Modeling Santa Fe Passenger Cars:

Modeling Santa Fe Passenger Cars: Modeling Santa Fe Passenger Cars
70' Heavyweight Baggage and Baggage Mail

Athearn based

For our model we will use an Athearn 70' baggage car, but it will never be an exact model of the ATSF. The following things are incorrect:

The side steel work in the Athearn model has many joints not found in the ATSF. Many of the ATSF units were wood cars on steel frames to which steel platting had been attached.
One end of the Athearn car is extended like a vestibule car end.
The doors of the Athearn car are 8' and 6' wide while the ATSF doors were 4' and 6'6" wide.
Athearn doors are paneled, ATSF were smooth.
The doors are improperly placed for ATSF prototype.
The bottom sill is incorrect.

Two basic cars will be produced.

Mail Storage 1800 - 1819 and Baggage Express 1710-1839 were 70' cars with what I will call the Santa Fe sill.
Mail Storage 1900-1919 and Baggage Express 257-319; 389-399 (some numbers deleted), 1585-1709 were 70' cars with fishbelly sills. Many of these were wood cars which were plated by WW2, so check Ellington's book if you are modeling before that time.

The three photos which follow demonstrate the stock Athearn car, my changes, and the completed cars.

Stock Athearn

Drawing by Frank Ellington, used with permission, from his Head End Cars book.

The Body

1. Cut off the bottom row of rivets from each side of the car (there are two rows of rivets at the bottom). To do this, I clamp a straight edge (metal ruler) to the side of the car using two "C" clamps. This will protect the part I want to save. Then use a razor saw or the back side of an X-acto knife blade and cut the bottom off. You might want to save that rivet row for another project.

2. Remove all molded on grabs from the car. I really like a tool I purchased from Micro-Mark for this purpose. I keep a wet-stone handy to re-sharpen it, but it give me much better control than a hobby knife.

3. Remove the cast on gutters over the doors.

4. Remove the cast on roof ridges on the main roof. I remove the ridges with a wide 1.25" wide bastard file then sand it smooth with 600 sand paper. I left the ridges on the lower part of the room as I could not fine a satisfactory way to remove them.

Now to replace:

1. Use .020" x .020" styrene to create ATSF style gutters over the doors. The Santa Fe sill cars had gutters over the end doors; the fishbelly did not.

2. Use any flat styrene to cover end doors of the car. The ATSF doors were solid and kept closed. Be sure your "door" does not interfere with inserting the frame.

3. Cut and apply styrene pieces to cover the lower half of each side door from .10". The Athearn has a raised bar across the door, so fit your new piece snugly under it.

4. Drill and apply grabs.

This body will now fit on either frame to create either car.

Continue to build with the:

Santa Fe sill.

Fishbelly sill.