I push for the “Cascade” to do a model that’s not been offered before. I understand responding to the demand for a run 2 of a popular model - especially since they now have been done quite a few years ago. Scotts models have gained a substantial following since the run 1s were done. As far as SP goes, I think we could be approaching maxed out Daylight - hence my bypassing the Cascade Daylight. The Lark is in the past so I target the Cascade. It avoids the need for brass on the head end and has “standard” windows (Cascade Daylight had Larger windows). And a blunt end observation car is just fine.
And for sure, alternate finish extras would help add #s needed to get this offering to fly.
The Lark is so scarce - impossible to find. A Cascade offering would fill a Big void for SP fans.
Cheers 😜
(I think you meant Shasta Daylight.)
Did the Cascade carry an observation car?
@Number 90 posted:(I think you meant Shasta Daylight.)
Did the Cascade carry an observation car?
Thanks on the correction - Shasta Daylight. Actually (too hasty earlier) I believe the last car would be a blunt end Sleeper (streamlined, 50s vintage) if my memory is correct.
The Cascade end car is a square ended 10-6 sleeper. It doesn't even need to be at the end. There is no observation. The observation on the Lark was so business people had a place to relax and conduct business. The Lark was completely centered on business executives being able to conduct as much work as possible while in route. The train even had a phone for them to use. There was not such a business demand on the Cascade.
The Cascade triple diner is completely different from the Lark diner. Externally the Lark is fluted and the Cascade smooth sided. Internally they are not even in the same order. The kitchen is in the center of the Lark diner but one end of the Cascade diner. The Lark diner was centered around executives conducting business at night whereas the Cascade diner was not. The Lark diner was breakfast only and lounge centered. The Cascade diner was more "normal".
The Lark was also the last mainline steam powered passenger train is the US. Using GS locomotives regularly until they were withdrawn from service in Jan 1956. The Lark was to the west coast what the 20th century was to the east coast. The streamlined Cascade was diesel powered from day one with PAs.
You can ask Scott just how annoying I was back then on getting the best model possible done. And I had never even heard of the train until he offered it. For example the real train used mostly 41-HR-11 prewar trucks whereas the model has postwar 41-N trucks because the builder said no more details without a price increase. Wasatch is currently making 41-HR-11 trucks partially because I have annoyed Roger Lewis for so long to do them: and I agreed to buy a bunch of them. And I am still annoying him to make PS 6-6-4s to add to my Lark (and other trains)
@rdunniii posted:The Cascade end car is a square ended 10-6 sleeper. It doesn't even need to be at the end. There is no observation. The observation on the Lark was so business people had a place to relax and conduct business. The Lark was completely centered on business executives being able to conduct as much work as possible while in route. The train even had a phone for them to use. There was not such a business demand on the Cascade.
The Cascade triple diner is completely different from the Lark diner. Externally the Lark is fluted and the Cascade smooth sided. Internally they are not even in the same order. The kitchen is in the center of the Lark diner but one end of the Cascade diner. The Lark diner was centered around executives conducting business at night whereas the Cascade diner was not. The Lark diner was breakfast only and lounge centered. The Cascade diner was more "normal".
Where did your research on the triple unit diners for Lark and Cascade come from? Last night I was perusing vol 5 of the SPHTS passenger car books and it is stated that the Lark Club and Cascade Club (the triple units) were nearly identical inside. From what I read last night, the primary differences (as far as models are concerned) are the fluted vs smooth sides. Most other discernable attributes are nearly identical.
The Cascade blunt end sleeper can be seen at the top of the page of this link...
FYI ,That blunt end observation could be offered in several SP later schemes.
@Purplepapa posted:FYI ,That blunt end observation could be offered in several SP later schemes.
SSGG SP Sunset Ltd has nice prototypical blunt nose 10-6 sleeper for end car. See in BigJohn’s video.
@Ryan Selvius posted:Where did your research on the triple unit diners for Lark and Cascade come from? Last night I was perusing vol 5 of the SPHTS passenger car books and it is stated that the Lark Club and Cascade Club (the triple units) were nearly identical inside. From what I read last night, the primary differences (as far as models are concerned) are the fluted vs smooth sides. Most other discernable attributes are nearly identical.
