Rapido 175002 - Dome-Lounge w/Fluted Sides Southern Pacific (SP) Daylight 3605 - HO Scale

Rapido 175002 - Dome-Lounge w/Fluted Sides Southern Pacific (SP) Daylight 3605 - HO Scale

 All six 1955 Dome Lounge cars had an identical lower lounge with an eleven-foot ceiling height, which SP ad copy called “Pleasant Under Glass.”

      On the first four cars, the Bar Lounge booth and banquette cocktail seating plan continued upstairs to the Terrace for about quarter of its length. From there forward, rows of two-person seats along a depressed aisle were canted slightly outward for best sightseeing. Cars of this floor plan were meant only for operation in a train consist with this upper level facing forward.

      The last two cars were built for the Shasta Daylight, and eliminated the sightseer paired seating for additional cocktail lounge space, extending the banquette and booth seating to the entire upper Terrace Deck. Because this seating was non-directional, these two cars could operate in either direction in a train.

      SP used the center sills and salvaged body framing from retired prewar ‘Daylight’ cars as a basis for its new Dome Lounge cars, so underbody equipment layout also varied as dictated by the location of crossmembers that were salvaged from the donor frames.  Most notably the Waukesha propane bottle carriers — those distinctive boxes with ‘sow belly’ doors — were grouped more tightly in a long single row on the ‘Shasta’ pair, for greater ease in servicing the propane cylinders.