Milwaukee Road 261 and passenger consist

[Unoriginal]

I’d suggest the two valley lounge cars, considering the Grand Canyon one is another former US army hospital car you pretty much have the base for it already. It’d probably be easier to do those.

I did want to ask, but are the roof’s for the cars too tall? I’ve ran the baggage cars with BLW cars and such, and they seem to be taller by just a bit. Was just asking incase something is off with the scaling.

[BrandonS261]

You need to realize that the ones I released previously were completely off and the updated versions I am currently working on are much more accurate but to answer your question yes the height is right on them. I made sure of that before I released the first set. I believe BLWs are not tall enough to be completely honest. I in fact just measured my cars and they are accurate for height and length.

I did however build the Concession car way too long and it has now been fixed. All three of the baggage cars that I released are shorter then typical passenger cars so it would seem they are too tall but in reality they are not.

I was thinking the St Croix and Wisconsin Valley cars but they are not even close to the Grand Canyon Baggage/Dorm car. That car was heavily modified by Amtrak so the Valley cars would have to be all new construction.

Brandon

[Unoriginal]

Thanks for clarifying on the height. I don't really think you'd have to build the valley cars all from scratch. They are of the same origin as the grand canyon one, being US army hospital cars built in '53. I just figured you could reuse most of the model for those but I myself aren't a modeler and therefor can't really say much when it comes to that.

Did you also redo the water tender too or was that one fine? I was thinking it was also a bit too tall but then again, I was running with BLW cars, and if those are undersized then your model is probably fine. Just wondering on that though.

[eric]

Looking good. How about some doors open with people hanging out in the baggage cars?... Reuse some photos of Josh, you, family and friends...

[BrandonS261]

Thanks Eric,

I would like to do that Eric but I am good with passenger cars not people LOL.

Yes I do plan on touching up the water tender but that is also the right height and as I said before I believe the BLW Cars are too short. Most of those sets have been out for years and are really starting to show there age but where top of the line when they were first built. I have been going by actual photos and builder plans for the cars so as I have said before my cars are very accurate.

The reason I say I would need to rebuild from scratch the two valley cars is because the windows are conpletely different then the Grand Canyon car. Modeling a specific car is not as easy as a cookie cutter project like you are thinking.

Brandon

[BrandonS261]

Just a little update. Before I get any deeper into this project I have decided to stop and reorganize all of the texture files so every car will have there own set of main textures instead of having the cars all share textures and have multiple files for the textures.

This in turn will help with the orginization of the textures along with making it much easier to texture individual cars in the future.

being 7 cars deep already with the project I figured it was better to do it now rather then keep going and do it later.

As I was looking through my texture files some of the cars had 6 to 8 different texture files to them so hopefully this will speed up the process in the future and help everyone if they want to retexture the cars in the future once I get them released.

Brandon

[BrandonS261]

I decided to darken the Maroon a little bit and fix up The Milwaukee Road Font as well on a couple of the cars to see what I thought and wanted others opinions as well. Personally this I feel is more accurate to what the real cars look like.

Brandon

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[lineman]

Loks great!

[BrandonS261]

A slight update to my progress regarding the Milwaukee Road 261 passenger car fleet.

I have now just about finished separating all of the main textures to individual passenger cars so every car will have its own set of unique textures specific to the car its self as you can see.

A few upgrades I have done is widen the middle maroon band and also darkened it slightly to match the real colors of the passenger cars. I have also upgraded The Milwaukee Road on all of the passenger cars along with fix a few spots where numbers or letters were not exactly in the correct spot on the cars.

A few details I still need to add are roof details, some MU hookups and cables along with completely re texture the Caritas observation car as that car is a complete mess when it comes to textures and needs a complete overhaul.

So far I am very pleased with how all of the cars are turning out but still have a few kinks to work out first before releasing them to all of you as typical I keep finding little things that either need to be corrected or added to the cars.

I am in the early stages of building the Super Dome and working currently on the Grand Canyon Tool/Dorm car that I hope to have that completed soon.

Brandon


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[BrandonS261]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Just wanted to hop on here and say I am grateful to this community and Eric for keeping this site up for all of us to enjoy. Along with everyone who shares there models, repaints and routes for all of us to enjoy. I hope you all have a fantastic day with friends and family!

Here are a couple of progress photos of the Grand Canyon Tool/Dorm car that the Friends of the 261 used to own that was sold to CPKC and is now used by CP 2816 crew.

I still have quite a bit of work to do on the car but hoping to have it done soon.

Brandon

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[BrandonS261]

I am currently working on 4 of the cars at the same time.

The Baggage Dorm Car Grand Canyon as mentioned earlier along with the Milwaukee Road sleeping car Minnesota River. The two other cars are the Wisconsin and St Croix Valley lounge cars. However these two cars may take a little more time to complete then I was first expecting as I discovered there will have to be a few different versions of the two lounge cars. There has been some modifications to both of them over the years like windows and paint but this only means you will be able to run the cars during different time periods throughout there lives. The St Croix Valley however has been completely gutted in the inside and looks completely different now then it used to.

After these 4 cars are completed I plan on working on the Super Dome and a few of the other lounge cars that we have had in the fleet like Oliver Hazard Perry and Fox River Valley along with the ex PRR Budd clocker cars. I also still need to work on finishing up roof details on a few of the cars that are already completed and fix a few errors that I have encountered as well.

I will post more photos of the cars once I get farther along with them.

Brandon

[BrandonS261]

Just a few photos of my progress today.

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[BrandonS261]

I first want to say Happy Holidays to everyone! Well after a holiday break spending time with family over Christmas I have decided to get back to building more of the cars on my list. However I have once again opened up a can of worms or Pandora's box if you may say. Being that all of these cars are custom built and none of them are exactly the same is more of a challenge then I had anticipated. This also comes as most of the cars will have custom built interiors.

I have recently decided to finish up the cars that I have started first before moving on to other cars on the list. This includes adding more details, finishing up roof and bottoms of the cars details along with other odds and ends. Along with building a custom interior for the two coach cars I have built already.

It took some time to reorganize all of the texture files for every individual car that I am building but it will make it much easier for myself and others to do repaints of them in the future. I was hoping to have some of the cars released by the new year but I have decided to hold off for now Now and would like to get a few more of the cars completed before doing so.

I know all of you have been waiting on the UPDATED Caritas passenger car and that will also have to wait as I need to finish up the interior for that car as well. It has become more of a challenge then I had anticipated as the interior its self has changed so many times over the years.

The project I have started updating next is the water tender for the 261. This will also be a monumental project as I have decided to expand the project to include all of the ex Big Emma Tenders that are now water tenders. Being a steam fan myself I feel Open Rails is lacking in this department and is greatly needed with modern steam locomotive excursions.

I hope you all have a fantastic New Years and keep those high greens in the coming year!

[Unoriginal]

If you need help with finding aux tenders to do I can send some photos your way. I have a few photos of 611’s water tender (VMTX 250001) from October if you’d like those too.

[BrandonS261]

If you need help with finding aux tenders to do I can send some photos your way. I have a few photos of 611’s water tender (VMTX 250001) from October if you’d like those too.

Any photos of the AUX tenders would be greatly appreciated as they are a little hard to come by. Feel free to send me a PM.

Brandon