Last year I decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at modifying a HW 10-1-2
Pullman to get a specific car I wanted for my modeling interest in the Conn
River line ca. 1953. Now my modeling skills leave a lot to be desired. I've lost
track of how many times over the years I tried and gave up modifying the old
Rivarossi Pullman with NERS parts or etched-brass sides. But I decided that
there were several specific cars I wanted that were never going to be produced
commercially, not even by Bethlehem Car Works or NKP Car.

Now I know many people swear by using Branchline kits for kitbashing but I was
really attracted to the modular concept used by Walthers so went that route. I
surprised myself at how relatively easy it was to work with the relatively thin
outer side of a Walthers car and the 10-1-2 came out much better than I would
have hoped. That inspired me to consider doing other cars and I have to thank
list member Ed Beaudette for suggesting that I consider using the Walthers 6-3
Pullman as a starting point.

Bottom line is that for the last several months I've been modifying a number of
Walthers cars and would like to share some of the results to perhaps inspire
others to try this approach to get a model of that specific car they've always
wanted. I know Tom Thompson has done this big time to basically model the entire
B&M parlor car fleet and he's shared his beautiful work with us in the past. But
I've noticed Walthers has been having big sales on many of their passenger cars
and it wouldn't surprise me if they simply discontinued the HW cars at least in
the near future. I think that market has gotten saturated and these lean
economic times will likely cause model manufacturers and importers to take a
hard look at things. So now may be the time to stock-up on cars for possible
future use.

Although none of the models I've been working on is finished they are all far
enough along that I have something to show. I've started out with the Pullman
Plan 2917B broiler-buffet-parlor-lounge SOUTHPORT that was owned by the NH after
1945. This car was a regular on the "Day White Mountains" in the postwar era at
least and worked in a rotation with the similar GAME COCK and STAG HOUND. These
two cars would be much harder to model using commercially available models which
is why I settled on SOUTHPORT.

You can see my results in the PHOTOS section under the folder JSHorvath Models.
This model is based on a Walthers 6-3 as it gave me the narrow clerestory I
needed. The pedimented ends needed to be rounded but this was not as bad as I
thought. The NERS windows can be spotted as they are a darker gray plastic
compared to the Walthers undec car I started with. I know the NERS parts were
made to go with the old Riva cars but they work beautifully with Walthers cars
and the detail is great. Note that this car was one of those air conditioned
during a time when Pullman used only four ice boxes instead of the usual five on
many parlor cars (something I only realized within the past year).

As always, the model has some compromises and some guesses (I have no idea what
roof vents were used over the buffet so I did nothing) but I think it matches
the prototype pretty well. There's a couple of photos of SOUTHPORT on the DWM in
1953 in one of Nimke's books. I also used photos that I found of the similar car
WESTDALE that was owned by the PRR and later LIRR.

I'll post photos of additional models-in-progress when I get the chance.

John S. Horvath