Not intended to be harsh. I’m merely suggesting that you do the research before offering your thoughts as an answer to another person’s question, as you alluded to in your initial post. Why give anyone the wrong information before learning yourself?
Second, question yourself. In your initial assumptions, you created a reality that was clearly of your own making. Why not seek answers first instead?
For instance, I don’t know how the modern electronics which control our locomotives, and make them marvelous replicas, are made. So I won’t create an idea in my head about how they might be made. Rather, I’d study how they are made, when I decide to. That way, I don’t have to unlearn my assumptions.
In this case, I suggest you study real-life passenger equipment. I can tell that with your questions are the correct length of the cars that you still think all heavyweights were one length, all streamliners were another length, and so forth. That’s not how it works. Lengths of railroad equipment varies by railroad, by time and by underlying business factors. And don’t use O gauge models as true 1:48 representations of the prototype. O gauge cars, even those labeled as scale cars, are often shorter than the prototype they purport to represent.
As for asking people on the forum what is correct, I have seen answers on various topics that in many cases were flat out wrong. So you are forced to do research in the end anyway to get the correct information. So I suggest asking people were you can get reliable, accurate information from online or traditional print sources instead.
