Re: Be a patron of the narrow gauge model building arts?? First Co-Op kits released!

Posted by Jim Courtney on May 21, 2022; 3:31am
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Be-a-patron-of-the-narrow-gauge-model-building-arts-tp17065p17740.html

Bill Meredith has just released the first of the Co-Op cars, in all three scales. He is now taking orders and shipping the D&RG 3000 series boxcars, as built in 1904, a project sponsored by Geoff Hamway:




My two kits (for D&RG interchange cars at Breckenridge in 1909) arrived last week. I've only done a cursory inspection but it looks to be a great kit, with very cleanly laser cut wood parts, brass etchings for the hardware. The split cylinder/reservoir with the by-pass plumbing to allow straight air or automatic air brake operation is a beautiful 3-D print.

For any of you West Coast narrow gauge modelers lurking out there, Bill has also just released and is shipping the South Pacific Coast 28-foot combination (ventilated) box car, again in all three scales. https://leadvilledesigns.com/

Next up for Leadville Designs appears to be passenger cars, Pullman Sleepers and their offspring, to be exact. Bill just did a Facebook post with a copy of the add that will run in the July/August Gazette:




So if any of you DSP&P modelers have wanted a Plan 73, 42 foot Palace Sleeper for the through night trains to Leadville or Gunnison, here is your chance. To be available in all three scales, with correct 6-foot wheel base brass trucks also in the works. Design phase just underway, price and final availability TBD. Pre-orders not yet accepted.

I was going to pass on these, as the 1880s is too early for my modeling interests. But the "Tourist Sleeper Coach" piqued my interest. One of these cars later became C&S coach 153 / 62. That version is planned by Bill for the future, as is business car B-1 / 910.

But checking out things at Hendrick Hayes's website, it appears that after sleeping car service to Gunnison was canceled in 1887, the Pullman sleepers Bonanza and Leadville were rebuilt as coaches in 1892 and sold to the UPD&G, numbered 177 and 179 on that road. https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/CandS/dsp-passenger/bonanza-leadville-sanjuan1.htm

Here one is pictured (car in the middle) in 1894 at an excursion to the east portal of Alpine Tunnel:

https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digital/collection/p15330coll21/id/3700/rec/4



Either UPD&G 177 or 179 is the coach in the middle, behind all the unattractive, frowning people.

When the C&S emerged from receivership in January of 1899, the two Pullmans turned coaches were renumbered as C&S 146 and 148. They kept these numbers on the C&S until both were rebuilt into RPO-coaches in May of 1906 and were renumbered C&S 41 and 43.

So Dave Eggleston, here's a chance to have an authentic UPD&G coach for a late-1890s Central City layout. And I can justify one for my 1901 Breckenridge passenger consist, as a C&S coach.

In fact, I've wondered about the first coach behind the baggage car in this photo:




The car has 14 windows, but they don't exactly looked paired--and the roof vents don't seem to match. Perhaps Ken Martin can set me straight on this one!