The reference you quoted is good although I don't believe Vol 5 was available at the time. I also used the Randall prewar and postwar SP Pullman Standard library books and Joe Shine's SP passenger train books. The Carsten's Passenger car books have the Cascade but not the Lark diner. One of the Lark diners still exists, as of a couple of years ag at least, as part of some judge's attempt to make a hotel. There may have been a couple of other references, I don't recall.
All I have to offer to this thread is that I did the graphics for the original run of the Lark and still have the CAD files that the decals were created from. 
I thought it was a cool train even though SP is mostly a passing interest for me since it was one of the two railroads that ultimately came to the place I have called home for over 30 years.
How about an Espee Arizona Limited? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? Buehler? I didn't think so. 
id like to see a city of LA or SF passenger set to go with the E6 diesels
@20centuryhudson posted:id like to see a city of LA or SF passenger set to go with the E6 diesels
If memory serves, this has been discussed many, MANY times over the last few years. The problem is, many/most Union Pacific passenger cars are of riveted construction, thus it is VERY difficult for a model manufacturer to produce such cars in extruded aluminum. Now, it you would like nice expensive brass passenger cars (at $400 to $600 per car?), that would be another story.
@rdunniii posted:The reference you quoted is good although I don't believe Vol 5 was available at the time. I also used the Randall prewar and postwar SP Pullman Standard library books and Joe Shine's SP passenger train books. The Carsten's Passenger car books have the Cascade but not the Lark diner. One of the Lark diners still exists, as of a couple of years ag at least, as part of some judge's attempt to make a hotel. There may have been a couple of other references, I don't recall.
I didn’t think about the difference of information available now vs. 10-12 years ago when the Lark set was under development. Initially I was expecting to find the information on the Lark and Cascade diners in the vol 2 book which is dining service cars. SPHTS elected to put them in vol 5 since they are considered more of a lounge than a dining car.
I imagine one of the major hurdles when the GGD Lark was done was the mix of fluted and smooth side cars in the train. I wonder if it might be possible to use smooth side extrusions for the Lark triple unit and then add fluted pieces to the surface to give it the proper look. Maybe some fluted inlays could be fabricated out of brass or maybe even 3D printed. This would greatly simplify a major material planning hurdle and make the project more feasible.
When you build from extrusions, you run a whole bunch of raw stock. If you want to model a train with both smooth and fluted cars, you make everything you can interchangeable. If you are doing the Lark, you select smooth side extrusions from the huge pile that works for NYC, L&N, B&O, SP, GN, and if you need corrugations like the ones SP used for Daylight cars, you walk over to that pile, punch windows in that, and send them all to the paint shop.
Especially for SP, gluing on corrugations would be expensive and probably unsightly. The SP Pullman style cars had "innies" that would be very difficult to do to a smooth extrusion - especially since they already have an accurate die and probably lots of spare extrusions.
Even I have spare extrusions of four different types, and I am not in the business.
maybe its me but why buy E6/5 sets if there are no matching passenger sets? I bought the City of SF E6 set with the hope a matching passenger set would be made at some point--as really nice as the burlington E5's are what do you have them pull? are these just shelf queens or do have them pull something they never would?
@20centuryhudson posted:maybe its me but why buy E6/5 sets if there are no matching passenger sets? I bought the City of SF E6 set with the hope a matching passenger set would be made at some point--as really nice as the burlington E5's are what do you have them pull? are these just shelf queens or do have them pull something they never would?
The Burlington E5 units pulled the famous California Zephyr between Chicago and Denver, as well as other "Zephyr" train consists. The UP didn't have any E5 units.
I know — never said the UP had E5’s— just saying without matching cars why buy them?
@20centuryhudson posted:I know — never said the UP had E5’s— just saying without matching cars why buy them?
Well,,,,,,there ARE "matching cars" for the CB&Q E5 units, i.e. the California Zephyr!
