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I have a preference for the older heavyweight cars.  A challenge - Anyone have a car that is older ?  This is a Lionel 36 standard gauge observation with great end platform and window detailing.

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From inspection of the parts, reading Greenberg's books and verifying with him, I've determined that it was made in 1918, not long after the prototype cars were built by Pullman.

 

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Some years ago I had a set of disappointing Weaver 20" generic passenger cars that were painted in NYC colors. I reconfigured them to more closely resemble  wartime 20th Century Limited cars based on the 1940 color scheme. Long time readers of the Forum may have seen these cars before.

Here's the RPO I made from the Weaver baggage car -

NYC RPO-1A-Web

On top in the photo above is the original Weaver baggage car I started with and on the bottom is the Lionel-Smithsonian car I used as a guide. My reconfigured car appears in the middle. It is now in the correct colors and has correctly styled and placed doors and windows, appropriate roof details, diaphragms, and six wheel trucks per NYC practice. The Weaver bodies are about an inch short of full length, so on all the cars I modified I reduced the window widths and heights by 3 scale inches. They also have fluted roofs and skirts which I did not attempt to correct.

In all I did seven cars over a year's worth of evenings, working strictly with hand tools. I may post pix of a couple of others later. It was fun at the time, but I'll never do it again.

Cheers,

           - Mike

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I love passenger cars.  I have so many I couldn't hope to post them all but here are a few stand outs that I am happy to have in my collection.

GGD El Capitan Lounges in ATSF and Amtrak

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N scale lounge I custom painted and decaled myself.

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Another N scale custom paint of a Atlas / Rivarossi baggage dorm.

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Not a lot of these in existence.  GGD Canadian in VIA Rail.  I will possibly have a bedroom on the real one next spring depending on which 1st class bedroom my wife and I end up with when we ride this train finally.

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GGD Slumbercoach.  I have an order in on the phase III version should the second run of these go forward.

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My no so great 1st shot at a P70fbr coach using a GGD plastic P70 at a starting point.  The rear car is proof that just because I am serious about my trains, it doesn't mean we can't have fun. The observation is from the 20's.  I am forgetting the manufacturer at the moment.

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Finally, my old Penn coach yard with mostly Walther's kit built cars.

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Last edited by GG1 4877

Thanks for your interest, @Pingman. I considered that, but I've done it before and now thought it best to contribute to this thread. This place is full of passenger car junkies like @GG1 4877 above.

In any case, here are the matching diners. The TCL generally ran with two diners operated back-to-back, so I fashioned two cars for my train. As with the RPO in the post above, the original Weaver diner appears on top with both reconfigured cars below, showing the different window arrangements on each side. Per the prototype, these cars also ride on six wheel trucks, and diaphragms and appropriate rooftop details, including the radio antennas, have been added.

NYC Diners - 1- OGR

The actual cars had full width diaphragms, but modeling those was beyond my skill level, so I used somewhat up-detailed Walthers fabric corridor diaphragms instead. If your eyes can compensate for my splendid photography, you can see the result below -

NYC Diners - 3 - OGR [2)

When I did this  job, nothing like it was commercially available in 3 rail in this color scheme or with this level of detail. A couple of years later, Golden Gate Depot produced a beautiful set of full length, beautifully detailed cars.

Cheers,

            - Mike

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When I did this  job, nothing like it was commercially available in 3 rail in this color scheme or with this level of detail. A couple of years later, Golden Gate Depot produced a beautiful set of full length, beautifully detailed cars.

Cheers,

            - Mike

That happen to weigh almost as much at the prototypes they represented!  I am still grateful for the one you sent me to make sure we got the colors and stripes right for Pete's E7 "Beauty Queens".

Too true, @GG1 4877

I always thought the weight problems of those early GGD cars results mainly from the fact that the car ends are heavy solid brass castings. One day, I intend to replace them with plastic parts. One day. . .

I had forgotten about sending that car out to you. It was worth it. I consider my set of Beauty Queens the best of the early 3Rd Rail E7s thanks in large part to John Martin's efforts to make sure that the decoration was accurate. Interestingly, Lionel seems to have gotten the dark gray stripe wrong on their new Beauty Queens. It doesn't zag down at the B end to match the window line of a trailing train.  Perhaps they thought the straight through look on an A-B-A would look better.

Here, by the way, is the Club Car car or my remodeled set. The small window toward the left center of the car serves the barber shop -

NYC DBSL -1- OGR [2)

Cheers,

           - Mike

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@GG1 4877 posted:

That happen to weigh almost as much at the prototypes they represented!  I am still grateful for the one you sent me to make sure we got the colors and stripes right for Pete's E7 "Beauty Queens".

The cars match the 3rd Rail Dreyfuss but not the 3rd Rail Beauty Queen.
This is Lionels current E7 next to the 3rd Rail Tender, then the 3rd Rail Beauty Queen B unit. Still looking for 3rd Rail A units.

DEA19018-AEDD-43A3-8D14-238B852ABD27

AA4FB4B2-847B-4BE2-B56E-6F245021CE28


Pete

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Last edited by Norton

As always, Pete - @Norton - has a point.  The various pieces of 3rd Rail / GGD equipment made for the 1940 - 48 Twentieth Century wear different shades of gray. But that's not for lack of trying. I know how hard Jonathan - @GG1 4877 - and Scott Mann - @sdmann - worked to get them to match across a rather lengthy span of production in an ill-fated effort to satisfy @Pete Kruimer.

