# An idea I'll pass on



## GNfan (Jun 3, 2016)

Just now while channel-surfing, I happened upon a segment about an excursion train somewhere in New England. What "caught my ear" was the chef in the kitchen car remarking that the car was "Army Surplus" from the 1940's. I was thinking about buying one of these before I heard that

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Micro-Trains-N-11800010-50-Troop-Kitchen-Car-DOD-p/mtl-11800010.htm


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## BrokeCurmudgeon (Feb 8, 2016)

GNfan said:


> Just now while channel-surfing, I happened upon a segment about an excursion train somewhere in New England. What "caught my ear" was the chef in the kitchen car remarking that the car was "Army Surplus" from the 1940's. I was thinking about buying one of these before I heard that
> 
> http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Micro-Trains-N-11800010-50-Troop-Kitchen-Car-DOD-p/mtl-11800010.htm


I have one that I will leave as Army for my WWII US Army train. Will you repaint and decorate it to fit a surplus civilian car?


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## GNfan (Jun 3, 2016)

*Re-purposing troop cars*

If I were to buy one (and I haven't decided yet) I'd run it "as is" with my "McKinley Explorer" Great Domes and say I'd get around to repainting "someday". I brought it up because with all of the talk here recently about branchline passenger service, "tertiary" trains like GN's "Cascadian", and steam-powered present-day excursion trains I thought it might be of interest to others that re-purposing WWII troop transport cars (which are available in n-scale) after the Army was finished with them did happen. One of my rules is "if a prototype railroad did it, it's fair game on your railroad".

I recently said on another thread that in today's n-scale you either adapt what you want to model to what you can buy or you learn to paint. I'm learning to adapt what I want to model to what I can buy, and decide what is "close enough".


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

GNfan said:


> Just now while channel-surfing, I happened upon a segment about an excursion train somewhere in New England. What "caught my ear" was the chef in the kitchen car remarking that the car was "Army Surplus" from the 1940's. I was thinking about buying one of these before I heard that
> 
> http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Micro-Trains-N-11800010-50-Troop-Kitchen-Car-DOD-p/mtl-11800010.htm


That sounds like the Colonial Hearth kitchen car which runs as part of the Dinner Train at the Essex Steam Train. It is a converted US Army troop kichen car, although it doesn't look much like that one you linked to.


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