Hi everybody,
I'm new to the list and I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is
Craig Heenan and I live in Magnolia, TX. I've recently decided to build
an N scale layout based on the Katy between Dallas and Denison and over
the last few weeks I've been accumulating rolling stock and repainting.

I recently picked up some Arnold/Rivarossi heavyweight passenger cars
and I'm a little puzzled over how to paint them. The time frame I'm
using is roughly 1960-1966, and based on the photos in the MKT books
I've got ("Miss Katy in the Lone Star State" and "MKT in Color") it
seems to me that I can reasonably go with three schemes, although some
were relatively rare, I know.

1) Green with Gold lettering. Not a big challenge, but is there any
source out there for the lettering for these cars?

2) All-red sides. Rare, I know, but I think it would look intereisting
to have one or two. The lettering is minimal, but again, can anybody
point me toward the correct yellow lettering styles in N scale?

3) Red and silver with fake fluting. This is the one I'd really like to
be able to pull off, but I've got no idea how to manage it. I could
wimp out, I suppose, and paint one in its later days where the fluting
paint seems to have largely faded away (what is a good color for the
shade that the silver faded to?). What I'd really like to do, though,
is get at least the suggestion of that fluted effect. It seems to me
that a few years back I read an article in one of the magazines on
doing this, but I remember nothing of the specifics of the method the
author used and I'm not sure that the technique he used in HO would
necessarily translate to N. I've wondered if I could whip something up
on my computer and print my own decals, but I haven't taken that line
of thought too far.

As far as painting those red and silver cars is concerned, I've settled
on Floquil Caboose Red as a pretty good new-paint color, but I'm
wondering what thoughts you all might have about creating the color it
faded to? It seems to me that a combination of white and yellow is
called for to lighten it, but I can't get the proportions right yet. I
also haven't figured out a good way to represent the combination of
faded red and grime that seems so common.

Finally, I'm aware of some of the side kits out there for the
lightweight equipment, but are there any kits that provide heavyweight
sides and roofs? I'm particularly interested in the rounded roofs that
were added to older heavywheights when they were updated to match the
lightweight equipment. I'd also like to find a source for the
heavyweight RPO's which frankly none of the Rivarossi cars comes
anywhere close to.

Any wisdom you could share would be greatly appreciated. I look forward
to being able to contribute some of my own at some point.

Craig