Any Walthers O 933-4889 Milwaukee Road Skytop Lounge out there?

[texas&pacific]

Gents,
Anyone have one buried in a closet somewhere and is re-thinking getting around to masking and painting the platic curved "Skytop" rear end? Am considering buying one for a fair price as I have reached, perhaps, the other end of the spectrum.
Thanks!

[bob turner]

I have one that was given to me by Maroon. I am trying to keep it pristine while I explore ways to get a metal observation end. As far as I know, all the ends are plastic. This one is a lot like a model airplane cockpit.
Sunset made a beauty. I could lust after one of those, but my hobby is building things.

[Pacific Limited]

I was hot on the trail to build up an ultimate HI when I lived in Iowa. Ordered the Key Model Imports E6 #15 A/A models and managed to gather 14 of the Twin Cities HI cars offered from Walthers in 1971 and 1972.

The Walthers kits are wonderful; truly some of the best passenger car kits ever produced in 1/48. Without doubt state of the art in 1971 when John Kiel and folks worked up the tooling and molds.


The cars come with the metal sides and roof painted and pad printed. If you plan to leave them in delivery scheme it's great.

I have built at least 2 sets of these cars. I upgraded with PSC brass detail where possible and installed all the piping. Drawings are provided for routing the piping and placement of all underbody equipment. The Kiel Line parts are PSC quality, in some ways better. I'm sure he did some of PSC's investment casting work. John will be missed he was a pioneer and amazing modeler. I owe him a debt of gratitude for his work and will always look at him as a O scale master.







A partially built floor showing the full sill detail. Use of wood is rough 50% of the build.









The Walthers Nystrom High Speed trucks do wear out rather quickly. John Kiel offered us the blister packed examples in this photo with brass bushings installed.

[Pacific Limited]

This is mostly an educational piece. Very little is out there on these kits. If you guys have any photos of completed models please post them. Now when we all search Google or Bing the Walthers 1/4 scale Hiawatha kits will pop up. The HO release really clogged the search after they came out. Coincidentally Atlas Yes YOU could easily adapt the Walthers tooling to O scale and make an amazing model. The Walthers HO passenger cars are impressive!

[texas&pacific]

I have one that was given to me by Maroon. I am trying to keep it pristine while I explore ways to get a metal observation end. As far as I know, all the ends are plastic. This one is a lot like a model airplane cockpit.
Sunset made a beauty. I could lust after one of those, but my hobby is building things.

Yep, that is what I am looking for Bob. Are you just torturing me?
Lots of masking and painting and then how to deal with the seam. But I seem to be a glutton for early O scale punishment. Apparently these cars were pretty much state of the art then, I am very impressed with the pre-painted sides, I don't think Walthers did many other roads pre-painted like this. I seem to recall they did an HO NYC 20th Century Limited Heavyweight Pullman set in green, pre-lettered that was very nice and likely tops for the day. A friend built up a set, interiors and lights and had it pulled behind a Westside Hudson for a very nice train.
Have no idea who made a rear end in brass or metal as you mention for the O Milw Rd Skytop...are you serious? Is it a refit for the plastic canopy, or does it involve chopping off the whole rear? Paint match is a challenge as the kits refer to Milw Rd R Maroon and Orange from Hobsco.
Any thought on how to drill out the handrails without chipping the paint?

[Pacific Limited]

THE PEANUT GALLERY version of the truth:

@Jtrain posted:
Are we sure about that? It seems that someone posted engineering drawings that showed some prototype cars being 85 feet long, including the Skytop observation, like the K-line and GGD cars. But the Walthers kits are all 80 scale feet or less, right?

I can’t seem to find those drawings. Maybe it was in another forum.

My reply: Please stop trying to spread misinformation online. These kits are not 5 feet short of prototype in 1/48 or whatever you think they are. Preposterous, I've built over 40 of these kits over the years for clients. John Kiel was a mastermind tool die maker and modeler. He would not shave off 5' off a car kit for the sake of fitting in a box so to speak as was so common with the likes of MTH. I have seen including in the annals of OGR magazine, modelers that intentionally "shortened" these kits for use on 3 rail toy train layouts but NO, and no, these kits include the full scale drawings in the box for reference while in construction. I used to upgrade them with brass PSC details and consider them an extremely fine model, built right they are contest room quality. Where you heard this misinformation baffles me, I've never heard of it of before now, not since 1994 when I started building these, buying them, aquired parts from John Kiel, and meddling with the community that is so devoted to these fine kits, dumb.

Reply and continued response:
@Jtrain posted:
No need to make it personal. This is supposed to be a friendly discussion and exchange of information and ideas. We are talking about models that have not been made for MANY years by a company that no longer makes these types of models. It is not “misinformation” and it is not about what I “think” or what you “think,” and is especially not about you thinking that what someone else posted is “dumb.” Can we please just be civil and stick to the facts? If I want to read confrontational posts like this, I will go over to Twitter/X, or whatever it is called now. This forum doesn’t need to be like that. By the way, see the post ^.

