Here's a NYC paint scheme I've never seen

                                              The images attached to Silver Lake's previous post in this thread reflect not one, but two lightweight designs.  The Boston & Maine's "Speed Merchant" is actually a talgo train-set with a single FM diesel-electric on each end.  It was basically the same as the New Haven's "John Quincy Adams" (not pictured).  They were the only examples of this particular lightweight type.  However, the Rock Island mated a set of the same fifteen ACF cars with GM's "Aerotrain" engine and called the result, "The Jet Rocket".

The New Haven's "Dan'l Webster" (shown above) was a "Train-X" design and a close sister to the New York Central's "Xplorer".  Both featured nine-car-train-sets, but the "Xplorer" only utilized one engine.  The  "DW" had one on each end.  The NYC train also featured a shark-nose on its Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton diesel-hydraulic loco.  Combined with the "Xplorer" logo graphics, this gave the unit a Mighty Mouse appearance, and the train came to be referred to by that name.

Models of the "Aerotrain"  (with GM bus-body coaches) are now available in O and HO scale.  Certainly, this is because it was the most promoted of the 1950s lightweights.  GM's two demonstrator-trains were eventually sold to the Rock Island (the "Jet Rocket" being the third lightweight they operated), but only after they had toured some 30 US railroads.  Four roads eventually leased the trains for revenue and performance tests.  Hence, the "Aerotrain" allows a model-manufacturer to offer it in 5 prototype railroad names, as well as the widely toured GM-demonstrator.  The minor paint-and-decal differences on these 6 train-sets are also easy to accommodate.  The model's tooling requires only an engine, a single bus-style coach, and the modification of this car for an auto-style rear observation window.  Little wonder that the "Aerotrain" has been widely produced and the other 1950s lightweights have yet to appear. 

If a model train manufacturer were to consider the BTO sales potential of another lightweight, " Train-X" would probably be the most likely choice.  The New Haven and the New York Central were centered in densely populated areas of the US and have many modelers.  Both the "Dan'l Webster" and "Xplorer" feature unique low-profile dimensions and colorful paint schemes.  

In 1963, the New York Central sold its train (in storage, since 1960) to Jones Tours, a subsidiary of the Pickens RR, a class-3 short line in South Carolina.  Late in 1964, it was joined there by the NH lightweight, which had been out of service since 1958.  Both were operated under the "Xplorer" name from 1964-67, in passenger excursions over Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Lines, and Southern Railways.  They were pulled by locomotives of their respective hosts (often a GP-9), with in-train electricity provided by the auxiliary diesel-powered generator onboard the Baldwin R-210 locomotives. 

I've been told that these excursions were mostly between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, but ranged as far as Alabama and Florida, making overnight hotel-stops in key cities along the way . The trains also saw some shuttle service on Pickens' light-rail (100 lb.) trackbed, over their ten route miles between Pickens and Easley.  They initially received a black-and-aluminum paint-scheme (later altered to dark blue-and-aluminum) and retained the  "X-plorer" logo-graphics of the New York Central on the nose of the locomotives.  When James F. Jones sold the Pickens RR in 1967, the train-sets went into storage on a siding at Traveler's Rest, SC.  There they remained, until scrapped in 1970.

So the range of prototype RR operations (while not as comprehensive as the "Aerotrain") is possibly sufficient for marketing.  However, the model's tooling would be more complicated than GM's train.  First, there's the difference in the two Baldwin locomotive noses.  Then the train-set requires a single-axle 5-window coach, a single-axle 6-window variant, and the re-tooling of the 5-window coach as a mid-train-car riding on two axles (to increase stability in the prototype).  The New Haven's units also featured 3rd-rail pick-up shoes on their trucks, and a unique half-scale, roof-mounted scissor pantograph, for reaching the overhead 3rd-rail bar used to power trains through the maze of switches in New York City's Grand Central Terminal, where positioning a standard 660-volt 3rd-rail at trackside was not feasible. 

Someday, perhaps we'll see "Train-X" arrive.

From the April 1956 Trains Magazine:

Rusty

Looked like someone took a Baldwin Sharknose and flattened it. In 1955 the New York Central and New Haven each ordered a set of Pullman lightweight, single axle, "Train X" passenger cars. Baldwin was contracted to build the locomotives. The NYC train would have one locomotive while the NH train would have a locomotive at each end, so three units were ordered, they were completed in 1956.

