 Hi, I'm Victor Rosemann, the author of the Daylight Passenger Car article. Through a little camera magic, I'm here on the platforms of Southern Pacific's 3rd and Townsend Street Station in San Francisco, and it's 1952 here. If you come to San Francisco, don't bother looking for this station, because in your time, the trains will use a new facility of block back at 4th Street. This old terminal will be long gone, and where I'm standing will be inside of a tall building. It's a chilly March 21st morning, and on this stage is 15 years ago. With champagne, dignitaries, and fanfare, the Southern Pacific Railroad launched the Coast Daylight on its very first run to Los Angeles from the station. In your time, you'll still be able to ride most of the train's unique route on Amtrak's Coast Starlight. The first portions of this article describe some of the colorful streamlined trains on which daylight type cars operated, and how the consist of those trains changed over the years. Which brings me to the subject of this little video, introducing the construction segments of the article. Just as the consist of the streamliners under what many changes, the cars themselves went through some developmental changes too. The first daylight cars had steam ejector air conditioning systems that were powered by steam from the locomotive. As early as 1941, it was found to be impossible to maintain the required steam pressure at the end of long trains. New cars received individual air conditioning units powered by propane bottles under each car, and some of the earlier cars were refitted with these new walker-type air conditioning systems. By the 1950s, problems with the car bodies corroding almost sent the whole fleet of streamliners to scrap. Most of the cars were quietly built in with flat sides replacing the original fluted ones. In 1958, the color schemes for the individual streamliners are replaced by stainless steel sides with red letterboard stripe for all SP streamliner trains. The segment of the article in this issue shows how the lightweight cars are gradually modified so you can more closely simulate the appearance of cars in your favorite time period. Keep in mind that many of these changes occurred on other railroads operating lightweight passenger cars too. Coming up in the next months will be the final instalments of this article that demonstrate how you can create a number of essential cars for your trains that are not normally available as plastic models. Even if your interest lies with other railroads such as Southern Railways Crescent Limited or Chicago Northwestern's 400s, the upcoming parts of this article should suggest some ways to build the equipment you would need to model your favorite train. And now, a little preview of all this, beginning with the class 80 BH1 Express car seen on the San Joaquin Baylight, the Starlight and some other SP trains. It has never been made available in plastic and they're moving one of these cars for us over on King Street as I speak. And if you know beautiful King Street in San Francisco with its rows of trees and modern apartment blocks, in 1952 it's full of warehouses and street is full of freight tracks. My friend is waving to us because the car is now parked and it's in the clear so before they block the view with a string of boxcars let's take a look at it right now. This is King Street which divides the passenger operations into the station from the freight tracks on the east side of the street. We're over here to look at the baggage express car in Southern Pacific class 80 BH1. These are former horse cars and have three sliding side doors and large end doors, often called automobile doors with a nominal length of 80 feet they're among the longest head-end equipment on the Southern Pacific. A couple of years ago the railroad removed the collapsible horse stalls and began using these cars in mail and express service and these cars can be seen all over the system but especially on the San Joaquin Daylight, the Lark, the Starlight and the Coast Mail among others. Well there are no ready-to-run kit-form cars of this type in plastic there's nothing even close. Express cars were often unique and I've developed an easy way to build this important type of head-end car so let's take a look in the studio right now. This is the method I use to make my SP80 BH1 models. This is a River Rossi 1920 series heavyweight Pullman car. These have been manufactured since about 1960 and are available online or at SWAT meets. The roof is within a couple of inches of correct for the 80 BH1 car. There are two types of car ends on this model cut off the end with the brake wheel. Next trace the end onto a piece of 015 thick plastic. When you cut this out it'll form the automobile doors for the car. Next measure the door frame. I'm using a micro-engineering door and make a cutout to accommodate the door. The door is going to fit behind the panel. I've drawn in the location of the six grant line hinges which are added next. Next add the River Rossi end to the River Rossi roof and glue in place. I marked the cutting lines on the parts according to the diagram. Next set the part in a miter box and carefully cut. The Northwest Short Line True Sander has a sanding block and a fence. Place your part along the fence and press against the sandpaper working back and forth until you have a true edge. Now begin to assemble your car gluing against the roof and end to begin with and then add your parts one piece at a time. The Bethlehem Car Works sides have a slot near the bottom which is excellent for holding a snap in floor. This is the Bethlehem Car Works 30B Fish Belly Underframe. I spliced two of these to stretch the length for the 80 foot cars. And here I have a set that's installed for a 70 foot car for another project with some of the brake system added. And I can show you that this snaps in very easily to the Bethlehem Car Works sides like that. Now fit the automobile end to the completed car sides. Add a buffer and end details. Add the garland vents to the roof. And you're ready to add hand grabs and paint your model. For some of the passenger cars that are unavailable is ready to run models. Manufacturers make sets of sides that fit car core kits. Let's take a look at some of these car core kits and how they work. This is a car core kit. This one's from Eastern Car Works for an 85 foot car. Now this one has the air conditioning units molded into the floor. But some kits give you a plain floor like this one. It's got a roof. This one includes trucks and some other details. And a pair of ends. Assembly is very simple. Paint the roof, paint your ends. Assemble the ends to the roof. Make sure that you sand off any gluing surfaces. And one other detail. One end should have the door open for the vestibule. My coach sides are washed and dried and are ready to be painted. So I don't want to touch them. But this is a set of Union Station car sides. And they give you the clear backing and the car side. The windows and door detail are laser cut. There are also holes to drill out for the hand grabs. Now paint your sides. Now you can glue the side to the acrylic. And these are the car sides that I've painted up for. An 83C5 daylight car. The Shasta type with a very large window. All you need to do now is to assemble the sides. To the body. Now you can just snap the floor in place. And you'll see what your model looks like. Completed. Now you have the diaphragms and any other details that you want. For a complete car. We took the ferry across and now we're in Oakland. The Southern Pacific's Bay Area Station for the Overland Route trains. The ferry docks are in the same buildings as the passenger station. And my friends are inside drinking hot coffee. Because we just learned that the city of San Francisco. That should have been passing in front of our cameras now. Are running hours late. Instead I found this class 77 BP60 Railway Post Office car. Rebuilt from a 1937 vintage horse car. These in the similar 80 BP60 cars. Run on the San Joaquin daylight. The West Coast train and the owl. This car must be in protect or standby service. Or it probably wouldn't be here now. This is not the streamlined observation car. With the drum head that I envisioned to end this video. I hope you'll enjoy this article. And found it's useful. This is Victor Roseman on a cold windy day. In Oakland California in 1942.