is not a Pullman because I don’t recognize the interior design. Cars of this kind saw service over what seems to have been the better part of a century and I imagine that in Egypt they were worked to death before leaving service. You’ll note from these old pictures that at some point they were equipped with what look like cowls over the roofs and indeed extra window shades:
I have learned that they were used on the Cairo-Luxor route among others and as that is through burning desert I imagine that the cowl was insulation against the scorching sun. If I can avoid it this model is not going to be in any direct sunlight in order to protect the finish. You can’t see it in the photos but it looks like a previous owner didn’t protect it in that way because on the sides of the roof the white finish has faded so that the gray primer underneath shows like a shadow. I’ll decide another time whether I can refinish the roof now that I know how easy it is to remove.
The compartment window side has no less than 28 windows and as you will see everything inside is prototypically placed; the passage or corridor side shown immediately above has no lighting and I'm debating with myself whether to add some. Anyway, when I first unpacked and handled this car I noticed that the roof seemed a little loose and though you can’t see it in the photos on the top of the roof there are two tiny set screws. In the interest of what passes for my scientific/historical inquiries I took them out and hey presto off came the roof to reveal the lighting bar and a complete set of furnishings:
A removable roof is kind of the Holy Grail for a passenger car interior modeler like me as otherwise you have to peer through the car’s windows to see the details added inside. I have seen a couple of 2rail brass models where the builders added this feature and af3020 has shown some vintage Marklin models that were built with opening roofs. I’ve never attempted this with any of the scale passenger cars I’ve detailed because the cutting of their roofs would be arduous, especially with aluminum-body cars.
It’s occurred to me that my interest in CIWL cars and in particular ones in white livery goes back to a trip to South Africa about 6 years ago where I saw one of these Italian models in a Cape Town hotel display and two preserved Pullman-built cars from the famous 1947 Royal Train in a railway museum. If you look very hard at the top image in this photo you will see that to pull the train over and along the mountains of the Western Cape there were Beyer-Garratt articulated steamers fore and aft of the consist:
I knew nothing about Beyer-Garratts before seeing several examples in the train museum where the Royal cars are preserved. To me they are odd looking beasts to say the least but were in very widespread use in Africa, South America and Asia particularly on relatively narrow gauge railroads and mountainous areas:
Reverting to the white car, I knew at first sight that the Royal cars were Pullman-built because one is a diner and has the identical kitchen design and indeed fittings/appliances as US Pullman diners did right through the Streamliner era. I haven't bottomed this out yet but I think this sleeper is not a Pullman because I don’t recognize the interior design. Cars of this kind saw service over what seems to have been the better part of a century and I imagine that in Egypt they were worked to death before leaving service. You’ll note from these old pictures that at some point they were equipped with what look like cowls over the roofs and indeed extra window shades:
I have learned that they were used on the Cairo-Luxor route among others and as that is through burning desert I imagine that the cowl was insulation against the scorching sun. If I can avoid it this model is not going to be in any direct sunlight in order to protect the finish. You can’t see it in the photos but it looks like a previous owner didn’t protect it in that way because on the sides of the roof the white finish has faded so that the gray primer underneath shows like a shadow. I’ll decide another time whether I can refinish the roof now that I know how easy it is to remove.
