Lionel NYC heavyweights

Mike, You could use virtually anyones interiors in those early Lionel cars. Easy to modify to fit or adjust the seating arrangements. The color differences are prototypical. If I had the newer cars I would replace the trucks and put clear or slightly shaded window material in them and leave it at that. MTH trucks are close, you just have to move the mounting point a bit. Even Williams trucks could be made to work. You can find whole cars sometimes for less than a pair of new trucks.

Pete

I’m with Pete on this one, ….just to get an idea of what Pete’s talking about, make a string of cars and mix the various colors in the line, ….you’ll see it pop to life!….I’d fix all the cars. Ditch the green window glazings, ….everything Pete said is spot on, I have both sets as well, the later set I swapped MTH trucks on them, as the crappy Lionel trucks fell to pieces……

Pat

Mike......this is amazing......I look forward in seeing how it comes out!

Peter

Pete and Pat,

I have looked for years (unsuccessfully) to find interiors from any manufacturer, including the bay and from them directly.  The only success I have a seen is a few coach ones on Trainz.  I suspect there was a time when they could have been bought as parts from the manufactures, but I think I missed the boat and that time has come and gone.  Is there another source I should be watching?  I would like to do the same for C&O heavy weights of the same vintage.

Also, 5 sets of trucks look to be close in cost to buying as just purchasing an older Lionel set and stealing from them, is there a better source to buy to search for these?

@Hump Yard Mike posted:

Pete and Pat,

I have looked for years (unsuccessfully) to find interiors from any manufacturer, including the bay and from them directly.  The only success I have a seen is a few coach ones on Trainz.  I suspect there was a time when they could have been bought as parts from the manufactures, but I think I missed the boat and that time has come and gone.  Is there another source I should be watching?  I would like to do the same for C&O heavy weights of the same vintage.

Also, 5 sets of trucks look to be close in cost to buying as just purchasing an older Lionel set and stealing from them, is there a better source to buy to search for these?

Get a hold of Perry at the Toy Exchange in Mt. Airy Maryland, ……he may have some onesy twosies MTH Premier car interiors ….worth a shot to ask,…..and he’s got a store on that unmentionable shopping experience……sometimes a car without trucks, etc, might pop up on there for small money…..the window glazings can be harvested from MTH cars too,…..might have to make mods to land a MTH interior in a Lionel, but that’s not something Mr. Dremel is afraid of, ……😉

Pat

@Hump Yard Mike posted:

Pete and Pat,

I have looked for years (unsuccessfully) to find interiors from any manufacturer, including the bay and from them directly.  The only success I have a seen is a few coach ones on Trainz.  I suspect there was a time when they could have been bought as parts from the manufactures, but I think I missed the boat and that time has come and gone.  Is there another source I should be watching?  I would like to do the same for C&O heavy weights of the same vintage.

Also, 5 sets of trucks look to be close in cost to buying as just purchasing an older Lionel set and stealing from them, is there a better source to buy to search for these?

Mike, check your email.

As for trucks you have be patient and lucky. A few months ago I found a 5 car set of MTH Heavyweights for under 100 bucks shipped. Used the trucks on some Weaver heavyweights.

Pete

Pat and Pete, thanks for the responses.  Appreciate the note from you as well Pete.

I am not disciplined to focus on only one road, so I have a lot of other passenger trains on the layout and shelves. I don’t have room for second NYC green heavyweight train, otherwise they will be in a box and not on display.  While there are a few exceptions, I try to be fairly consistent on a rule that if they are in a box, I am not enjoying them and they should be sold.

Neither set is very valuable in their current states.  Pat’s idea of mixing a few from each set is growing on me.  Also I didn’t realize the newer set has sleeper cars that have single windows on the hallway side, The older set didn’t come this way and instead has both sides with double windows.  I assume the single windows are more accurate to match the sleeper interiors ( I need to look into this more)?  Not sure why I am getting wrapped around the axle on this, but I am able to overlook the more glaring issue of them being 3” too short .  In seriousness, the 21” cars seem to big on my layout and is why I use the 18”.

I am thinking the cars below are my proposed keeper mixed set.  I had 7 cars from my previous older set and plan for the new train to be the same size.  I plan to update all the trucks to the older ones, and update all the lighting/windows to match.  Also plan to steal marker lamps and swap the railings/curtain on the observation car.  

What are other thoughts on the cars in this mixed set?  Were the sleepers always grouped together in the train?

the remain cars below are the ones I am thinking of parting out.

The only interior I would be missing then would be the diner.  I forgot about an oddball N&W diner that was an extra I had from MTH and was thinking of using that.  When I looked in the seating area tonight, I only see 4 tables and the rest looks like standard seats.  Seems odd to me.

The sleeper window arrangements doesn't look like a straight forward answer.  There looks to be lots of types of sleeper cars that would have different window arrangements.  A few links below that I found when looking more into this today.  Funny as I would not be looking into this until I see the difference between these two passenger car sets.  One example I looked at was Willow River from the first set, which doesnt match the real one (third link below) that looks more similar to the newer sets.  That shouldn't surprise me.  I need to remind myself that when these cars came out in 1995, they were such a huge leap from anything else lionel had made in the past.  Still cant believe these are almost 30 years old and still look relevant to the modern stuff of today.  I would need to be doing 21" cars from sunset if these details are critical, which they aren't.  This reminds me of the Super Chief post I had completed recently on the forum here where I was trying to model things on the Chief with the older MTH 18" cars from 2000, lots of compromises.

http://www.northeast.railfan.n...lassic/CARdwgs4.html
http://www.railswest.com/pullman.html

https://www.canadasouthern.com...ELS-PASS-PULLMAN.htm

@Hump Yard Mike posted:

The sleeper window arrangements doesn't look like a straight forward answer.  There looks to be lots of types of sleeper cars that would have different window arrangements.  A few links below that I found when looking more into this today.  Funny as I would not be looking into this until I see the difference between these two passenger car sets.

http://www.northeast.railfan.n...lassic/CARdwgs4.html
http://www.railswest.com/pullman.html

The best part is you are doing you research which is personally such a great part of this hobby for me.  While it's tough to compare Pullman Standard plans to cars that area shorter than the prototype, you can do some good interpolation on what might be appropriate.  While there are some very popular window arrangements of Pullman Standard cars, you are correct in that they vary greatly based on the specific requirements of each specific railroad. 

Half the fun for me is the thrill of the hunt in finding either information or parts to make our trains closer to the ones we hope them to be.