BDE-04
The Black Diamond Express, Sayre PA, photographer unknown, colorized by Scot Lawrence.
Lehigh Valley Railroad.
The Black Diamond Express,
in 1/29 scale.
Car #2 - Baggage
The second car, after the RPO will be the baggage car. The Black Diamond Express (in the diesel era) always had one baggage car, usually after the RPO.
Like the RPO, the baggage car will also be shortened.
LV baggage car, photographer unknown.
Here is the car in its original form, an Aristocraft CP full baggage car:
These Aristocraft baggage cars are rare! I had a saved search in ebay for years before I finally found one at a reasonable price. These were the last Heavyweight cars made by Aristocraft, and they were made many years after the other heavyweight cars first came out. (The original 5-unit set was a RPO, coach, diner, sleeper, and observation, there was initially no full baggage car in the series until this small run was produced years after the first cars were introduced.) I believe they were made in much smaller numbers than the other models too, probably because Aristocraft had begun the process of slowly fading out of existence, and the company wasn't doing well financially. (Sadly Aristocraft did go out of business on December 31, 2013.)
December 27, 2017
Construction begins on the first two cars! The RPO and Baggage car are disassembled. Im going to work on these two cars together, since they have similar processes needed, namely shortening of the baggage doors, and shortening of the overall length of the cars.
October 27, 2018
Disassembly of the two cars is complete, and the baggage doors go into the 91% alcohol dip, to strip the paint:
