Let's see some Canadian Passenger models!

The short answer to your question is no, there have not been any models of the Renaissance/Nightstar stock made in either HO or N scale, and it is unlikely to happen any time soon. Simply put, the market for these cars is extremely small. They are a unique design, loosely based on the Mk4 but are different in virtually every respect. So they are fundamentally different from any other british stock, and of course are nothing like other cars in North America. The cars never operated in the UK, and in Canada operate only on some Corridor trains and the Ocean (VIA 14/15), making them of appeal to only a very small market. Remember too that they've only been in Canada since 2001, and on the Ocean since 2003, so they're also very young equipment.

Although I doubt we'll ever see them RTR (although I'd LOVE to be proven wrong....I could really use a fleet of these in HO to complement my LRCs, HEP1s and HEP2s), I think someone could possibly try in resin, or with advances in 3D printing there's a chance they could be done that way. But either way they'd be a kit of sorts that would need work.

Now as for kitbashing options: I tried building these from Hornby Mk4s. The problem with that is the cars are too large, since the British OO scale is 1:76 instead of 1:87. You'd need to shrink the dimensions of the car in addition to major modifications, and the overall amount of work involved would make it a better investment of time to scratchbuild.

Now in N scale, there IS a reasonable stand-in option. A UK company called Electra Railway Graphics makes peel-and-stick vinyl sides for passenger cars, and have made vinyls for the VIA Rail Renaissance cars thanks to the prodding of myself and a few others. These can be applied to Graham-Farrish MK4 coaches, which are made of a clear body that can be stipped for application of the vinyls. It's an easy way to make good looking Rens, but again, the problem is that british N scale is actually larger than North American N scale (1:148 instead of 1:160). This means that the cars will look too large (bigger than a Budd) behind say a P42 or F40, and given that the most distinctive thing about the Rens in Canada is their unusually small size due to the smaller British loading gauge, they do look quite off. Still, better than nothing.

Here are examples of the coach and service cars I built using the Electra vinyls in N:





They're not bad, and better than nothing. I ended up selling those off a while ago as I downsized my limited N collection. I'm still hoping someone will take charge of doing a 3D print or resin kit in HO!

I don't know that Bachmann necessarily would. Here's the problem - if they wanted to do it in their British line, they would be done OO and therefore be too large (i.e. useless) for North American HO modellers. Same issue with British N. There's also the issue that since the Nightstars never ran, they'd have almost zero appeal in the British market. The justification would need to be there to do an HO model for the Canadian market. Doubtful if that's there, but I'd love to see it.


Now, as for HEP-1s and HEP-2s:

These are the monikers for VIA's fleet of Hend-end Power (HEP) equipped Budd rolling stock.

HEP-1:
The HEP-1 fleet is most easily identified as Budd cars with a single blue stripe in the letterboard, and numbered in the 8xxx series. This includes the ex-CP fleet of 60-seat long distance coaches, baggage cars, Skyline domes-cafe-lounges, diners, Chateau and Manor sleepers, and Park tail-end dome-lounge-sleeper cars. It also includes a handful of ex-US cars that were purchased in the '90s and rebuilt to match the ex-CP cars. The US cars are most easily identified by having a corrugated letterboard, again with the single blue stripe. There are also a handful of ex-UP slab-side baggage-dorm cars that have been converted to full baggage cars. Although they've been modified numerous times, these cars are still effectively akin to their early Budd design and configurations, just with newer interior finishings, and some rearrangement. These cars operate on the long-distance services (i.e. The Canadian, the Chaleur, the Hudson Bay, etc.), and coaches occasionally show up in Corridor service.

The HEP-1 fleet is equipped with hend-end power, and has only the pass-through lines for power and communication systems. They are not equipped with MU pass-through lines (apart from the ex-CP and ex-UP baggage cars). Which brings us to the HEP-2s...

HEP-2:

The HEP-2 fleet is easily identified as Budd cars with a dual blue and yellow striped in the letterboard and numbered in the 40xx (Club cars) and 41xx (coaches) series. These cars are all ex-American cars that were purchased in the 90s, when Amtrak was disposing of heritage cars. Despite having come from disparate backgrounds, these cars were rebuilt to very uniform standards, and internally look nothing like their Budd predecessors. The interior was designed to look similar (and be functionally equivalent to) the LRC cars that make up most of VIA's corridor fleet. The 40xx Clubs have an expanded galley for on-board meal service, and also feature roomier and comfier seats. The coaches (41xx) have more basic seating and a reduced galley. Externally, the window arrangements were mostly standardized, and as such many of the cars are difficult to identify as to their origins.

