When I rode the Empire State Express & the Pacemaker in the early 40's from Syracuse to GCT, I thought that both these trains were all coach cars. Correct me if I am wrong.
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The "new" lightweight streamlined ESE that was inaugurated on December 7, 1941 was an all coach train. However, the "original" ESE of the early 1900s did carry Pullman Sleeping Cars.
I don't know about the Pacemaker. You might want to Google it.
The Pacemaker was an economy coach train.
The streamlined ESE was all Budd-built stainless steel. For much of its life it carried reserved seat coaches and parlor cars. The coaches were distinguished by hand painted murals on the interior bulkheads, with each scene representative of an aspect of New York State. The original streamlined Pacemaker operated between NY and Chicago and was all coach. In its later life as trains were discontinued and downgraded, the name was applied to a workaday multistop service. I believe it carried at least one sleeper along with coaches and lots of head end cars.
X2000
The reason that I put this post on was because the MTH ESE has sleepers. I know for sure that the Pacemaker was all coach, and it wasn't silver. I believe it was gray.
what? Lionel and MTH not true to prototype?
i'm shocked! 
Actually, I believe that the Pacemaker was a stainless steel trainset when first delivered as part of "The Great Steel Fleet". It wasn't a true "set" like the ESE but used cars from the general pool of several hundred delivered to the New York Central from Pullman and Budd. The round end obs was probably an "assigned" car and stayed with the train. However, even these could be exchanged by simply changing the tailsign or using one with a generic "New York Central" sign. The Central had lots of grey sleepers and made matched sets for the Century and the Commodore Vanderbilt. There were relatively fewer grey streamlined coaches.
X2000
Originally Posted by overlandflyer:
what? Lionel and MTH not true to prototype?
i'm shocked!
Next thing you know, they'll be claiming NYC didn't really run vistadome cars....
http://train-station.com/auction/images/6-35100.JPG
BTW by the mid-1950's most NYC passenger trains apparently were a jumble of heavyweight (both green and two-tone gray), smooth-side streamlined, and stainless steel cars. It was pretty rare to see a matching set of cars on a train, except maybe some short-run/commuter trains??
Originally Posted by eddie g:
The reason that I put this post on was because the MTH ESE has sleepers.
Not to mention the MTH cars are ACF, not Budd.
Pete
