Appropriate locomotive (or two) to pull the Lionel Northern Pacific Full Vista Dome passenger cars

Scott, Northern Pacific did operate a premium dome service in the North Coast Limited between St. Paul MN and Seattle WA. It typically had 3 or 4  Budd dome cars, both coaches and sleepers. There were also conventional coaches and sleepers, as well as cafe, diner and head end cars. NP never had any full-length dome cars, however.

The Lionel 6-18145 and 6-18146 F3 NP A-B set were specifically made to match the cars you have.  

In addition to the AB pair, Lionel subsequently offered a matching, non-powered F-3A unit, 6-14561 which can be hard to find and can be a bit pricey.

In addition to the full-length domes that you have, Lionel also offered a matching baggage and observation car two-pack.

That is very interesting.  Here is the model of the car(s) that I picked up, amongst many.  They are all Full Dome Vista cars made my Lionel, apparently in the '87-'88 time frame (I think); Lionel Northern Pacific Vista Dome Coach Car 6-19167 Car # 2570.  So if NP did not make a full-length vista dome, then I wonder where Lionel got the idea to create one like this?  Anyway, thank you for the information.  And it appears that an F-3 is not out of the question.

I have one of these domes but 10 would be quite a sight! Care to post some pictures?

Full length dome cars came in a few flavors in the 1950's.  In 1954 Budd built the "Big Dome" cars for the Santa Fe.  They were 85' cars and ran on Budd 6-wheel trucks due to the weight of the car.  These were fluted cars.  In 1956 the Great Northern purchased a similar car from Budd called the "Great Dome" cars.  While not fully smooth sided, they were not corrugated like the Santa Fe order.  Both cars had lounge space in the upper area and were very similar.  Finally, the Milwaukee Road ordered "Super Dome" full length domes from Pullman Standard in 1952.  These were true smooth sided cars.

Lionel has produced these cars in all sorts of road names that were not prototypical, but for most Lionel collectors and operators, this isn't a big issue.  The domes served many owners over the years.  Milwaukee sold many of their cars to Canadian National, one went to Chicago Northwestern, and eventually some ended up in various tourist services.  The GN and ATSF cars mostly went to both the Autotrain and Amtrak and many of those have survived and operate in tourist service.

The North Coast Limited was pulled by several F unit models.  Initially F3s were used, but later F7s, F9s and occasionally the FP7s could be seen pulling that train.  Usually it was an A-B-A configuration of locomotives.  As has been mentioned above the North Coast Limited had standard domes in both coach and sleeper configurations and was filled out with a baggage RPO, coaches, a diner, sleepers, and trailed by an observation lounge car.  In 1959 a Budd Slumbercoach was added to the train that was not painted but retained its stainless-steel finish.

It is certainly one of the premier trains to model and Raymond Lowey's paint scheme is iconic on this train.  I'm not sure anyone out there would say that the late NP Big Sky Blue paint scheme was an improvement.     

I just purchased them and they are in shipping at the moment.  However, in the mean time, you can see my Amtrak "California Zephyr" attempt to look like the real Zephyr.  I have it on Facebook, but being new to the forum, I am not certain of the rules regarding posting of external links.  However, you CAN go to FB and search for "scottwilkes0612".  That should bring up my home page which shows a rudimentary layout (by the standards of many layouts shown on this forum).  It is basically a 25' x 18' media room, upstairs in our home.  I designed an build the media room about four years ago and it a place to show off one of my other hobbies, photography.  So, ALL of the images on the walls are mine and were taken mostly in either Glacier, Yellowstone or Grand Teton National Parks.  The other video shows a dual track shelf layout.  I had neither the location, time or patience to put together the type of intricate layout that I have seen and envy here.  But, I does allow me to run my trains and I switch them out periodically.  Right now, I am attempting to locate 18-20 dual hopper coal cars, at a reasonable price, in order to replicate the many coal trains that come to Texas from Wyoming to power our ever increasing thirst for power in the summers.  I hope you can find the page and enjoy it.  The room took a couple of year to fully put together (it includes a 13 speaker Dobly Atmos stereo system) and it was my intent to make it a room to enjoy TV and ball games, not a theater.  Then, about six months ago, I began to put in the shelf layout.  Thanks for your interest and I will post photos of the other train, once I either locate appropriate locomotives, or repaint some of the many 1950-1951 F-3's that I have to match the NP cars.

Scott in Allen, TX

It would be great to see some photos of your space and your photos.  I have my share of photos from Grand Teton and Yellowstone National parks but sadly not the wall space to display them.  I was lucky to capture some great images of BNSF and UP trains in the Powder River Basin in 2005 too that live on a hard drive still.  The only photos I have out are my 4x5 black and white film images of Spanish Missions across the other US border.

As for your layout, if you enjoy it, it does not matter what others think.  That's why this is a great hobby.  So many ways to simply enjoy a passion. 

Here is a YouTube video I found that is similar to what you are operating.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDRTX6Bt-4Y

Here is a YouTube link to mine.  I think right now it is showing as private, but should become "public" at 11:45 PM CST.  Let me know if you  can't see it.  Thanks.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Scv...?si=Sb1ElLO78mb2nbmj

Scott