K-Line Golden State passenger cars

Reverend,

I have these cars.  I think that they are 18'' in length,very nice for their time.  They were offered with a Rock Island A-A  E8.    There was also a shorter version offered with a steam engine.  Good luck finding these cars,they do not show up often and sell for a premium. I think that a Western Pacific or a D&RG first generation passenger diesel would also work with these cars.

Norm

Dear Rev,

I have these too. K-Line made a Rock Island A-A set at about the same time, which is actually easier to find than the vista dome you mention. The engines are tethered together, have TMCC/Railsounds and motorized roof fans but no smoke. The nicest thing about the engines is the finish, which I rate as good or better than the latest Legacy version of the E8. Nonetheless if I was putting together this set now I'd probably opt for the Legacy version for the sound, better lighting and smoke. Also the K-Line version I got had a few issues - diaphragms between the engines had perished from being in a box for years and the power to the roof fans on one unit had to be rewired.

Regarding the Golden Outlook vista dome, that car comes up on one or another auction site every so often but at a premium. Grysboski's Trains had a couple on fleabay last year; I got one and the other stayed on offer for a long time - I don't know if it ever sold.

The Golden State was a long distance train operated initially by:

-Pennsylvania RR

-Rock Island

-Southern Pacific

Early in the game, Pennsy dropped out, so RI and SP soldiered on without them.

GW,

I have all 10 cars (more on that later) and they are great.  If you are modeling the late 1940s (1948/1949), Lionel released a TMCC w/Odyssey Rock Island E6 AA set (6-14521) in 2001 with cab #s that actual pulled the GS those years, #628 and #630.  They would look great with your scale cars  My E6s are in storage, so this is the best pic I have:

As Norm, mentioned, the separate sale dome is hard to find by itself.  You do see it occasionally in sets that are for sale.  There is a 10th car, a factory error dome.  The 9-car set has two domes.  The factory error dome has the name of one car, and the number of the other car.  So there are three domes available if you count it.  Problem is, the real GS had no domes

I stand corrected about motive power for this set.  Sorry.

Norm

I have the entire Golden State set, minus the vista dome cars, and I run them behind two K-line Southern Pacific E-8s.  I don't know incorrect this is to do if you are trying to be prototypical, but I have seen pictures of SP E-7s pulling mixed car passenger trains containing some golden state cars.  There were not any K-line Rock Island E-8s to be had when I found this great deal on the Southern Pacific ones.  I would like to eventually get two K-line shells painted red and silver like the prototypical ones or a Gs-4 painted with the Golden State scheme to pull them.  Below are some pictures to see how these cars look behind Southern Pacific.

I have the 9 car set.  Dotty found me the Golden Outlook last October at York.  This was on the top of our hit list and she scored it 10 minutes into the show.  I have two complete sets.  Locomotives are the SP E-8 and RI E-8 both by MTH.  A great set for K-Line guys like myself.  We will never see the K-Line cars built again so grab them while you can.  I buy every set I can get my hands on.  I got lucky this past York and found the 10 car CZ set.  Happy Days.

I saw these things in 1949 and 1950.  I never saw a dome, and doubt they existed.  Half the cars were Golden State, the other half Golden Rocket.  All had the same distinctive paint scheme.  Mostly they were pulled by GS class 4-8-4s where I was (Fairbank, Ariz).  I believe I saw them behind E–7s and PAs, but at the time I wasn't taking notes.  They had one set of E-7s in a matching paint scheme - not sure I saw that one.

Of interest - there were passenger trains practically every hour in my back yard, and many times a pair of Daylight 4-8-4s would be pulling green heavyweights, mostly Pullman.