TSG Business Cars
The fictitious T&SG is a small but prosperous and well-maintained shortline operating somewhere in California. Even a shortline might have a business car or three. A few years ago I built three cars that can serve as either business cars or observation cars. Business cars would normally be for company use. An observation car would bring up the rear of the T&SG’s dinner train.
For these three cars I used models from Atlas, Kato and Model Power.
Tuscany & Sabine Grove
TSG 900 (Business Car)
This is a stock Kato business car that came painted silver and lettered for another railroad. I removed the factory lettering by carefully rubbing it with some paint stripper on a microbrush. It’s important to keep a careful eye on the paint while doing this. Too much rubbing will get rid of the base color as well as the lettering!
I painted the purple stripe over the window area. The new lettering came from a set of custom printed decals that I made with a laser printer and Walthers decal paper. The car number is from a Microscale alphabet sheet.
TSG 900 has the Kato lighting kit installed. This is strictly a business car for company use.
TSG 901 (Business Car)
This is an old Model Power car that I reworked. I got rid of the original trucks and replaced them with new ones from Micro-Trains. I got rid of the clunky plastic railing on the back of the car and replaced it with a photo-etched part from Gold Medal Models. I also added new photo-etched corner steps from Gold Medal Models.
The car is decorated in the silver and purple TSG passenger scheme. The lettering is from my custom printed decal sheets. This car could serve as either a business car or as a backup observation car.
TSG 902 (Observation Car)
This is an old Atlas car that I’ve had for many years. Long ago I’d painted it in another fictitious scheme and named it “Marcia Adele” in honor of my mother. The decals had yellowed and the car was looking a bit sad so I decided to strip it and repaint it in the TSG scheme. I kept the name.
I added a Rapido “Easy Peasy” battery powered lighting kit to this model. The lights can be turned on and off with a magnet. The car was decorated in the same paint scheme and lettering as the other two (described above).
TSG 902 is the observation car that would normally be at the end of the dinner train.
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