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The Valley series came from Pullman Standard in 1942, Lot 6669, Plan 4099. There were 119 identical cars ordered for various wartime railroads with 26 going to Santa Fe. They were unusual for Santa Fe in that they have smooth sides and went through three (four) different paint schemes during their lives. All were retired in 1967-68 with one going to the Gulf Coast NRHS in Houston and most of the rest going to W. Silver & Co. See a photo essay of Verde Valley.

Cars started their lives as two tone gray with a separator stripe, often called the Tribe paint scheme. Nearly all were subsequently painted with the shadow lined scheme for mixing with stainless steel cars. Hendrickson lists the following dates for the paint schemes:

The repainted cars were repainted to the Tribe scheme with the silver stripe but without the black outlining of the stripe and lettering. (Blue, Red Rock and Sunshine Valleys never were painted shadow line). Their final paint scheme was a solid medium gray side and underbody with silver roof and trucks. The Santa Fe Streamliners book (Zimmerman) shows the Estancia Valley in Tribe paint sometime after 1954 when it was renamed from the Taos Valley (p. 57). It also has a photo of the Tesuque Valley with the solid gray with silver roof and blanked upper section windows taken in 1961 (p. 57). Therefore the Gray paint came in the late 50s.

Photos are easy to find. Be sure to consult photos when modeling these cars.

Walther's released this car in the Spring of 2003. The ATSF version is of the later solid gray paint with silver roof.

The Eastern Car Works kit 1205 is a generic model for this car. I say Generic because C&NW, CRI&P, Erie, IC, MP, NdeM, SP, and UP all had versions of this car. Good drawings can be found in the November, 1991, Mainline Modeler.

Eastern kits consist of plastic sides, ends, roof, underbody with cast on details, window strip, and trucks which you must assemble. These pieces tend to have a lot of flashing or poor joint areas, so you will need to spend some time cleaning everything up. I use a file for large pieces to maintain a flat surface.

The only cast grabs are a lower step at one end of the car and a hand rail on the ends. I chose to remove both

The end detail is sparse. Eastern uses the same end for all its cars, and they have a pair of cast on lights (?) which are not prototypical for ATSF. Cut them off. The end does not fit the roofline snugly, so you may wish to use some putty to fill in the gaps. You will also want to build up the diaphragm area .030-.040" using styrene strips. I also put a plate under the molded end, into which I cut the coupler pocket. The roof itself is also incorrect. There are several cast on features over the vestibule, all of which are incorrect and should be removed. Start with a hobby knife, then switch to a file, and finish with steel wool. Be careful, as it is hard to keep it smooth.

The kit includes the 6 small windows over the section seating. At some point circa 1960 these were removed on some cars and poorly patched. Consult photos to know your era.

Skirts on these models are rather flat; they do not curve under the car as on the prototype. The Santa Fe cars generally lost their skits to the convenience of maintenance folks during the late 40s, but some lasted into the 50s. For my modeling date of 1953, the skirts have been removed. Eastern has made this easy by scribing lines on the reverse side of each side to serve as a cutting guide. Once removed, use a long file to get everything smooth.

Underbody details are cast on and lack any detail. For the ATSF version, the battery boxes and one tank are in the wrong place. For this series car, the basic underbody is correct because it used Pullman Mechanical air conditioning instead of the normal ATSF Steam Ejector a/c. If you are using the car with skirts and not looking under it, then nothing will show. If you are removing the skirts, you must decide whether to use Eastern's underbody or start from scratch. Even with the skirts removed, there were sections of skirts which were retained. Check photos for the exact car and time you wish to model.

I chose to paint my car after assembly. I knew I had some putty to spread around, and chose to paint later. Eastern suggests that you glue the ends to the roof first. After they have set, attach the sides. When I attached the side, I inserted the floor and wrapped rubber bands around the entire car. This plastic when touched by glue does not set hard for quite a while. Allow at least 24 hours before trying to clean up any excess glue.

I decided to build an interior for my car from .020" styrene. The only portion that will actually show will be the Pullman seating section. These cars tended to have a light gray interior.

(A work in progress)

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