The only ones I think were made by atlas — golden gate depot never made them— and the city of sf or la to my knowledge has not been done correctly
Guilty. I have more locomotives than cars. I now have two Milwaukee Erie-Builts and no Milwaukee passenger cars. Worse, I also have a drop-dead gorgeous Bi-Polar, again with no cars. Quite happy, thanks.
Might lay in a few Golden State/Golden Rocket cars someday.
@20centuryhudson posted:The only ones I think were made by atlas — golden gate depot never made them
So what. It doesn't matter what manufacturer made them, the California Zephyr set has been done correctly for CB&Q, D&RGW, and WP, including the special add-on cars. Atlas did them all in both 2-Rail and 3-Rail SCALE.
— and the city of sf or la to my knowledge has not been done correctly
Maybe not in 3-Rail, but they have been offered (Overland Models, in brass, comes to mind).
@20centuryhudson posted:maybe its me but why buy E6/5 sets if there are no matching passenger sets? I bought the City of SF E6 set with the hope a matching passenger set would be made at some point--as really nice as the burlington E5's are what do you have them pull? are these just shelf queens or do have them pull something they never would?
I am using my Burlington E5 to pull a consist of heavyweight Burlington GGD cars. Kind of like this photo: E5s pulling heavyweight train
Yah the Atlas Zephyr cars Are Really Quite nice !!! For myself, I see no reason to replace them !!!! They’ve been out for awhile and availability is starting to Thin Out. The domes were quite popular and are the easiest to find. The sleepers, head end, observation can be harder to find and more expensive.
No need for a GGD run of these cars. Let’s target what’s not been done, or not well done.
The 3rd Rail E5 will be sweet “icing on cake”.
Now ……. Let’s get back to the CASCADE !!! (And Oh the passenger car offering Q is So Long !!! 🤭☹️😵💫)
I still say if there is not a matching passenger consist available why but the engines? The atlas cars don’t match the silver of the 3rd rail E5 Burlington and the city series are never going to be made
@20centuryhudson posted:I still say if there is not a matching passenger consist available why but the engines? The atlas cars don’t match the silver of the 3rd rail E5 Burlington and the city series are never going to be made
OK,,,,,,,,,have it your way!
RE: UP city trains,
Both Overland and 3rd Rail made the UP M10000 many years ago and Wasatch made most of the cars of the UP domeliners. Others have put yellow paint on their passenger cars and called them city of... But no one has made good O Scale scale models of the M10002-M10006, LA/SF 1-2-3 or 4-5-6 or the 7th thru the 20th trains. Very few have even been made in HO.
It is very difficult to do.
Each train is different comprised of unique diners, observation cars, lounge cars and baggage/ dormitory cars even where they have sleepers in common. The first non articulated trains, SF/LA 1-2-3, started with 1938 cars and the E2s and with each additional train were mixed with 1941 cars (LA/SF 4-5-6) and later cars, all of which are different as the technology advanced. I would like LA/SF 4-5-6. Those are trains of the E6s. But the LA and SF versions too have differing diners, observation, lounges and baggage dorm cars. For example the SF diner is articulated whereas the LA diner is not. So I will take SF 4-5-6, but will will there be sufficient reservations as many potential reservation holders will want LA 4-5-6. GGD's builder limits the number of unique cars to 8-9 for the price. Just making the unique cars for both trains will consume 9 and you haven't even gotten to the coaches or sleepers. And there are at least 4 differing types of sleepers including two differing types of articulated sleepers. So he would have to offer both trains simultaneously and have to have get sufficient reservations for both in order to do the basic either. If you pick just one will you get sufficient reservations? And you probably will not get all the unique cars of the one.
About the only feasible financial way is to make individual brass cars. Maybe in batches of types of cars. But which batches will get sufficient reservations? Suppose the common sleepers and coaches batches get sufficient reservations but none of the unique cars? Make them in groups like Lionel did for the 1938 Smithsonian 20th Century. But there will be 6-8 different groups of 4 cars. And each group will be $2.4K plus.
People will say I will reserve this one but not that one and the result is few or none get sufficient reservations to happen.
