Do you know who made these?

That high sill baggage door reminds me of Williams......I think they made a few runs of 20" cars....

I believe Weaver made a few 20" passenger cars too.

It's a Lionel #6-39158 "Johnson City" according to a Google search.

They are super cool that's for sure!!!!   

AMCDAVE- I was thinking the same thing, but I have never really seen Williams 20" cars. Maybe a joint venture with Custom Trains/Frank's Roundhouse?

Jim Sutter- I also have the Weaver 20" set in Southern. One of the major differences is the name plates. The Weaver has small, undersized name plates, and it fluting is similar to that of the combine above. The Weaver cars are cool too. Thanks

Arthur Bloom- Lionel 6-39158 car is a 15" car with a Black painted roof. Thank you anyway!

CARSNTRAINS- I agree, that's why I bought them!

Williams made many sets of those long cars.   Most of the long Weaver cars had smooth sides.

Tom, like others have said, those are Williams cars.

I have a set of New York Central 20" cars. They were sold in 6 car sets, in a number of different road names.

I got my set directly from Williams in the early-mid 1990's.

This is not a Williams car. Their 20" car set consisted of baggage car, a combine, a coach, a dome car, a diner, and an observation dome.  Even the PRR Congressional set had the dome cars.  It is an early Gold Edition Weaver.  They made both smooth side and fluted cars.  I believe, but can't confirm that they received the Williams tooling as the early sets had identical extrusions and the short trucks used on the Williams 60' scale cars. 

They are impressive; I like the road name.

I am certain that you have looked, but I'm surprised, I guess, that there is not an indication of the brand on the frame, trucks or both. All the Williams cars I have seen say "Williams" on the frame; not as sure about the others, at least consistently.  

The short baggage door says Lionel, or a Williams imitation, to me.

This is a picture of a Weaver Gold Edition set.  As I stated above, all Williams 20" sets had a dome car and a dome observation. 

This is the underside of the complete Weaver Southern set.  My Williams 20" cars are not marked underneath either.

I stand corrected. Jonathan is correct. The 6 car Williams sets did all have dome observation cars.

The window placement, size and the silhouette's on my Williams cars, appear to be identical to the Weaver cars.

Not marked - surprising - I'd be proud of cars this handsome; even a sticker would make sense.

Of course, the detective work is half the fun of finding mystery items.

I did notice on my set, "Williams" is cast on the inside of the trucks.

That is the only markings I can find.

I have no clue who the manufacturer is, however, they are really nice looking Passenger cars.  I guess no boxes? No names stamped on the under carriage. Where were these cars purchased? A train show, a dealer, or an individual sale? This is a good Mystery? If you live near an older dealer, possibly you could get a good answer.  Great thread...

 Thanks Gerry Burns- I just noticed that "Williams" is printed on the inside of the trucks.

Here is an enlarged photo that shows the "Williams" inside the trucks.

Tom,

I still believe the cars are Weaver cars.  It is not uncommon that when the tooling was acquired by a different manufacturer that the original manufacturer's name would remain on the tooling for a while before the tooling was updated or modified.  It was very common in HO with Penn Line still showing on the inside of Bowser HO kits after they acquired most of Penn Line's tooling.  The same is true with Varney when Bowser acquired some of their tooling as well.  My dad was getting parts from Bowser in the 80's for restoration of Varney steam locomotives and many of the parts had the Varney stamp even then.  I would suspect that similar things happened with the AMT to Kusan / KMT to Kris Model Trains to K-line and Williams tooling.

The only reason I'm insistent on them being Weavers is that Williams never marketed a non-domed set of cars, but Weaver did make these sets.  If by some chance the set you have is indeed a Williams it would be a very rare set.  If it weren't packed at the moment, I'd be curious to see what is marked on the trucks of my Weaver car from that era. 

This is part of what makes this hobby so great - the mystery!

Jonathan- I do own a Weaver 80ft set 1207-L. Attached are some pictures of the observation from that set. The windows are different. The mystery observation has a vestibule end, the known Weaver version does not. The printing on the nameplate is under sized on the known Weaver. I have included a picture of the underside of the known Weaver car and a close up of the inside of it's truck. Who knows, my mystery cars might be an earlier version Weaver, or and odd ball Williams.

Tom,

Very interesting.  You certainly have an interesting piece of history in your hand.  The lower windows on your Williams marked version would be indicative of there being a dome above it.  Too bad there isn't a better history of Williams 20" cars.  All the ones I have of have seen are based on the CA Zephyr.  I have two Williams sets in PRR and Amtrak and they are identical.  You certainly have something different.  The best part is you have something to enjoy with two different yet similar cars.

No one has mentioned Phoenix Railways as the maker of the cars.  Seems like Williams with a wrong roof is the leading candidate, but figured I'm throw another manufacturer into the mix for the heck of it.

Stu

The trucks on the Weaver vs on the Williams are much different. Look at the bottom of the Weaver set above and compare the trucks to a truck on my Williams 80' car.

JohnActon posted:

The trucks on the Weaver vs on the Williams are much different. Look at the bottom of the Weaver set above and compare the trucks to a truck on my Williams 80' car.

Is it possible that it's a Weaver set of cars but the trucks were swapped out with Williams for the one car? Possibly because of zinc rot?

Also I am not aware of the time frame that Williams did aluminum cars in 20"?. I only know of the crude superliners in 20" length made out of aluminum but not a single level streamliner set.  Williams did 72' length plastic passenger sets. Can someone explain?