Suzanne - These cars are perhaps the most highly detailed (and heaviest) ready to run O scale passenger cars ever produced of a US passenger car. There wasn't a way to configure them for 3 rail operation without a totally different underframe design due to the extreme height of the flanges on 3 rail wheels. The flanges wouldn't clear the cars' underbody details or allow the trucks to swivel enough to go around 3 rail 72" diameter curves. I'd venture a guess that Lionel's target market for the Smithsonian branded cars and locomotives were high end train collectors - vice model train operators.
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