Lionel Lines 15" Aluminum Streamliners

If they say Lionel Lines on them I don't think they would be wrong behind anything.

Those car named are from the California Zephyr. 

The real PRR did not run domes under the NEC wires.  But the 1950's PRR set did have a dome.  Your stuff.  Run as you like.

raising4daughters posted:

There's a set of the four 1996 15" streamliners up for sale that, I believe, went with Santa Fe F3s. They are named Silver Sky, Silver Mesa, and Silver Rail plus an REA baggage car. I think these are modern version of the set that came with the SF F3s in the 50s.

Is it any sort of O-Gauge sacrilege to run these with a NY Central Streamlined Hudson or a Pennsy GG1? I can't see anything that makes them Santa Fe specific and thought being Lionel Lines I could run them with a number of different engines.

Sacrilege isn't quite the word, historically erroneous would be better.  Teh answer to your question depends on what you are trying to do.  Are you trying to run trains that has some resmblance to what actually ran on the NYC of PRR, or are you just trying to run nice looking streamliners ?  I will answer the first part of question.

There were four kinds of streamlining on NYC Hudsons - Twentieth Century, Empire State Express, Commodore Vanderbilt and Mercury.  Only the ESE Hudson ran with stainless steel cars.  I believe that the Empire State Express was the only NYC stainless steel train that ever ran with a streamlined Hudson. 

PRR did not ever run stainless steel behind steam.  the only such cars tyat they ever had ran only between Boston and Washington and connections to the south - all GG! territory on the PRR.

Don't use dome cars if you are modeling any eastern road other than the B&O west of Baltimore.

Malcolm Laughlin

Originally posted by Malcolm Laughlin:

PRR did not ever run stainless steel behind steam.  the only such cars tyat they ever had ran only between Boston and Washington and connections to the south - all GG! territory on the PRR.

NOt totally true.  the PRR had through cars- some being stainless steel- that ran in East to West and Visa Versa in consists. I do remember seeing some Stainless steel trains behind an EMD E8 in the Middle division.

HEre is a picture of the South Wind:

If I am not mistaken, the drumhead on the observation has a Santa Fe logo. Maybe? You might inquire about that. Of course, you could change the drumhead if you wanted. 

I've had the 6-19165 4 car set since new in 1996. The label on the master carton says ALUM CAR ASST S.F.  5/08/96 

The observation car drumhead has the Santa Fe Warbonnet and Super Chief print on it.

All 4 cars have LIONEL LINES plates. Beautiful bright aluminum bodies and silver truck sides. Very nice.

Just like the postwar versions but better...

Here's the observation (Silver Rail), which has the Santa Fe drumhead. I don't think this set was made for a specific F-3 set, but of course there was plenty of motive power for these sets, with all the Lionel F-3 Warbonnets around. Lionel was making several aluminum passenger car sets at the time to go with Santa Fe engines.

In 1997, Lionel also made the same cars but lettered for the Santa Fe, as part of the Surfliner passenger train, with a catalog picture showing the cars behind a SF PA (separate sale) that Lionel made at the time. The matching baggage and dome weren't produced until 6 years after the 4-car set! These corrigated roof sets came after the famous 1991 F-3 set that Lionel produced and with them the smooth shiny-roofed passenger set (pictured at the bottom - there was an add-on full dome as well).

Run em behind anything you want, I do it all the time. Sometimes Sante  Fe, sometimes a Wabash F3, and more. They'll look great. 

Thanks everyone for the great input.

On the PRR with domes, I have a set of MTH O27 streamliners (plastic, not aluminum) and they look great behind my semi-scale WBB GG1, a poor-man's re-creation of the Congressional set. MTH provides a dome car, so I'm OK with violating aspects of reality since I'm not a pure scale guy.  I just don't like mixing road names on passenger trains and see Lionel (or Luxury) Lines as sort of a wildcard that can run with anything, but not if there's Santa Fe markings on the.

I do, however, try to stay true to some history. Semi-scale PRR runs with O27 Madisons, for example, not freight.

I should've pointed out that my NYC streamlined Hudson is the semi-scale ESE.  Right now, I'm running it with red lettered WBB O27 streamliners (plus my grandfather's Lionel Clifton dome car).  The cars look a little small to me but I don't want another set of MTH O27 streamliners (which are a bit bigger) in NYC since they're a direct copy of the PRR's. I think this would be a good opportunity to go a little bigger, like 15", since I have 42" and 54" curves on 3 of my 5 mainlines.

Think I'll wait around for some 15" K-Line NYCs that went with the ESE. They're really hard to find other than at an astronomical price. There's a set of 15" Williams NYC aluminum streamliners on the auction site that have me interested as well.

Both mth and Lionel had the NYCs as well. I'm sure I have them both somewhere.

Well, it's your train, or trains, as it were.  You can run whatever you want.  If it looks good to you, then it's just fine.  I do it all the time, and no one cares.  What I run pleases me, and that is what counts.  Never mind what is correct.  Heck, the three rails are not ever correct, so what's the difference?  These are all toys, meant to bring joy and happiness, not consternation.

