Heart of Dixie RRM, Calera, AL MP 892 Planetary Dome fresh out of the shop with original MOPAC paint scheme. Now we need to finish the interior restoration.

Wow, nice work! What's the plan for this car, static display or operational?

Ryan

We use the car in the excursion consist for special events like North Pole Express and DOWT.

We have been working on the mechanicals like air conditioning, etc over the past year. Although it is operational the interior needs restoration.

A beautiful observation car, reminds me of another MOPAC "Eagle" car in St. Louis.

That looks like a very well-done paint job, and the colors look to be spot-on. Were you able to use paint that will hopefully hold up in the hot Alabama sun for many years?

This 1948 dome coach is noteworthy for a number of reasons. One is that the HOD group are the original private owners, having purchased the car from the IC circa 1971. That's almost 45 years ago.

Hello, all.

Is the HOD thinking of putting windows back in the top of the dome section?

Thanks.

Brian J. Patterson.

That's a very sharp-looking dome car! It even has the original, correctly-toned dome windows and the Adlake windows below, as well as the skirts, due to the museum acquiring it direct from IC, as Topfuel said. One question: it looks like there's something attached to the car on the vestibule end; what is that?

I don't think the is a plan to restore the upper windows at this point. They are plated over and have been since we got it from IC.

There isn't anything attached to the vestibule end. That is something in the yard showing in the background of the picture.

"I don't think the is a plan to restore the upper windows at this point. They are plated over and have been since we got it from IC."

For sake of discussion, this may be best in deference to the heat and humidity of a typical Alabama day, but restoring the upper dome windows may be easy to do in the future if there was any interest. The former MP PS-built flat-glass domes had this same treatment of the upper windows done by the MP (not the IC as many have thought). The upper dome windows were simply cocooned by plating over the outside and inside of each upper dome window. The window frames and glass was left in place and intact behind the plates. I'm guessing that the Budd domes might have been done the same way.

Topfuel -

Interesting bit of information. Thanks! This is just another example of why the RyPN website is valuable.


Les

That looks wonderful. Can you post some interior pictures?

Why did Amtrak pick up almost no IC equipment at startup in 1971?

Chris.

Topfuel:
I do believe you are correct. I just assumed IC had plated the windows over. I am fairly sure they are covered as you say with the glass intact. I still don't think there is any plan to restore them at this time. Perhaps in the future. The sun beats down on the dome bad enough as it is.

I don't have any interior pictures. I will be at the museum later in the week. I try to get some and post them.

1. A strong preference for stainless steel cars - IC had very few. That's why the NRPC Incorporators took all 447 Santa Fe cars, even though some dated from the 1930s and were in poor condition.
2. IC had few postwar streamlined cars - their passenger fleet comprised many rebuilds in varying degrees of heavyweight cars built as far back as 1917, and more than a few secondhand prewar lightweights.
3. The IC used Waukesha Ice Engine air conditioning extensively. Expensive to operate and maintain, and none too reliable.

Unfortunately the Budd domes were done differently as best as we can tell. It appears they removed the outer frames and plated over the whole set of upper windows from one end to the other. You can see the inner window frame as it is still exposed in the car and has a plate inserted in it. Had they just put plates in place of the glass it would have been really easy to go back with glass. They even took the center end windows out and welded stainless over that space and put aluminum panels on the inner frames. In the 1980s we cut out window openings and had a glass company put windows in with zip gaskets. Not the same as having a frame but we got the view back and it functions.

We went to great extremes to get the colors and paint scheme correct. We could not have done it without help from the Missouri Pacific Historical Society and the Museum of Transportation. We borrowed samples that were made from mopac original color chips decades ago and had those color matched. We used original mopac fonts and lettering specifics to get all the lettering exactly correct and spaced appropriately. We were missing the MP plates on all for corners so we had to make those. We had to make the plates to put the original 892 number back in the center of the car. We even made the plates and put Missouri Pacific's speed designation plate on the side. In the case of our car it was a D. If I recall that meant our dome was good up to 79 mph on the M.P. The parts of our car that were supposed to be bare stainless had been painted many times so we had to use stainless looking paint in those areas but it turned out very nice. We had an excellent painter and volunteers that went out of their way to get things as correct as we could feasibly accomplish.