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20200925_153125The new American Flyer 759 Legacy Berkshire is painted to match the 1969 Golden Spike Centennial Limited train that had passenger cars painted blue to match the engine.  You can do a search to see a 31 page view of the train done by Mike Condren.  It was a great one time train to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the driving of the golden spike in Utah for the Transcontinental Railroad.

I don't know how many of these Lionel made, but I am hoping it is a lot.  I have one and would like to have matching passenger cars to make up the train.  Are there others of you who bought the engine that would like to have the cars also?

Ideas about how this could be done from existing products or getting someone to make them?    

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Last edited by Roundhouse Bill
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Rusty: I worked with Ron at American Models for the Frisco Meteor cars and it worked out pretty well accept he didn't use the right blue color and I gave him Lionel's paint number.  Lionel said that they wouldn't make cars for the Meteor because their weren't enough engines sold for them do do a production run and break even.

If you look at the cars actually used for the Centennial Limited they were closer to the 650 New Haven Gilbert cars.  I wonder if Lionel has tooling for those that could be reworked.  Probably not.

It all depends on market interest and that is why I posted here.

Rusty: I worked with Ron at American Models for the Frisco Meteor cars and it worked out pretty well accept he didn't use the right blue color and I gave him Lionel's paint number.  Lionel said that they wouldn't make cars for the Meteor because their weren't enough engines sold for them do do a production run and break even.

Might be in the same boat with the Flyer AR Berkshire.  Lionel's probably not going to say how many were built.   I don't think Lionel's even made matching cars for their O scale version yet.  Even AHM in the old days only offered two cars to go with their 759.

If you look at the cars actually used for the Centennial Limited they were closer to the 650 New Haven Gilbert cars.  I wonder if Lionel has tooling for those that could be reworked.  Probably not.

The train was a mixed bag of equipment, a list is available HERE.  One thing for sure is nobody's made the unique ex-CP open air car or Pennsy flat end observation in S.

Rusty

It all depends on market interest and that is why I posted here.

 

Good question Bill.  I have been thinking about the same thing. And thanks for the link to the photos Rusty. I think those photos have killed my idea of buying some undecorated AM heavyweights and painting them. But maybe not. I'd just have to get over running some completely non-prototypical cars on my layout. Something I'll have to think about.

I'll admit I have never been hot-to-trot over the Golden Spike Centennial train, even back in the day.  Maybe it was because of the powder blue paint and uninspiring graphics. (IMHO)

However, for those that do like it, I would say the best bet would be for Lionel to decorate the heavyweights for GSC, being that there's no real other option. 

With the addition of the AM heavyweight RPO and baggage car, the closest would be if AM reran their 85's smooth side cars, which haven't been made since the 1990's.  I'm not sure if the tooling still exists or is even viable after all this time.  Then there's the issue of getting them around R20 curves.  And as Bill noted, AM didn't do a good job matching the Meteor's paint.

Rusty

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