Lionel Senator vs Congessional Set

On the prototype, the only major difference between the Senator and the Congressional was the routing with the Senator going all the way to Boston and the Congressional ending in NYC.  All the cars came from the 1951 Budd purchase.  Of course, north of NYC Penn Station, New Haven locomotives pulled the train with electrics to New Haven and then diesels north to Boston.

The Congressional had a twin unit diner and a conference room car.  The Senator had a single unit diner.

I can't say much about the Lionel sets other than the observations should be a blunt end observation to be correct and they should be the same for both trains.   

Windy,

     I have the prior Senator set. A station sounds dinner was not offered and it had a dome car. The Pennsy never had a dome car so the new set is more accurate as they did a way with the dome car and added an additional coach/sleeper or whatever. I have a pair of white gloves that I use when putting the cars on the track as finger prints kill the aluminum cars. The observation car looks to be the same as the prior set but mine are in the attic so I cannot compare them.

JohnB

Here’s a video of my set from a few years ago:

JohnB what is the car behind the engines?

That is a Kline Express Boxcar that I found at a train show. Match’s pretty good I think

I have the 4. car Senator set and the 2 car Congressional set. Did Lionel make a 2 car add on to the Senator also named that way or is the Congressional 2 car set the add on for it

Lionel made a specific two car add on for the Senator set. 6-81969. They did not make a station sounds car for the set.