RE; CZ cars
Sunset also made brass CZ cars.
I will be selling my Atlas CZ cars at O Scale West if anyone is interested. I have the Wasatch CZ cars reserved.
Some of us are not that picky. K-Line did a pair of UP cars without rivets, but with fairly good paint and lettering. I picked up three sets of those for $75/car, installed scale trucks and couplers, and will not henceforth be lusting for UP cars to go behind my rather impressive fleet of Armour yellow Diesels and Lobaugh Challengers.
The market for truly accurate UP cars was cornered by Wasatch. Superb models.
@20centuryhudson posted:I still say if there is not a matching passenger consist available why but the engines? The atlas cars don’t match the silver of the 3rd rail E5 Burlington and the city series are never going to be made
It is simply a function of the market. People buy the locomotives in sufficient numbers to get them made. People don't always buy the cars to go with them in sufficient numbers to get them made. It really is that simple.
To add a little more clarity, a total run of locomotives will typically be around 600 units for all roads. Customizations per road costs some money but still works within the budget. Typically, about 20 road names are run. Assuming all the road names had equal orders (which they do not), it would be about 30 units per road. The reality for the E5/E6 is that ATSF carried the run and most of the other roads with the exception of the E5 were fillers to get to the total minimum number of units.
A run of aluminum cars needs to be around 1000 cars total in aluminum. Round numbers would put it at 125 sets at 8 cars.
If you look at GGD E units produced in UP over the last 10 years, they likely equal the number of sets that would need to be sold for a successful run of matching passenger cars. Again, never say never, just make your interests known. Scott is first and foremost a businessperson. If the the business model makes sense the project will go forward.
The same math applies to a rerun of the Lark or a Cascade to bring this back on topic other than to say that the brass cars don't need the kinds of numbers. However, the numbers of aluminum cars that need to be sold increases.
Thank you Jonathan for the explanation of the manufacturing minimums. 1000 cars is a large hurdle to overcome.
Just floating an idea out there for some of the more obscure trains that people are interested in. Has Scott considered doing a “subscription plan” where instead of doing one train all at once, selecting a few different trains that share enough similarities to use common extrusions and release a 2-3 cars a year. This would build the whole train over a 2-3 year window. Walthers has a similar program for their HO passenger sets but they do one train over a whole year which makes expensive passenger sets more attainable for many hobbyists. Perhaps a program like this could help get some of the less common trains produced.
He did something like this with the plastic heavyweight cars. At the time, it was really nice for me to build my SP green heavyweight train since the cars were spread out over 3-4 years so I was able to save up money for them. That was back when I was in college and didn’t have the money to buy $1000-1500 passenger sets at the drop of a hat.
Interesting reads! So given that the minimum order number is 1000 aluminum cars or 125 sets. The question is would We the customers be able to get Scott over that minimum to put a Cascade or Lark into production.
Lark...... probably not because Lionel did their Broadway limited again & put SP lark paint & station sounds in it and that’s good enough for a lot of the 3R market.
Cascade..... in my opinion it’s worth a shot because you can do 8-car sets in two paint schemes. SP two tone grey and the SP silver/ red. All the cars are smooth. With the Cascade You don’t need to do a new fluting pattern for the articulated food service cars & brass head end cars (Lark) and the add ons can also be offered in American freedom train paint & possibly Amtrak pointless arrow.... correct me if I’m wrong on the Amtrak.
I was also wondering why Scott never offered a UP city train. Thanks for all that detail regarding the complexity of those sets. Maybe one day. Maybe.......
I would like to see the Southern Pacific Cascade with the blunt end sleeper/observation plus the matching Northern Pacific add-on through sleepers. None of those have ever been produced in O scale.
I have the 12-car Lark set from GGD. It is very nice!
I Just thought I’d stir the pot a little and bring this topic back into discussion. The discussion died off but I ask everyone to read all the comments again. A lot of Good comments earlier !!!
So …. Again …….
Anyone interested in the Lark or Cascade ??? I really like them both but my preference will be for new product - the Cascade. I think the variations would help this offering to reach needed #s to get it to fly.
