The photos below show two views of the set of seven Premier wood-sided NYC&HRR 64' passenger cars that arrived from Pat's Trains last week. These were in the 2020 Vol. 1 catalog, and frankly I was shocked when they showed up - they arrived far sooner than I expected given not just the normal delays in shipping schedules, and the pandemic. The seven cars are the full set of offerings MTH listed : the basic three-car set (20-62077), the three-car add-on set (20-62078) and the additional coach car (20-62079). These cars are everything I have come to expect of MTH Premier passenger cars - just top quality throughout: well made, very detailed, with good interiors, great lighting and a nice assortment of passengers inside each car.
The top photo below shows the seven cars with the correct locomotive for them: New York Central and Hudson River Railroad's Number 999. Historical photographs show it typically pulled only four of five such cars, at least in the mid 1890s, but I had set it up here with the full set of seven, which frankly is a bit of a challenge for this small but lovely MTH Premier loco to pull up and around this 60-inch diameter, two-percent incline. That lovely little loco is just not quite as heavy as it needs to have all the traction required to pull this train without wheel-slip. When I run the loco from time to time, I will probably set it up with only a historically-correct four-car consist.
The second image in the photo shows the cars paired with Lionel's Legacy NYC 4-6-0, a slightly larger but much heavier loco that does a better job of pulling the second cars. I also prefer this loco based on aesthetics alone. To me at least, it looks better paired with these cars. Also, note that the cars come with the stairways from the end platforms (top photo) but I removed them (bottom photo - each has a screw and then can be pried off without damage). All the photos take of these cars in the 1890s show them without the stairs when the train was running.
Anyway, if you want a set of these cars for your layout, it is apparently too late . I tried to get an eighth car today, but Pat told me what every other store I tried afterward told me and MTH's website confirmed: they sold out almost immediately.
