AMT - American Model Toys O Gauge Aluminum Passenger Cars

I have several complete sets of these cars. Alas, the warped dome is an expected defect. As far as I know there are no reproductions available. One of my dome cars has had a dome implant from a Lionel 0 gauge (2500-series) dome car, and although an amateur job, it looks OK.  It's been a while since I've played with them, and your post has reminded me to investigate maybe using a dome from an 027 (2400-series) car, since it's a tad smaller than the 2500 type.

It took me a long time, back in the 1980's, to collect an entire Santa Fe set of (ISTR) 9 different cars. The hardest ones to find are/were the baggage and RPO cars.

As it appears that replacement couplers for these AMT aluminum cars are not available, has anyone come up with couplers from Lionel or another company that might work?

I believe I have an example of each of the car styles made, but only lettered for either New York Central or Santa Fe. AMT made cars letter for other roads but these were the most common. There's a few pages dedicated to AMT trains.

There are a number of threads on OGR Forum about these cars and a few on the how to make a Lionel Dome work to replace the warped AMT domes. You can find them by performing a search.

As far as parts, I've looked for replacement couplers and have only found the fixed variety, never the operating.  The replacements I've found are not plastic but a soft metal. This actually is nice because I've needed to adjust one so it would line up with the coupler on other cars. I believe I found these on eBay.

James

Thanks very much for your reply, James. The four cars I have are Santa Fe: the diner, the sleeping car, the coach and the observation. I'm toying with grabbing a combination car, my only reservation being what kind of grunt my engine would need to move them.

Actually, one of the cars I have has a soft metal functioning coupler, but it's broken and won't stay closed. I'm thinking of epoxying it shut. Meanwhile, I'll keep checking eBay for replacements, as you suggest.

Regards,

Bob

While I do not collect these cars, I have always found the AMT cars really interesting.  The Napoleon hat trucks are indicative of the early streamliners of the 30's and just a nice touch you don't see on any other cars from the era.  They are also nicely scaled to go with the 027 style locomotives. 

I would think the best source of parts is sadly donor cars.  However, there are plenty of these around and they don't seem to command the value of the postwar Lionel streamliners.

Enjoy them!

Thanks very much, Jonathan.

Regards,

Bob

I need help with the lighting on my AMT passenger cars, which is very spotty. Besides keeping the track clean, is there anything I should be looking for on the trucks themselves? I have rewired one car and added a jumper between the two trucks, and it works well. But doing the same thing on another car has not yielded the same result. I'm frankly thinking of converting to LEDs, and would appreciate hearing from anyone who has done that.

I could be wrong but I was told the AMT cars predated the lionel postwar aluminum cars. Prior to them, lionel only produced the O27 streamliners. They were specifically sized to better match up with Lionel F3s and their own F7s.

@GG1 4877 posted:

While I do not collect these cars, I have always found the AMT cars really interesting.  The Napoleon hat trucks are indicative of the early streamliners of the 30's and just a nice touch you don't see on any other cars from the era.  They are also nicely scaled to go with the 027 style locomotives.

I would think the best source of parts is sadly donor cars.  However, there are plenty of these around and they don't seem to command the value of the postwar Lionel streamliners.

Enjoy them!

I think that you may have just identified a set of Napoleon Hat trucks that I have:

The wheels are not original, they may be MTH 2-rail 33" conversion wheelsets.

All that being said, is there a source for AMT parts?

Lou N

Unfortunately not that I am aware of other than searching for used parts from scrapped units.

@fisherdoc posted:

Unfortunately not that I am aware of other than searching for used parts from scrapped units.

This - you basically have to scan junk boxes at shows or find the occasional pile on the auction site - aside from some metal reproduction passenger car couplers there's not much in the way of AMT/Auburn/KMT/Kusan parts out there.

Yes, and it never ceases to amaze me how man train folks never even heard of these nice cars. Even at train shows I've never seen one!

Production of passenger cars most likely stopped not long after the sale of AMT/Auburn to Kusan/KMT. While Kusan/KMT made a number of new road names for the scale sized boxcar, there were no additions to the passenger car fleet, although they were modified to be able to run on 2 rail track (Duo-Trac) with insulated wheelsets and a switch to go from 3 to 2 rail track. Kusan most likely used parts they got from AMT to build up the streamlined cars - when they stopped production of their train line they offered kits of parts from their back stock, and then as the story goes sent what they couldn’t sell to a landfill. It’s a shame the bargain hunters at Madison Hardware didn’t snag the stock, but probably passed due to their relationship with Lionel.