Here is my tribute to the California Zephyr and the train it inspired north of 
the boarder, the Canadian. The Zephyr had five dome cars in normal consist while 
the Canadian only had two. The California Zephyr was operated jointly by three 
railroads, Burlington (CB&Q) pulled it from Chicago to Denver, where Rio Grande 
(D&RGW) power took over and pulled the train to Salt Lake City, where Western 
Pacific took over and pulled it the rest of the way to Oakland. I've included 
artwork for all three railroads (and three iterations of the Canadian). The 
California Zephyr equipment has been retired, but the Canadian still runs with 
the old dome cars (see included reference photos).

For more info, see:

http://californiazephyr.org/
http://calzephyr.railfan.net/
http://www.trainweb.org/railnewspb/CaliforniaZephyr/


 On the Lego side of the tribute, I have been quite pleased with the Super Chief 
sets, but given the generic nature of the stainless steal coaches used on so 
many railroads, I've never understood why more people haven't changed the road 
name on the cars and made them for another railroad.

 In talking with Jim Mathis (the designer behind the Santa Fe cars and many 
other fine Lego trains) he mentioned his Budd dome,

   http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=72877

which got me thinking about the California Zephyr. Starting with his idea for 
constructing the dome, I've adjusted the dimensions and built my own interior. I 
am quite pleased with the handrail, replicating the illuminated Plexiglass rails 
found in the Budd domes.

 In preliminary tests for the decals I used window stickers for an ink jet 
printer and various fonts from

   http://www.RailFonts.com

(using photographs, I made the drumhead on the observation specifically for this 
project). So far this material seems to work well for dark printing on light 
surfaces. Since printers assume you'll be using white paper it is difficult to 
get white lettering, or any light color on top of a darker one (when was the 
last time you bought white ink?). One way to fake it would be to use inverse 
printing within a colored rectangle and then place the sticker on a white brick, 
e.g., the aforementioned drumhead on a white tile.

 On the locomotives, some parts are difficult to come by, e.g., the curves on 
the nose, and you may have to settle for a radius of one stud rather than two in 
some colors. Other pieces simply aren't available in many colors, namely the 
porthole windows and the windshield. Here's one solution to the difficult to 
find windows:

   http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=133062

I am working on my own solution to the windows and will post progress soon (if 
it isn't already up in this directory). Of course the simple alternative would 
be using an opaque sticker for the porthole windows.

 It looks like at least a few people have had the idea of building the common 
locomotives in other railroads, e.g.,

   http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=45204
   
 Another fine resource is Dean Earley's lego page (where I got the LDraw part 
files for the locomotive windshield and porthole windows).
 
   http://personal.earlsoft.co.uk/lego/

 Finally, if you like what you see, you might want to wander up one directory to 
see more of my trains,

Thanks for visiting,

Benn