NYC 20   - c/n 76108, b/d 05/56
NH 3000 - c/n 76109, b/d 9/56
NH 3001 - c/n 76110, b/d 9/56

The RP210 locomotive was powered by a Maybach V12 diesel producing 1000hp. This engine was mounted on the front trucks and powered both axles through a Mechydro hydraulic transmission. A second smaller Maybach diesel was located in the car body to provide auxiliary power.

New Haven units also had additional electric traction motors to be powered by third rail or overhead power.

It would be a cool one-off for either importer to make.

IMHO, of course...

Then again, slap a 'Warbonnet' paint scheme on it, and it'll sell like hotcakes.  (I've never understood that comparison, though.)

AND!....It looks like it could serve the S gauge market, too!

Time to go to work...

dkdkrd posted:

 

AND!....It looks like it could serve the S gauge market, too!

 

I've heard exactly zero S Gaugers clamoring for a Train X.

We're still trying to convince Lionel to do the Flyer SD40 they backed out of doing in 1998...

Rusty

I think DKDKRD was thinking of serving the S-gauge market with an O-gauge model of Train-X, right out of the box.  I believe he was attempting to be humorous about the size comparison between the two NYC locos pictured above...

Produce the locomotive and passenger cars out of actual aluminum in the USA using high-temperature steel molds.

Andrew

I love the line "The Xplorer was an attempt by the NYC to modernize rail travel inOhio and lure people out of their cars. " that DK122 posted....."lure people out of their cars".......what were they thinking???...LOL!!

Yes, getting people out of their cars was pointless, especially as their introduction coincided with the opening of the national highway system.  It was part of a poor marketing campaign directed at the public to promote the concept of "futuristic", which was a popular stance in the late-1950s.  The railroads' real reasons for entertaining the concept were actually to be found in the promise of equipment which might cost 40% less to purchase per seat, and 40% less to operate, due to fuel-efficiency and the less wear-and-tear expected to the trackbed, from the lighter weight of the trains.  No one really considered the need for welded-rail, and the ability to adjust the pneumatic pressure of the train's suspension while it was underway, nor the ability to "tilt" into curves.  Addressing those points in passenger train design was still over a decade away.  In the end, the lightweights were just too light to be practical as a comfortable alternative in rail travel.  Their jarring impacts, and wobbly running qualities, made passengers and crews physically ill.  They might have looked heaven sent but the ride was from hell.

However, if there's enough interest out there to allow for unique trains like the "Comet" , the "Electroliner", and a Budd railcar experiment with jet-engines on the roof, then Train-X might be judged worthy of a release in O-gauge.

Speaking of all the experiments the railroads did in the fifties, trying to keep what passengers they had and wooing more, it seems that more effort should have been put into buying RDCs.  They were already proven reliable and tracked well.  The research and development had already been done by the Budd company.  Trains of up to twelve units could be made up and separated into two or more separate trains when need be.  The list is too long to spell out all the benefits.

All of that said, it's easy to look back and find mistakes made.

DaveP posted:

Looked like someone took a Baldwin Sharknose and flattened it. In 1955 the New York Central and New Haven each ordered a set of Pullman lightweight, single axle, "Train X" passenger cars. Baldwin was contracted to build the locomotives. The NYC train would have one locomotive while the NH train would have a locomotive at each end, so three units were ordered, they were completed in 1956.

NYC 20   - c/n 76108, b/d 05/56
NH 3000 - c/n 76109, b/d 9/56
NH 3001 - c/n 76110, b/d 9/56

The RP210 locomotive was powered by a Maybach V12 diesel producing 1000hp. This engine was mounted on the front trucks and powered both axles through a Mechydro hydraulic transmission. A second smaller Maybach diesel was located in the car body to provide auxiliary power.

New Haven units also had additional electric traction motors to be powered by third rail or overhead power.

It would be a cool one-off for either importer to make.

DaveP, you mentioned that it looked like a "flattened" shark nose.  Actually, the angle-back is probably more extreme than the traditional Baldwin sharknose.

SORRY, but in a word, U-G-L-Y! 

Can't you say something nicer about Baldwin's last locomotive?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- Η ομορφιά είναι στο μάτι του θεατή (Plato)

Bill Baldwin posted:

Can't you say something nicer about Baldwin's last locomotive?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- Η ομορφιά είναι στο μάτι του θεατή (Plato)

Sorry Bill, but it looks like it got hit by a train.....LOL

This X-Train looks like it should a character on the Chuggington show. 

Andrew

No, I think "Brewster" needs more under and overbite.