Cheers !!! 😉
@TrainBub posted:I Just thought I’d stir the pot a little and bring this topic back into discussion. The discussion died off but I ask everyone to read all the comments again. A lot of Good comments earlier !!!
So …. Again …….
Anyone interested in the Lark or Cascade ??? I really like them both but my preference will be for new product - the Cascade. I think the variations would help this offering to reach needed #s to get it to fly.
Cheers !!! 😉
GGD has a lot of great sets coming & my reservations are in! I definitely want a Cascade to be announced in the future. I wouldn’t know wether to reserve the SP grey or Silver. 🙃
According to the book Southern Pacific Passenger Train Consists and Cars 1955 - 1958 by Harry Stegmaier, both the Lark and Cascade triple unit cars had the following configuration: Dormitory-Kitchen; Diner; Lounge.
The Lark diner was a diner / lounge car because the train did not need a full diner as mentioned above. The Cascade carried a full dinner. This was the primary difference between the triple units.
There are color photos of the Cascade Club triple unit on page 35 and of the Lark Club on page 68. Externally, except for the fluted Lark sides, the Cascade and Lark triple units look exactly the same to me in the photos. There are probably some differences that I can't see in the photos. NH Joe
This thread has gone dormant for awhile. I’m still interested in either a Cascade or Lark run 2. Anyone else ? I’ll prob prefer Cascade if the Lark still requires brass ($$$) head end cars.
I would choose the Cascade because I think the Lark is too large. An aluminum Lark would still be very expensive and impractical to try and actually run on a layout.
@Dj'sOgaugetrains posted:Interesting reads! So given that the minimum order number is 1000 aluminum cars or 125 sets. The question is would We the customers be able to get Scott over that minimum to put a Cascade or Lark into production.
Lark...... probably not because Lionel did their Broadway limited again & put SP lark paint & station sounds in it and that’s good enough for a lot of the 3R market.
Cascade..... in my opinion it’s worth a shot because you can do 8-car sets in two paint schemes. SP two tone grey and the SP silver/ red. All the cars are smooth. With the Cascade You don’t need to do a new fluting pattern for the articulated food service cars & brass head end cars (Lark) and the add ons can also be offered in American freedom train paint & possibly Amtrak pointless arrow.... correct me if I’m wrong on the Amtrak.
I was also wondering why Scott never offered a UP city train. Thanks for all that detail regarding the complexity of those sets. Maybe one day. Maybe.......
It interesting going back a couple of years into a thread. DJ brings up some good points in favor of the CASCADE - 2 paint scheme options, no brass head ends (cost containment), and Freedom train cars. A bit of something for everyone.
I think all of these items contribute to the commerciality of a Cascade project.
I’d sure like to see a new
SP issue. 🤔🤔🤔
Cheers 😉
PS All things considered, a 2nd run Lark would be a nice option too (especially if the expensive $$$ brass can be changed out)
I don’t think the stream-styled baggage and RPO cars in the Lark could be done in aluminum. The bodies do not have a constant profile so it would be very difficult to do them in an extruded profile. There might be a clever solution to solve it but would likely take a lot of figuring out and the result may not look as good.
I’ll have to check my Lark book to see how long these cars lasted in service on the Lark. A postwar Lark could open up better possibilities in terms of car flexibility. It may also be an option to produce a non-standard consist utilizing protection cars in lieu of the specialized cars normally assigned to the train. There was a Harriman diner and a pair of modernized heavyweight lounge cars assigned for protection service for the Lark Club. I would imagine there were baggage and RPO cars that served protection duty for the stream-styled cars.
@Jtrain posted:I would like to see the Southern Pacific Cascade with the blunt end sleeper/observation plus the matching Northern Pacific add-on through sleepers. None of those have ever been produced in O scale.
I have the 12-car Lark set from GGD. It is very nice!
The Northern Pacific sleepers Would Be a Cool “extra”. 😜
A pic I see is of a silver car with a red letterboard strip with Northern Pacific on the LB. 👍👍👍
