PENN CENTRAL FANS: An O-Gauge Product Checklist and Discussion Thread

You do realize that your list does in fact contain semi-scale items (70 foot passenger cars) and fantasy rolling stock (full dome passenger car), don't you?  There might be others but I'm not a PC expert.  Like a lot of areas in this hobby, there is a choice to be made between more prototypical/less stuff available and less prototypical/more stuff available.  As long as you're having fun, that's job #1.

Nick,

Thanks. This is very helpful

MTH also made a GP-40 in PC paint.  I don't know the model number.  Also, K-Line made a die cast gondola in PC to CR transition.  Green with PC  reporting marks but the logo is CR.  I also think they made a PC coil car, but i'm not sure.

Tom

Yes, I do realize the MTH passenger cars have a few faults. However, given the extreme drought of PC passenger cars in O-gauge, I thought it would still be useful to let fans know they do exist in some form. I will be buying them. Like most MTH rolling stock, "good enough" comes to mind 

I know about the GP-40, but for my purposes I couldn't include it on the list (DCS locomotives are omitted). I did not know about the K-Line cars though, thank you! I'll be looking into those.

saw in mth's new catalog they have the new 70' streamline coach's. looking real sharp, might habe to put in a preorder for them

penn central is my railroad of choice as well... i have just about all the MPC era lionel penn central cars (nothing to brag about though really)

Thanks for the list, Nick.  Penn Central is my favorite road, and PC fans, well face it, we're hard to find!

Stack 

Nick

You forgot to add the dirt , grime and mud

If K-Line ever made a Penn Central Evans Products Coil Car, What year and have you actually seen one? I have seen all the K-Line Catalogs after 2000, I never saw Penn Central Green Coil Cars.

Andrew

Nick,

As I also only run TMCC, I was thinking about the units I run on my layout. I have a dummy GP-40 that I pull around in a consist.  Wasn't even thinking about it not being TMCC.

Andrew,

I was thinking about the NYC coil car.  (I was dreaming about a PC coil car!)

Tom

Here is a picture of my K-Line PC gondola.  I removed the CR markings and replaced them with the PC logo.

You won't find these in any catalog.  Atlas O GP-9 that I painted and an N-9 transfer caboose that I built.

Tom

Nick,

Add Lionel 6-17590 Penn Central PS-4 flat car.  This is from the Chessie Diesel Freight set from 2005.

Tom

Ah yes, I forgot all about that one!

Searching "Penn Central" on the Legacy K-Line trains website shows several products that I'm assuming were cancelled, being that I've never seen them. Can you confirm this Tom?

Bachmann can make The former K-Line O Scale items in the Penn Central. Since they are in Philadelphia, it should be easier to find PC documents and photos. 

Andrew

Nick,

To the best of my knowlege, the K-Line GP-38, N5C cabin car and die-cast boxcar were never produced.  K-Line closed their doors shortly after these items were cataloged.  I had a GP-38 on pre order.  Still waiting!!!

Tom

Tom - LOL! I remember reading about the GP-38 now. One can only hope Lionel or Bachmann fills that order for you someday.

I'm a PC fan, too, and something I always get a kick out of are my Marx sets with the 400 or 490 steamer with PC tenders and cabooses!

Just updated the attachment with a small revision to include the missed Lionel flatcar and a Weaver RS diesel. I was going to add the K-Line gondola too, but it's technically a Conrail item so I left it off.

Nick,

Great resource for scale PC fans.  Thank you for compiling and posting the check-list. 

-Duncan

Nick - how about that 3rd Rail FL9 you have coming? 

Also, while it is not scale in terms of details, the MPC era PC GP7 could be added to your list as it is at least scale proportioned. 

One of these days I'm probably going to convert my K-Line 21" NYC cars to PC.  We'll see what happens.

Yes, I've posted this on the forum in another thread, but it works here pretty well too!

Jonathan, are you talking about the K-Line ESE cars? You might make some K-Line enthusiasts here squeal if you alter them 

Have you given any thought to MTH's 18 inch cars or are you aiming for the full scale 21 inchers?

Just a personal thing, but I only model full scale length cars.  The 18" MTH cars are not of interest to me outside of the baggage car which was typically 72' in length or in some cases 63'. 

Yes, I was referring to the ESE cars ........ right now I run them as part of a "City of Everywhere" at the club layout with SP Daylight, PRR and Amtrak cars in the mix as well.  Since I have more Amtrak cars coming from GGD shortly, PC would be closer to era for what I am looking to achieve, but in all seriousness, I don't have time to do many repaints these days.  Too busy doing other things.

Wish I had picked up a Weaver PC green B60 when I had the chance ..... oh well.

I am content with MTH's 18" cars simply because it's a miracle someone finally made PC passenger cars in O-scale at all. I also just picked up the ESE cars to go with my Lionel ESE Hudson and they're absolutely gorgeous. Definitely way too chromed out for PC in my opinion, you'd have to dull them down somehow (cover your ears K-Line fans!). Just out of curiosity, which set of ESE cars do you have? I got myself sets B and C from 1999. Sets L and M were from 2004.

Now as for baggage cars, I could have sworn the pure PC baggage cars MTH is making were fantasy, and that ex-PRR B60s were the main baggage cars in PC passenger trains. And speaking of which, I also didn't know Weaver made PC green ones in O-scale. I thought they only made them in different PRR schemes, and I just missed out on Eliot's great collection of them he was offering recently.

