Restaurant car

Experience helps when it comes to placing an interior inside a Merkur passenger car.  I received the interior last weekend from Blik en Speelgoed.

In this case it is Merkur 9331 buffet car and a concomitant 8963 interior with grey tables.

The interior is actually composed of three metal parts; the brown seats, a left row of tables and a right row of tables.

The roof is removed after 6 screws are undone from the side panels, but the interior will not fit just like that.

First the wheels and the undercarriage compartments have to be removed, since the screws are needed to fix the interior later.

Then we have to remove two screws from the head-sides to loosen a side panel and the 4 screws connecting the side panel to the base panel have to be loosened. You do not want to completely remove those screws, otherwise you will have issues later during reassembly. Now tilt the side panel in such a way that you can fiddle the interior in.

After the interior is in, first tighten the four screws between the base panel and the side panel, then fasten the two screws between the head panels and the side panel. Then position the three interior parts correctly and fasten them with the two nuts and screws to the base panel. Then re-fasten the two undercarriage compartments and the two wheels with in total 6 screws and nuts.

Then I decided to lighten the buffet car as well with two sets of 10 LED strips from Hufing Tronic. These were glued to the roof and the wires were soldered parallel to each other. The wires were led to the trucks.

Then I scratch-build an electrical pick-up for the car and soldered the wires. This time, I made sure that the wires were led under the axles...

Then I placed both coaches with lightening on the track just to check and admire. That is another job well done. Santé et bon appetit!