The HEP-2s are used almost exclusively in the Corridor, with the exception of the few that are used on the Jasper-Prince Rupert Skeena to provide meal service in the summer.

These cars feature MU-pass through lines in addition to the basic HEP wiring, so they can have a second locomotive added farther back in the consist and MU-ed from the head-end, allowing VIA to run combined "J-trains" or top-and-tail set-ups without needing a DPU setup.

Here's a photo showing a HEP-1 coach and a HEP-2 coach together:



Here's the LRC-styled interior of a HEP-2 Club:



And here's the more classic Budd-styled interior of a HEP-1 coach:




The HEP-1 cars can mostly be modelled easily in HO using Rapido Trains' upcoming Canadian Budd cars. They just need some external (adding HEP details) and underbody mods, and they're pretty well spot on. For the HEP-2s, some of the ex-SP cars can be modelled using Union Station Products car sides, and otherwise you're looking at LOTS of kitbashing/scratchbuilding.

Amtrak and VIA use different HEP systems. I can't remember the exact details, but the setup is such that VIA and Amtrak cars cannot be directly intermixed. I don't believe it's an issue with connecting to the locomotives, but it is an issue if you're connecting the two types of rolling stock.

As for HEP-2s and LRCs, yes, they do occasionally get run together in the same consists. This often happens when a Club car of one type or the other is not available, so one of the others gets subbed in. This was less ideal back when the LRCs had their special banking equipment - subbing in a HEP2 would invoke certain speed restrictions. But these days the LRCs are limited to the same speed, so it's not an issue.

Here's a neat example of the two running together (courtesy of Dan Tweedle's Flickr):



A much more common sight is LRCs running with a HEP-1 baggage car, since there are no LRC-styled baggage cars:




The only type of equipment VIA has that cannot easily be intermixed is the Renaissance equipment. The Ren cars still have their British couplers, and can only be connected to locomotives or other stock via transition cars with a knuckle on one end. All of VIA's Ren baggage cars are transition cars, and there are also special transition cars for use on the Ocean, which allow a Park or other HEP cars to be attached to the tail-end. These also contain the necessary electrical equipment to make the transition effective.

No kidding! The Rens are not easy to swap around, especially because even within the sets themselves, not all of the couplers are compatible. Add to that the fact that many of the sleepers are semi-permanently attached as blocks of 2, 3 or 4, it's quite the headache. That's not even accounting for the myriad of problems that have come from trying to run equipment that was built for a British climate in harsh Canadian winters....

Anyway, back to the topic of VIA Rail models:

Here's something of mine from an earlier era. It's a Walthers model of one of the ex-MILW superdomes, dubbed "Sceneramics" by CN, that were inherited by VIA. A friend of mine had started work on this car, stripping it and starting the basic modifications. When he decided to scrap the project, he offered it to me and I just couldn't resist. I finished the mods (removing one window from each side, moving the small access door, filling the cutouts), and then painted and weathered the car.

I was really striving to capture the look of these cars at the end of their lives, when they spent more time than not in the coach yards, and hadn't visited the wash rack in years. The blue has faded, rust and grime have begun to accumulate, the small white lettering at the top left corner has been painted out, and the windows are tinted in various shades as a result of new tinting material that was added to the insides of some windows. I also painted the interior in prototypical colours, although I didn't rearrange it (yet...I may do that down the road).

The blue is Conrail blue dulled down with grey and flat black. The decals are Microscale, and the weathering was done with Bragdon weathering powders and various Pollyscale weathering colours.

Wow, that dome looks fantastic! Your attention to detail really paid off. I love how you went to the length of tinting the indivual windows differently. Great work!

You could create a RR Museum,at unused siding or an
abandoned Freight House,with sidings long enough to
handle a couple of psgr cars,a few freight cars at least 1
caboose,maybe a FA or some kind of Diesel loco if there's
enough space.
Some yards have a stub ended track,refered to as the "garden"
track,where cars are stored( and rust/rot) untill the bosses say "Scrap It!!"
The track is buried in mud,may have grass,saplings growing,
trash and junk all over.