Your Preference, Heavyweights or Lightweights

Mike, to answer your question, let's say streamlined passenger coaches verses all others. For me, the streamline era started with the Super Chief, although there may have been earlier streamline passenger trains before this.

So far, it is reasonable close call between the two selections. I think that this is good for the hobby as there is an apparent interest in both styles of passenger coaches that should be of interest to the manufacturers in terms of future product offerings.

For guests, heavyweights bring the romance of the rails, streamliners the dream of speed and future trains. As not all heavyweights wore Pullman Green or Olive Drab, many of the trains are striking in appearance. Likewise the streamliners added more colors with matching diesels. Streamliners look way cool, alas the models lack of "working" full width diaphrams leave them coupled visually far apart. Some may not like the Lionel, and K-Line, heavyweights because they are a bit shorter than scale, they make a magnificent train and the diaphrams touch each other too!

 Heavyweights, they have character.

They are sort of like Ore cars; they are mesmerizing as they weave in and out of the track work.

Brian - I am like you in that I like all passenger cars, but seem to prefer the more modern, streamlined, lightweights.  I'm sure it's also because of the famous Santa Fe name trains.  The warbonnets were so beautiful and the Santa Fe was such a classy operator.  What boy didn't want a warbonnet F-3? 

Let's not forget the other trains from the golden era of passenger trains before Amtrak.  The California Zephyr has to be at the top of the list.  The UP's City Trains were also very nice.  The beautiful Milwaukee Road trains had some of the prettiest cars ever made and were made in their own shops.  Another personal favorite of mine is the Illinois Central City of New Orleans.  The song is a big part of it's charm, but I think it had a great paint scheme too.  I don't want to neglect the famous east coast trains, but they weren't as glamorous to me personally.

Great thread!

Art 

I love the Lionel, MTH Aluminum Passenger Cars.  But there is

something powerful about the Heavyweights on the main line

being pulled by a large steam engine.

Many thanks,

Billy C

I also don't really understand the difference between heavy and light cars.  Streamlined I do get, I think.  I'm more of a freight guy, but I do have some passenger cars.  But my pick is generally I get the cars that go with the locomotive.  I love the NYC Dreyfuss Hudson, so I got the matching cars after I got the locomotive.  I like the Daylight, so after I get one, I'll get matching cars.  I'll also be getting a set of cars for one of my PRR locomotives, which will be whatever is available at the time when I have the budget for it.  I guess that puts me in the 50/50 camp.

Sinclair:

You make a very good point in terms of matching passenger cars to engines you like. That can dictate what style passenger cars you select to go with your engines.

Art:

You and I are on the same page. How can anyone not like the Super Chief, the CZ, the Hiawatha, the Texas Special, the 20th Century Limited, the Congressional, and the list goes on. That is why on our layout, most of our passenger trains are Lightweights.

I can't help but love them all. From my olive drab George Washington heavyweights to the famous orange and maroon Hiawatha, to the pastel Blue of my Blue Goose streamliner. I even have two sets of 19th century woodies in the livery. The passenger trains are my favorite and seem to capture my imagination especially when listening to the station sounds diners or the PFA on the MTH. I tend to rotate the similar eras on and off my layout. I also have the Orient express which sounds great (that European whistle reminds me of the many movies I have heard that distant whistle) and looks pretty stunning as it rolls by. I am not a "train expert" so I am not sure if the Orient Express cars are heavyweights or the equivalent of streamliners. And of course the Texas Special is "special". I wish I had the stationsounds diner for my blue comet but I think that will elude me for some time . Fast or slow I love watching them do their routes around the house.

Depends what train I'm putting together. Don

I like both heavyweight and lightweight cars.  Sometimes I assemble an all-lightweight or all-heavyweight train, but usually it is a mixture.  The trains which formed my idea of what a passenger train should look like come from what I saw in the 1950's, when I was a boy.

I grew up near the Third District of Santa Fe's Los Angeles Division.  The regular passenger trains through Fullerton were:

• The Grand Canyon, a mostly lightweight train with some heavyweight head-end cars and one heavyweight chair car.  Sometimes the diner was also heavyweight.  The rest of the train was stainless steel except for one smooth side, two-tone grey, Pullman.  Westbound, there was a Missouri Pacific or Texas & Pacific heavyweight baggage car in mail storage service.  The engine was always a 4-unit EMD (with a 4-8-4 double-heading sometimes), or a 3-unit Alco, or Number 90 - the F-M 3-unit Erie-Built - which was regular eastbound power between LA and Barstow on this train for a period.
• San Diegans, which were all stainless steel lightweight consists.  When I first began watching trains these were pulled by back to back EA's, and later by 4-unit EMD rednoses or 3-unit Alcos, and then by 3-unit EMD's.
• Budd RDC-1's on some San Diegans.
• No.7, the Fast Mail, which was a real mixture of equipment from the Pennsy, NYC, New Haven and other eastern roads, as well as Santa Fe.  This train had horse express cars, express boxcars, express reefers, and converted troop sleepers, in addition to baggage cars and a combine or chair car on the rear end, but not every kind every day.  A few lightweight Santa Fe baggage cars were also used.  The engine was always a 4-unit EMD or 3-unit Alco.
• The San Diego-Los Angeles local with a 2-unit rednose FT and mostly heavyweight cars; and the San Bernardino-Los Angeles locals with 4 heavyweights pulled by a zebra GP7.

Sometimes my father would take me over to Pomona on business.  The tool and die maker he did business with was right across the street from the UPRR and SP main lines, east of their respective depots, and I was allowed to stay on the sidewalk and watch trains while he did business inside. He always timed it so the UPRR Challenger and the SP Sunset would pass eastward, both accelerating from their passenger stop and having all-lightweight consists pulled by A-B-B EMD E7's (SP) or E8's (UP).

Upstairs here in Amarillo, my High Plains Division of the P&SF is a secondary main line set in 1953, and any solid lightweight consist I run is a detour off of the southern Transcon.  Mostly we run a mixture of passenger cars, as was typical on the real P&SF in west Texas.

I like 'em all. 

Heavyweights with classy steam power.

Budd, Pullman Standard, ACF streamliners with colorful diesels.

...and the 'Betterment' cars (Heavyweights rebuilt outside and inside into a more modern 'streamliney' appearance.)with either/both.

Unfortunately, the so-called 'Betterment' cars have been more available in that other scale...HO...I once favored.  Ergo, there's not much to choose from in O among this category.  One of the most glaring omissions in this category (IMHO, of course) is B&O's Cincinnatian.  Weaver did a gorgeous model of this engine.  The original five-car train, built within B&O's own shops, was a class act that ran two main routes in its troubled lifetime.  Although WBB and MTH have made extruded aluminum cars under the Cincinnatian banner, they're nowhere close to the real thing.  Key made two runs of this beautiful train in HO brass, one in N scale.  You'd think that someone would've made a more affordable version of the train/cars by now in ANY scale (e.g., Fox Valley's Hiawatha in HO and N), but especially O!  But, no.  It's true that the cars were homegrown and unique to 'the Beano', and would be less acceptable in the usual plethora of roadnames the marketers love to run.  (Fodder for rivet-counters, though)

Ah, well, so it goes...

KD