Like so many N-scale modelers, I have an out-of-the box Kato Daylight 18-car trainset in my collection, even though it is way too long to realistically operate on my small bedroom layout.? After working on N-scale stock cars for several months, my mind is back on passenger cars; particularly those for the T&NO’s Sunbeam, but those brought to mind a couple of ways to individualize the Kato’s Daylight train sets too:

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1. The articulated diner-kitchen-coffee shop in the Kato set is the 1939 version with a single door centered on the kitchen-side of its kitchen car.? The ?cars constructed in 1941 had three doors as shown in plans and elevations for them on page 399 of Richard K. Wright’s Daylight book.

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2. The coffee shop-tavern lounge cars constructed for the 1937 Daylight proved to be a problematic bottleneck for passengers preferring to eat in the dining car and after both were wrecked they were converted into full tavern-lounge cars, but with only six windows per side instead of four.? These cars then became relief cars for the regular tavern-lounge cars.? Plans and elevations for the original coffee shop-tavern lounge cars, which will give one an idea of what a six window tavern-lounge car looked like, are on page 407 of Richard K. Wrights book.? Their interiors were similar to those of the Kato tavern cars, but since tavern car windows had blinds which were closed during operation,? it would be difficult to tell if there were, anyway.

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It’s not all that difficult to remove the sides from Kato Daylight cars using the method described by Robert Diepenbrock in his 2010 article in N Scale Railroading, but I’ve found that using an Exacto boxcutter knife works better for separating the sides from the subroof of the car because its thicker, stiffer blade isn’t prone to wander as much as a #11 blade.? Once that’s done, they can be replaced by sides made by Union Station Products.

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Happy Rails,

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~Diane

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Sent from for Windows

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