Laptop still out

My laptop is probably in Memphis today, getting a diagnostic performed on it. I expect the problem to be on the motherboard. If computers had bladders, a glass of water probably wouldn't cause such a problem (or if the circuit boards were coated in epoxy to prevent shorts).

I produced 4 pilot models of the arched upper pane windows for the B&S cars. The windows are 23 5/8 inches wide, I've decided that they should be 12" tall and 1" thick, plus 1/2" for glazing and clearance for the slidinging pane. In O scale, that becomes a window which is 0.4920"x 0.250"x0.020". I've built pilot windows by fabrication of (3) 1x2s and a 1x4, the same but with 1/2x1 reinforcements through the joints, laminating 1/2x2 and 1/2x 4s so as to reinforce the joints, and the last technique was to cut it out of a single piece of sheet styrene. From 6", they all look great...but if they aren't the best that I can reasonably do (which they aren't, before my windows had pockets for removable glazing), I'll notice the imperfections. For me, the best way to form nice arches is to mark off 2" from the edges of the 1x4 top pieces. I then use a round file to for the arches at each corner. I cut and file the center flat. This is how some of the arched windows looked in the 1890s...and I can't really tell how they were arched in the 1870s or 1880s. I'm looking forward to completing the roof. I might try to track down some plans of the Carson & Colorado coaches, kin to these, as they could help with some of the subtle details.

Here is a link to Carson & Colorado #5, built to the same design, and unlike the South Park cars, her roof was never modernized...http://www.oerm.org/pages/GF5.htm
Here previous owner, Ward Kimball, paid for his backyard railroad by creating Disney's renditions of Dumbo, Jiminy Cricket, and the Cheshire Cat. The photos of her are in many respects more useful than the only 2 photos of the car from my time period. The difference being the paint (mine will be Chocolate Brown), the presence of a name plate oval, and a belt rail.

Additionally, I'm rounding up information on South Park passenger cars #1 & #2 and #16-#17,#22-#25. All of these cars were "built" in Wilmington, DE in 1874. #1 were probably kits from Jackson & Sharp which the Halleck Bros of Denver assembled. The others were built by the obscure Bowers & Dure Co. There were two major builders in Wilmington, J&S and Harlan and Hollingsworth. B&D sure seems to have copied their design. I have a 1930s era drawing of the B&D coaches, a drawing of a Har & Hol coach from 1875, and pictures of a J&S car of that time period. The B&D cars came to the South Park through a short lived arrangement with the Santa Fe, but I won't go into that story, Jay Gould, the UP, and such now. The B&D cars and #1 were all 35' long; they were all rebuilt from hooded roofs to bullnose roofs that made the car bodies 8'11" tall. The B&Ds' sides were 6' tall. #1 had the same window pattern as the B&D coaches...the B&D combines & #1 had an 18'6" passenger section with the same number of window locations. The vents and stack arrangement is the same on both. The biggest difference is that #1 was only 7'7" wide while the B&Ds were 8' wide and the windows on #1 were slightly taller. The Har & Hol coach is 35' long, 7'7" wide, 8'8" tall body (6' sides, 2'8" hooded roof), and had 13 windows. All had arched single pane windows (although the center window on the H&H was slightly wider).

So, I'll may be able to make nearly identical roofs for all of these cars, perhaps I'll cast them in resin. If I do that, I know a few people whom I'd like to repay for helping me out with a few things in the past...and maybe sell a couple of them on ebay to cover the cost of the rubber molds and resin. Still, my previous experience with resin has been bad enough to assume this to be a waste...unless I'm building all of the cars and trying a different resin. The key here is that I can easily alter the B&D roof to be 5" narrower for #1.

I haven't mentioned #2 much because little is known of #2. Coach #2, the Denver, was probably identical to #1, the Auraria, upon leaving J&S as a kit. The Halleck brothers then replaced a couple windows with a baggage door and added the partition, just as was done with #23 and #25 in 1884. #2 burned in 1880, and therefore isn't necessary for my future layout (I might build her anyway to go with some of the other 1874 equipment...specifically the boxcars and the 4-4-0).

Only 5 South Park passenger cars were named: Auraria (a then twin city to Denver), Denver, Geneva, Halls Valley, and Leadville. The exception to the numbering only after 1878 were the Pullmans: Plan 73 cars South Park, Bonanza, Leadville, and San Juan (which also burned), and then Plan 73A Pullmans Kenosha and Hortense. Pullmans were sleeping cars for the train from Denver to Gunnison...the service lasted only a few years...but the cars were later converted to coaches, combines, and a business car.