Run them till the cows come home and be happy.

GVDobler posted:

If they say Lionel Lines on them I don't think they would be wrong behind anything.

This.

Change the drumhead to go with whatever you want. Tomar makes them if want a lighted one or just print your own if its not lighted. For NYC use an Empire State Express drumhead or just print one that says Lionel Lines.

Pete

Well PRR fans, how sacrilegious is this:

One time through the Gallitzin tunnels in that paint scheme era and no more bi-level! I have a couple of these K-Line "concept cars" and really enjoy running them. But to the OP, I just wanted to say go for it! I have 3 of the postwar 15" that came with my NYC PW F's that are Lionel Lines. Don't know the names of all the cars offhand, but the dome is Silver Cloud. I really love my 15" CZ dome streamliners, silhouettes and all, but unsure when they were issued, know they are from the Modern era.

Rich

Surfliner pics and descriptions above are linked from my website without attribution.  Traffic spike noted from each view of this thread.  Here's the drumhead on the 6-19179 observation car.

p.s. Apologies to those initially denied access to the website pics due to ip addresses falling within blacklisted network ranges from which unsuccessful hacking, spamming or scraping attempts previously were detected.  US ip addresses not originating from cloud hosting, Tor or select VPN networks will be whitelisted as they show up in website logs. 

Norton posted:

GVDobler posted:

If they say Lionel Lines on them I don't think they would be wrong behind anything.

This.

Change the drumhead to go with whatever you want. Tomar makes them if want a lighted one or just print your own if its not lighted. For NYC use an Empire State Express drumhead or just print one that says Lionel Lines.

Pete

Tomar is no longer in business.  From their homepage:

"Thanks for visiting our website.

We would like to say "Thanks" for your patronage of over 36 years. Tomar Industries and Utah Pacific have been sold to P.F.& S.Railway Supply, Inc. LeRoy, Sharon, Joel & Teresa Prantle are excited to make all the products we have supplied in the same quality we have all these years. You, our customers, have been important to us and we have made every effort to make products that you would be proud to put on your layout.

Please contact P.F.& S. at 560 Ione Rd., Pasco,WA 99301, Phone 509-266-4384 to place Tomar & Utah Pacific orders.

Don't forget we still have Alexander Scale Models and Stewart Products and can now spend time producing products that have been off the market and on the back burner plus the ones that exist in the line. We can be reached at 9520 E. Napier Ave., Benton Harbor, MI 49022, phone 269-944-5129 to place orders.

Duane & Marie"

Rusty

The 19109-19138 polished top streamliners actually included two add-ons, the full vista dome BREEZINUP mentioned and the duplex roomette, both shown below.

p.s. Pardon the reflections; those polished roofs are like mirrors and a challenge for an amateur to photograph even at an oblique angle.

Rusty Traque posted:

Norton posted:

GVDobler posted:

If they say Lionel Lines on them I don't think they would be wrong behind anything.

This.

Change the drumhead to go with whatever you want. Tomar makes them if want a lighted one or just print your own if its not lighted. For NYC use an Empire State Express drumhead or just print one that says Lionel Lines.

Pete

Tomar is no longer in business.  From their homepage:

"Thanks for visiting our website.

We would like to say "Thanks" for your patronage of over 36 years. Tomar Industries and Utah Pacific have been sold to P.F.& S.Railway Supply, Inc. LeRoy, Sharon, Joel & Teresa Prantle are excited to make all the products we have supplied in the same quality we have all these years. You, our customers, have been important to us and we have made every effort to make products that you would be proud to put on your layout.

Please contact P.F.& S. at 560 Ione Rd., Pasco,WA 99301, Phone 509-266-4384 to place Tomar & Utah Pacific orders.

Don't forget we still have Alexander Scale Models and Stewart Products and can now spend time producing products that have been off the market and on the back burner plus the ones that exist in the line. We can be reached at 9520 E. Napier Ave., Benton Harbor, MI 49022, phone 269-944-5129 to place orders.

Duane & Marie"

 

Rusty

Tomar still sells drumheads. You can order from their site. I just did about 3 weeks ago and got this no problem. 

My roster has more locomotives than it has trains to pull. So silver Santa Fe cars do extra duty as Western Pacific, Burlington, and Empire State Express trains behind appropriate locomotives.

Quick search of the OGR For Sale forum, and I found a forum member selling a set of 4 Lionel New York Central semi-scale, silver streamliners.  These appear to be the same size as the ones in the Santa Fe livery that came with my FT Railsound set back in 2002. Very nice and at 13-1/2", they're a bit bigger than the 10" O27 streamliners and, I think, will look great with my semi-scale ESE engine without dropping a lot more on the all-aluminum 15" K-Lines that are very hard to find.

http://www.lionel.com/products...pack-silver-6-15180/

The forum has been a great place to buy from, even when in need of oddball or unique items.

Now if someone could just get me a bigger basement.