In my experience, grays are particularly tough, and the eyeball perception of them varies with ambient light, painting techniques, screen registrations and the like. At this stage of the game, I've given up on chasing "that perfect train."

I have the 1940 Dreyfuss Hudson, the twelve car matching set, and the Beauty Queens, all of which were produced at different times and probably in different places, and while not "perfect," I think they match reasonably well. Below are various examples coupled together for comparison.

Tender to RPO

TCL Tender-RPO-1 [2)

Tender to E7B

TCL Tender-B-3 [3)

E7B to RPO

TCL B-RPO-1 [3)

Note how the lightning stripe on the B unit drops to match the cars. Almost.

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For anyone who may still be interested in the Weaver cars I reconfigured, here are a couple of pix of the observation car to close with.

NYC OBS -4- OGR

NYC OBS -6- OGR

Of course, I think my grays are the best! 

Finally, Carl - @Pingman -  also had a point above. I should have made this a separate thread instead of inadvertently hijacking @PAUL ROMANO 's. I'll return it to him now, with my apologies.

- Mike

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Interesting Mike’s B unit has the stripe drop down to match the passenger cars but mine do not. I also see Scott did the correct outside curve in white outline. Mario noted that few if any renditions of the beauty queen white outline have that small curve but are all pointed. Too bad we can’t post pics of the prototype that illustrate the curve.

I should add I asked Scott a few times to include a few E7s painted in the Beauty Queen scheme in the last run, but apparently he felt there wasn't enough interest.

As for the grays, none of the Dreyfusses match each other and only a few match the cars they go with. The GGD cars match the 3rd Rail Dreyfuss and MTH last Dreyfuss run has cars that match but none of MTH’s earlier engines match their earlier cars.

Maybe Lionel’s Smithsonian match its cars but I have not seen the two together.

Petee

Last edited by Norton

Here, @Norton, is the Lionel-Smithsonian Dreyfuss Hudson tender coupled up to the RPO in the set. You be the judge -

TCL LS-3

Personally, I think the 3rd Rail / GGD combo has a better color match. The other interesting thing in this picture is the presence of a mail crane. The model has four installed. The real car may have been delivered with them, but as far as I can tell they were never fitted in actual service. I don't think this train picked up mail enroute, and I've never seen a picture of a real Century RPO operating with mail cranes installed.

Now onto other business: I envy you that gunmetal CV 4-6-4. Great train, great model!

- Mike

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This was from the Passenger Train topic, but better fits here.

The Pennsy had one 10-6 sleeper that matched the other cars on the CB&Q/D&RGW/WP California Zephyr for through service between San Fransisco and Chicago.  The Pennsy took the car between Chicago and NYC.  It was the Silver Rapids:

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The Penny also had two cars, Imperial Range and Imperial Terrace, that ran on the Golden State from Los Angeles to NYC via Chicago.  The GS ended at Chicago and the cars were taken from Chicago to NYC either on the NYC or PRR on alternate days .  The Pennsy cars were painted in 1948 to match the other cars on the GS from the CRI&P and SP.

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The Silver Rapids is K-Line and the Imperial Terrace is Lionel.  The other cars are either GGD or K-Line.

Thanks Ron for bringing this one back. Good topic as we all learn so much from these posts.  Here are few misc cars I've had or have and really enjoyed.

1950 Lionel UP Alco FA AA 027 set. Obtained these from the original owner here in our local area. He grew up in Chicago and had a wonderful assortment of trains from his childhood.

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I have had this full set now for 6 or 7 years and haven't run them yet. Have ABBA F3's, RF16 ABA, and Lionel's President Harrison Pacific steamer to pull them and hope to do do within the next several months. Also a variety of Heavyweights in B&O as well.IMG_0844

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These are Bob's scale Weaver 85' aluminum cars that I've never seen elsewhere. Beautiful, but they don't even come close to matching any of the several L&N diesels we have.

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The lone silver vista dome from the beautiful Lionel 21" D&H set. Didn't match the (correct) color blue on my 3rd Rail PA's so I traded them off with a Forum friend and plan on using some 21" K-Line cars I have and eventually painting the stripes to match.IMG_3632

Picked up this K-Line repaint from eBay some years ago as it was pretty. Terrific detail, especially in the trucks. Figured I'd set her on a siding somewhere for 'ambiance'.

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The whole fleet of K-line's excellent aluminum cars in any size are still today fine passenger cars for your layouts

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Last edited by c.sam

Some K-Line 13-1/2 inch lightweight passenger cars.  Because my layout was, is and will always be small I started with the Lionel 027 streamliners.  At 10 inches they are a bit small even on a small layout so these K-line cars are probably the best fit.

IMG_3715These are from the second run of         K-Line's LIRR Greenport Scoot set.

IMG_3534An appropriately numbered add-on to make a 4 car scoot behind this K-Line F unit.IMG_3717

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Last edited by coach joe

@Don McErlean, Don your Sant Fe cars are why I started looking at the K-Line cars.  First I picked up two NYC cars, a diner and a RPO to intersperse with my Lionel 0-27 cars then an awakened interest in the LIRR led me to the Scoot cars.  An odd thing is those Santa Fe cars come in blue boxes while most of the K-Line streamliners come in the regular black K-Line box.

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