Episode 3 of "Which Passenger Cars Should I Get?": Pre-1937 20th Century Limited

I thought that Golden Gate Depot offered their beautiful heavyweight, 21" scale length cars in New York Central two-tone gray. 

I have a 10 or 12 car Burlington GGD heavyweight set including coaches, sleepers, diner, and observation. I assume if Scott Mann offered CB&Q passenger cars, he sure would have offered NYC cars!

if the Golden Gate cars ie coaches were offered in the two tone grey, you could model the "Pacemaker" all reserved seat coach train which the NYC started in 1938. Initially the observation was an open platform but they did replace these with round end streamlined cars.

The Lionel cars which were made for the late 90s issue of the Commodore Vanderbilt would have correct names and lettering for a "pre 1938 20th century limited". Two things about the lionel cars is that they are 18 inches i believe and the early ones had silhouettes. LAter cars may have had interiors.

K line also did heavyweights i think in the 18 inch size which may have been correct for a pre 1938 consist. In tghe Prototype, the NYC equipped the train with open platform observation cars which were named in the "Valley" series and had a group of elongated windows on the rear end of the car. I am not sure if either Lionel or  Kline had this detail.

Ben, do you mean this set?

http://www.legacykline.com/app...ml?p_oem_sku=K-4400B

The catalog picture doesn't show them all with a Valley name.

Thats the one   The color might have been a tad light but it was a beautiful set

The Lionel set reflects the fact that the 20th Century was made up of primarily Pullman cars with NYC lettered head end cars. MTH has made all Pullman and all NYC sets. As noted above the K-Line cars are lettered Pullman. K-Line did make a nice set lettered NYC but it was painted Tuscan to and lettered for the semi scale Madison Lionel cars. You coud mix any of the manufacturers cars together to make up a decent size train. The colors will not be a perfect match but close enough and probably closer to real life. IMO the latest MTH cars are the nicest with best detail in an 18" car and not as pricey as the Lionel cars.

Pete

Okay, just found K-Line's official 20th Century Limited cars. These were not listed on the Legacy K-Line website.

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/7892075

There's only one Pullman lettered car and the observation car does appear to have those elongated windows at the end. However, I think the Lionel cars may still have the edge with full interiors, more Pullman lettered cars, and possibly more accurate deeper shade of green. What do you guys think?

After seeing the K lines in your link, I would agree with you that the later Lionel Cars with the interiors have the edge. In the prototype, the " Twentieth Century Limited " was always an extra fare train equipped by PULLMAN. Cars that were sections, bedrooms, compartments and drawing rooms as well as the club car and the observation would have been PULLMAN owned and operated and would have had the PULLMAN name on the letterboard. In This train, the Diners, Baggage and Mail cars if any would have the New York Central lettering on the letterboard since they were owned by the Railroad. This train in the 1930's ran with what were probably the last heavyweight sleeping cars built and placed into service by PULLMAN.

So for once we've actually got Lionel in the lead for a specific set of passenger cars. Usually there's some sort of dis-qualifier, lol!

Have yet to find out for sure though what GGD has put out, or perhaps Weaver.

I just looked at the "Twentieth Century Limited " Heavyweight car set shown in the Lionel 2012 signature catalog and they do look pretty nice. The Baggage club, Sleepers and Observation are lettered Pullman in what looks like a correct font and size and style to me. The car names are accurate as well for cars used on the 1930's "Century".The Diner has New York Central lettering which is appropriate. The add on set also has a Baggage car appropriately lettered for New York Central although i am not sure if the train would have had a Baggage since the train was usually extra fare room accommodations. The cars as shown in the catalog seem to have window arrangements close to actual cars used in the train, albeit the observation has standard height windows at the car sides rear rather than the elongated windows. I don't think anyone captures such a unique detail on their cars.All in all, I would say its a pretty good choice for a J1 powered "Century" of the 1930's. Golden Gate had some 12-1 and 8-1-2 Pullman cars issued a while back that probably could fit in if you wanted to make the train longer. They are 21 inches long as opposed to the Lionel 19 inch car length, but i dont think the differrence would be noticeable.

Sounds like a nice project. Maybe I will do it as well .

The only thing about the most recent 2012 cars is that all the other heavyweights from that catalog have been reported to have that awful green window tint. No one mentioned if the NYC cars had them, but they really looked God-awful on the Blue Comet and Southern Crescent cars and are yet another deal-breaker for me. I'd have to go for the 2004 release.

Its always hard to go from catalog illustrations. The 2004 cars look much the same. I thought the 2012 version had a sleeper with a slighly varied window arrangement meaning it was a differrrentn car plan than the other two sleepers, more like the real thing. The New York Central letterring looked more like the prototype on the 2004 version of the Diner. From what I could see of the catalog, the car names look like ones that were on the train. I could not read one which is in the fold of the catalog. Good luck in your quest.