OK ... this IS about opinion, and assertions of a man's personal opinion. And it is misinformation about something, if it’s made 50 years ago or not that is irrelevant, misinformation is misinformation. Sorry I hurt your feelings. bummer. I too come here to enjoy the hobby. Once in a blue moon I find it necessary to protect my opinion especially when it's backed with facts. It's hard to prove facts here since copyright policies prevent sourcing from others materials. Again, I am so sorry I hurt your feelings. You blew back on me "Are we sure about that?" So I did "made-sure" about that sir. Have a great day and the "dumb" was about the situation, not you at all, this is dumb we need to argue about something like this.

Continued reply:
BK
Brad KowalOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERSunset Models Rep
@Jtrain posted:
Are we sure about that? It seems that someone posted engineering drawings that showed some prototype cars being 85 feet long, including the Skytop observation, like the K-line and GGD cars. But the Walthers kits are all 80 scale feet or less, right?

I can’t seem to find those drawings. Maybe it was in another forum.

Negative to the 80'. There were "other" cars produced in the 1940's (I think) that were short. The subject matter here is the cars Walthers produced in the 1970's. Here is a car side from the 1970's series cars. If you add the ends, you'll be at 85'.

[Pacific Limited]

I tried to add these photos of one of my sets before built for reference and in usual Meta Facebook style social platforming I get the peanut gallery stating thier own version of the truth. What I didn’t know about, at the time was these algorithms by 2021 had made these people angry and spiteful and without any reservation to attack someone or something for no reason other than to be a jerk. Anyway, the Walthers kits from 1971 were spot on scale 1/4” to the foot and excellent.

[Pacific Limited]

Built samples:

[texas&pacific]

Built samples:

Thanks again Eric, gorgeous work and superb models! Am I seeing the pic correctly in that the roof removes off the Skytop? Or was that before you glued it down...

[texas&pacific]

I do not know why these cars absolutely amaze me, as I am not particularly a fan of the Milw Rd. Is it the maroon and orange? The name? The flawless streamlining? I just happened to pick up half a dozen cars for a deal (wasn't looking for them at all, but could not pass the offer) to add to my pile. I must have been shot by Hiawatha's arrow in the butt on Valentine's Day. This train is ab-so-lute-ly beautiful in my RR book.

I am pouring over the instructions and wondering how I would tackle -
1) drilling out the grab iron / hand rail holes without chipping the paint
2) getting as close to a seamless match between the curved metal roof edge and the top of the car side
3) striping the black line between the maroon and orange bands on the sides
4) matching the orange (recommended Hobsco in instructions) Milw Rd orange for the ends
5) keeping access in the car for lighting and interior (instructions say screw one end to 1/4 in wood posts)

Any suggestions are more than welcome...!

[up148]

It is an amazing car and impossible to ignore once you see it. I imagine sitting under all the glass on a warm or sunny day could get uncomfortable, but what a draw for train riders.

[R.K. Maroon]

I have one that was given to me by Maroon

Yep, that is what I am looking for Bob. Are you just torturing me?

It should be noted that the kit I sent to Bob was for the Olympian Hiawatha Skytop, while the part number referenced in the title of this thread is for the Twin Cities Hiawatha Skytop. They are not the same by any stretch. While both cars have a Skytop observation end, the former is a sleeping car and the latter is a parlor car (as appropriate respectively for an overnight and day train). Walthers made kits for both consists. Scanned copies of the instructions for the two cars sets can be found at the links below:

Olympian:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/qn0eeavw8tu0vsb4sgq5q/AJ5GjMVVQszUtjWAbNpZ4Lg?rlkey=hiozv6r1bsyiju3vmcrmc22zq
Twin Cities:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/t1z8l3i394uiea7e3trmu/ADC5sd91JZpMjMEZ21ST8tk?rlkey=v11g72uvz6i1kesnsxl8t11ws

I really like these cars. I bought them as kits a long time ago, but later purchased a built-up set that was in the Chi-Town auction. Many of the cars from the Hiawatha were used in the Pioneer Limited (overnight train Chicago-Twin Cities). One of my bucket list items is to build up a Pioneer Limited in Armour Yellow. This scheme is not popular among the purists, but this is the Milwaukee Road as I remember it as a kid in Chicago in the 1960s.

Jim

[Pacific Limited]

Nice content Jim thanks!

[up148]

Where did you find all those wonderful schematics for the cars. I could sure use some of those for the FEF I'm working on.

[Pacific Limited]

Those are included in each box on a tabloid sized print you can see on my photos above.