Its a requirement of the AP Master Car Builders Certificate that you must build at least one item of passenger stock, that can be a passenger car, baggage/mail or express car. This can be scratchbuilt or a detailed craftsman kit, after a year long search for a craftsman passenger car kit in the UK, I hadn’t found a suitable kit. I was grateful therefore to David Gunn MMR 240 who gave me a labelle 50′ baggage car kit when I was lucky enough to visit his supurb layout in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Labelle have a great how to guide on their website that shows what is involved in building one of these great classics click here
So where to start? well first thing you should always do before you build a kit is read the plans & instructions. With the Labelle kit you get extensive scale drawings and written instructions. Start by identifying all the parts, you might need a rule or digital calipers as some parts in the same profile but varying sizes.
Here are the instructions included in the kit.
The first stage of construction is to add the planking to the car sides. Included in the kit are the pre milled car sides and scribed planking pieces that need to be cut to length and cemented to the sides, being careful not to waste any planking material as its needed for the doors and floors at the end of the cars. I used masking tape to keep the planking square until the glue sets, then trimmed the over hang at the bottom of the car.
Once the sides are compelte set aside and start to work on the passenger car ends. Again these start with a flat milled end piece that stripwood is added to build into 4D passenger car end. As this is a baggage car there is only a solid door in the car ends, passenger cars have a pair of windows in the car end walls either side of the door.
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