Bob Delbridge posted:Thought I'd dredge this up again.
Anyone got the Lionel 21" ACL passenger cars? How are they? Are they still available?
has anyone contacted GGD about making an ACL set? Better yet, has GGD made any similar cars that ACL owned/used?
Bob,
I took a look at the Lionel 21" cars and decided not to buy them for a couple of reasons:
1. I have some K-Line NYC Empire State Express 21" Budd cars and a K-Line California Zephyr 21" Budd sleeper relettered for ACL and in my opinion they look nicer than the painted plastic Lionel cars. As you know, the K-Line cars are aluminum.
2. The Lionel cars are generic, and thus are at best a representative approximation of the ACL cars, just like my relettered K-Line cars.
3. The Lionel cars use the short purple letterboards, which I believe date from the mid-1950's, as opposed to the full-length purple painted letterboards used prior to that, which I have on my relettered K-Line cars. I think the full-length purple painted boards look much nicer, particularly the wrap-around on the boat tail of the observation.
For about the same cost as the Lionel cars, you could get some K-Line aluminum cars and end up with a much nicer looking set, in my opinion. The Lionel painted plastic on the ACL cars just looks cheap to me.