PENN CENTRAL VIDEO LINK - http://steves3roscale.shutterfly.com/pictures/7325

I grew up next to the New York Central and saw the first months of the Penn Central. Locomotives in an uninspired basic black scheme. Passenger trains through Rochester sometimes with just a single coach and still lots of empty seats.

It's a bit difficult to understand nostalgia for a railroad that was as seriously dysfunctional as the Penn Central. Merged in 1968, bankrupt in 1970, became Conrail in 1976. With the advent of Amtrak in 1971, Penn Central passenger service was especially short-lived.

I have a few NYC boxcars in HO, but I will never aspire to have any Penn Central items. I prefer to remember the predecessor railroads. The ICC was largely at fault for the bureaucratic gridlock of regulation that led to the northeast rail crisis.  

It's a bit difficult to understand nostalgia for a railroad that was as seriously dysfunctional as the Penn Central.

I forget which thread it was since it was a while ago, but there was a similar question posed and a lot of Penn Central fans came forward with their reasons. The common theme was none of us cared about the disastrous business aspect of the railroad.

For me, it all began with the train that got me into electric railroading. I think I was three years old, and every time we visited at my uncle's house I would go to look at the Lionel MPC Penn Central GG1 on his bookshelf. He let me hold it a few times and the sheer weight of it made a lasting impression.

Then there was my grandfather. He worked for the entire lineage of Pennsylvania through Conrail and Amtrak as a track man. This is where my uncle got the train bug from, and I in turn got it from him. When I really got into trains my grandfather gave me all the railroadania he had saved, and most of it was from the Penn Central. There's the picture of him next to Penn Central Alco S-2 #9850, hence my screen name.

So, as you see, for me it's a combination of nostalgia and familial ties to the railroad. I actually hadn't known the Penn Central was a big mess until I was old enough to comprehend business, and that was many years after the events I described above occurred.

Penn Central, a name I'd prefer to forget! Was bankrupt, poorly maintained and filthy for most of it's existence, and we wouldn't have Grand Central Terminal today, if the PC had gotten it's way.

I think what gets lost in the "I hate Penn Central" discussions is that the predecessor roads were not much better in nearly the decade leading to the merger.  The PRR and the NYC were in dire situations and would not have survived on their own anyway.  By the mid 60's drab paint schemes, deferred maintenance, and worn out equipment was the norm.  The third major railroad, the New Haven was in and out of bankruptcy throughout a good part of its history and never enjoyed much financial solvency in the best of times. 

What makes this road interesting from a modeling standpoint are the very things that brought the railroad to its final end.  Look at the variety of eclectic equipment old and some new.  Locomotives and cars that should have been put to rest years prior were still running because they had too.  There was little that didn't have a prototypical reference on this road.  The black paint scheme was certainly somber, but at that period of time noodle art was in.  Look at the CP rail branding of the time, the CN branding, the BN logo, and others.  This was a time of rebranding for the industry in general and in a large part thanks to the failure of Penn Central, we have a very healthy railroad industry today as many of the regulations that helped create the demise of the NE railroad industry were changed or done away with.

Granted at home, my current layout in the works is strictly 1953-1957 NY&LB.  I never grew up with these trains.  I did grow up at the end of PC and through Conrail though and have a soft spot for them.  They are the reason I could see an E8 in every day service as well as GG1s in my teens before they were retired.  That is why I still collect PC, Conrail and Amtrak equipment even though it wont' be running on my home layout. 

The Penn Central is an important part of railroad history, it may not have been a good story for the most part, but never the less, it is an important story.

I was just old enough to start riding the NY & LB alone in the early 1970's, and my own memories of the PC were not that good. The NY & LB was a joint operation of the then Penn Central and Jersey Central. Unlike the jointly owned PRSL, the NY & LB did not own it's own equipment. Schedules were coordinated by the (2) operating railroads, and each railroad dished out it's own brand of service.

One example stands out, by the late 60's the State of NJ started to purchase 2nd hand passenger equipment for use by the PC and CNJ on the NY & LB trains. While the CNJ re-equipped all it's NY & LB trains with this "new to them" equipment, the PC only used these coaches on their rush hour NY & LB trains, they still used their ancient P-70 type coaches on the off-peak and weekend trains, and we would avoid them at all costs.

Off peak service on the NY & LB back then was a fraction what runs today as the NJT North Jersey Coast Line, so it wasn't always possible to avoid the dirty, run down PC trains.  They were dirty, and run down, but they ran, none the less.

Ken

Nick, Great story, terrific website.  Well done!

PS:  one of my first locos, given to me as a kid in the late 1970s, was that very same black PC GG1.  Loved the heft.  Now it still runs but my kid wants it in his room -- so it's in a case there when we're not running it.

What is the history of the single color PC logo and the 2 color PC logo? Can you tell the year of that paint job from them?

Peter

Thank you!

Peter

Guys, here's your chance to check off the ultra-rare Lionel JLC Penn Central GG1 from the list 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lionel-18356-Penn-Central-Scale-GG1-GG-1-TMCC-RARE-MINT-Sealed-in-Shipping-Box-/290868369470?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item43b91b183e

The PC livery great.  PC as a railroad...........DOA!

Here's the new 3rd Rail Penn Central FL-9: