Conrail OCS 9 - 800364 - Model

Office Car ModelsConrail 9Conrail OCS
Written By Wes Reminder

Conrail 9, Conrail’s theater car, was probably the most photographed office car in the OCS fleet. I had a chance to visit the interior of Conrail 9 and I’ll post some of those shots, along with its history soon. In the meantime, here is my model of Conrail 9. It started life as a Rapido passenger car. The frame, trucks, and roof are pretty much all that is left of the Rapido car. Their cars are fantastic. We need more Conrail office cars and if anyone can do them, it should be Rapido! Although, I hear that Lionel maybe releasing an HO scale car in the future.

The interior matches the real car. I still have some work. Getting stripes on those theater car style seats is NOT easy. The rear windows have tinting like the real car. Lots of people are looking for a good tint for their models. I used actual car window tint. Very carefully I laid it down on the clear styrene and I think it came out great.

The one concession I had to make was on the roof vents. They aren’t in the exact position as the Conrail 9. I wrestled with the idea of trying to remove them and fill in the spots smoothly. Sometimes doing that can quickly ruin a car. Getting those spots to not show is hard, so I decided to leave it as is. Plus the crisp details of the Rapido car are outstanding. I couldn’t bring myself to remove the vents.

These original technical data books on the Conrail office cars greatly helped in building the models.

If you are interested in Conrail passenger operations, read about how Conrail operated their OCS train, including stories from those with first hand knowledge. Check back soon for other Conrail Office Car articles by Wes Reminder.

All images are copyright Wes Reminder and may not be used in print, web or any other use without permission.

Wes Reminder

https://www.the-boring-the-adoring.com/
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