21 inch, 15 inch etc ?

Jim,

For freight cars, the length listed on the manufacturer’s website is between the pulling faces of the couplers. I am not very familiar with passenger car specifications but I would assume that the same for them. 21” might refer to typical North American passenger cars that measure 85 ft between the coupler pulling faces, which scales down to 21 ¼” which is referred to as 21” cars. If the cars were not issued by Golden Gate Depot or by Atlas-O, then the 15” or 18” were inaccurately scaled down in length.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

I've always thought of them as 84' cars, most if not all my books refer to them that way.

Bob,

I have only been in the US for the last 15 years & all the passenger cars I am familiar with are 85 ft long. They include most of the Amtrak passenger cars like the Viewliner, Superliner, California Car & Surfliner. Nippon Sharyo who makes commuter passenger cars for Metra, Northern Indiana, VRE in Virginia & Caltrain are also 85’ in length according to their website. Bombardier who used to make commuter trains for Metrolink, GO Transit currently lists 85’ as the length for the commuter cars they recently delivered to NJ Transit & the commuter service in Montreal, on their website. I also read about the Budd Hi-Level for Santa Fe before I got my Golden Gate Depot set & they were also supposed to be 85’ in length.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Good morning .....where the heavy weight cars also 80' normally?

The real ones were of various lengths, especially head end cars.  The SP had a Harriman RPO that was no longer than a box car.  The Daylight initially had 77' cars; later production went to 79'.

You can find photos of Budd baggage cars in the 60 foot range.  Most Pullman heavyweights were around 80'.

Three rail trains were never designed to be accurate until just recently; most 15 and 18" cars were indeed shortened versions for operating convenience.  But you can find prototypes for the shorter models, at least in length.

clem k posted:

Good morning .....where the heavy weight cars also 80' normally?

Not always...

Rusty

So far there have been a lot of comments that seem to point to the 3 rail cars as being generic.   IE no prototype.    Does anyone know or care?

prrjim posted:

So far there have been a lot of comments that seem to point to the 3 rail cars as being generic.   IE no prototype.    Does anyone know or care?

Not sure what you mean, but lets not confuse "3-Rail cars" with those "3_Rail SCALE cars" from the likes of Golden Gate Depot or Atlas. There are very definitely prototype cars for those passenger trains such as the NYC, AT&SF, CB&Q-D&RDW-WP, and Southern Pacific.

prrjim posted:

So far there have been a lot of comments that seem to point to the 3 rail cars as being generic.   IE no prototype.    Does anyone know or care?

The Atlas O CZ cars in 3-rail are definitely not generic.  

60' American Standard messenger baggage car built by T. Nelms.      John

naveenrajan posted:

Bob,

I have only been in the US for the last 15 years & all the passenger cars I am familiar with are 85 ft long.

Naveen, you're right!  I should know better than to go by memory these days!

From the books I just looked at, 4 of the SAL Silver Meteor cars were called out on the actual drawings as 85'-0" cars.  Also, they called cars out by configuration (10-6 Sleeper, 52-seat coach, 4-cmpt, 4-d.br, 2-drwg. rm, sleeper, etc).

We have to keep in mind that not all cars were 85' long, baggage, combine, diners, can be found in shorter lengths.  You almost have to be consist specific when talking about a passenger train, especially when cars were added/dropped along the way from point A to point B.

So far there have been a lot of comments that seem to point to the 3 rail cars as being generic. IE no prototype. Does anyone know or care?

Some care a great deal.  Not me - I cannot remember a window arrangement down the block.  I like them all, and have enough Walthers and K-Line to sink a ship.

I always get in serious trouble when I suggest that the 3-rail scale folks care far more about window arrangements than do we 2-railers.  It is the 3-rail scale folks who got flush windows - I own exactly one flush-window passenger car.

In addition to that shorty Burlington combine above,  the Sierra railroad and one Kentucky short line (and I will bet quite a few others, and this is in standard gauge, not counting narrow gauge 2 and 3 foot) had 40' or shorter "heavyweights".  Oh, yes, and another Ky. shortline, the Mammoth Cave Railroad, had a shorty coach that had baggage doors added.   It is on display at park headquarters today, along with its steam dummy power, "Hercules".   I have always thought Class 1's ran 70 foot heavyweights on the mainlines, with some 60' headend cars, but anything went on the branch lines.  Some shorty coaches were built or modified as trailers for gas electrics.