Lets See Your Passenger Cars

Mid 1920's American Flyer Baggage, Coaches and Observation. Still in service at almost 100 years old.

Here's my scale Dreyfus Hudson, as much as I can get into a frame, that is...Dependable and good looking, it's my favorite.

FrankM

The "No Name Zephyr."

Rusty

Moonson posted:

Here's my scale Dreyfus Hudson, as much as I can get into a frame, that is...Dependable and good looking, it's my favorite.

FrankM

I love the retaining wall you have in this shot!  I am new to the hobby and was looking to do almost the same thing.  Can I ask about your technique please?  Thanks!

"The Dinner Train":

SF Messenger Baggage Car from an American Standard kit

GGD's Santa Fe baggage car

GGD's Texas & Pacific baggage car

Jerry Williams' first heavyweight baggage car with GGD's T&P heavyweight baggage car

K-Line's baggage car repainted with messenger window.

K-Line's Santa Fe baggage car with messenger window and southwest weathering

K-Line repainted to Santa Fe with not as much running as the car above.

K-Line's FAIRLANE repainted and decaled.

Weaver's 60' baggage car with end of train lights

Two GGD cars.

GGD's 8-1-2

GGD's REA express reefer

GGD's dining car

GGD's 12-1

GGD's REA express reefer leased from the Santa Fe

K-Line's 1821 as it came from the factory

K-Line''s dining car with lace curtains and shades added.

K-Line's heavyweight baggage car repainted for New Haven running.

K-Line repainted to the Jonathan on the Santa Fe

K-Line's dining car with overhead lighting and interior.

K-Line's Pullman NEW ORLEANS with overhead lighting and interior.

K-Line's Pullman NIGHT ROUTE with overhead lighting and interior

MTH Santa Fe 1728

MTH 1812

Williams heavyweight baggage car repainted for New Haven service.

John in Lansing, ILL 

One of my favorite sets.

I had these done for the wife. She wanted passenger cars to go with her L&N engine. It was the freight paint scheme. So I had a set of passenger cars painted the same as the engine...........Pics...............Paul 2

SP 3 car articulated diner kit bashed in 2004 (before the Golden Gate Depot version).

Milwaukee aluminum passenger cars by Phoenix

tom bennett 011117 posted:

Moonson posted:

Here's my scale Dreyfus Hudson, as much as I can get into a frame, that is...Dependable and good looking, it's my favorite.

FrankM

I love the retaining wall you have in this shot!  I am new to the hobby and was looking to do almost the same thing.  Can I ask about your technique please?  Thanks!

Sure, Tom. Jim Elster's Scenic Express sold them, decades ago. He had them somewhat stained, initially, and I added more grime and shading; then, the foliage variety. They are interlocking vertical panels.

FrankM

Some Atlas aluminium cars that I purchased at York. Beautiful quality and operation. I added some internal details based on our trips taken on the Canadian in 2010-2016. The Diner meals are miniature plates with actual meals printed to scale.

The three sets of passenger cars I’ve got currently. 3 Marx 6” cars, 5 Ives 70 series, and 3 modern era 027 Lionel streamliners

Here are some MTH Amtrak Phase IV heritage and amfleet passenger cars.

Joe K posted:

Some Atlas aluminium cars that I purchased at York. Beautiful quality and operation. I added some internal details based on our trips taken on the Canadian in 2010-2016. The Diner meals are miniature plates with actual meals printed to scale.

                                             Joe, outstanding interior detail on your cars!

Good lookin trains here guys! 

Baggage 3463, built 1950 by ACF (GGD)

Isleta, Pullman sleeper, built 1937 by Budd  (GGD)

Blue Moon, sleeping car, built 1947 by Pullman-Standard (Lionel; not prototype)

Set out bad order - failed side frame

MP Express Boxcar (Pecos River) in Train No. 93

Here is my MTH S-2 (Loco-sound. Soon to have ps3 upgrade) with my MTH 60ft streamlines.

A  pre-1950 C&O consist. No specific train as it I need to build a baggage car and diner, however, I just upgraded the 3rd Rail Greenbrier with a Cruise Commander and ERR sound. Nice improvement over the old TAS EOB.

Ken

a few from my favorites pile

back on the old club layout at Union Station we could run 14 car scale passenger trains on 72” radius track. Miss that place. Here I tried to put together a Orange Blossom Special 🍊 

my Key 1941 A/B/B 3 unit set COLA power with a mixed bag... sort of cool but the scenery it’s running through dated from the 1940’s! Cool! 

my favorite is the Royal Gorge and Prospector ... 

over the Horan (John Horan) founding members trestle built in the 1945

roger Lewis’s spectacular Wasatch Model Co. Union Pacific passenger cars. Amazing! 

love my Daylight!

ugliest man award goes too... 

atlas CZ... great cars.

zoom!

love my 1940 Coast Daylight 

one of 5 built Key 2012 run GS2.. incredible 

love full width diaphragms... so cool 

Prototype is the one with the crew in it. Wasatch Model Co. ball bearing trucks from OCS Microcast  nice! 

finally got to my interiors redoing and simulated upholstery window shades  

I love these cars  a dream to own them since they came into the store.. I could never afford them so when I was offered a chance to do a payment plan and work off the cost with a fellow who traded for a set .. I jumped. I’ve since invested almost as much into upgrades, full interior furnishings with correct colors of shades, flooring, walls, and full dining car silver. Trucks were a huge improvement.. these brass models are heavy and the factory trucks were lead sleds.. 14 of them are feather light to the drawbar now . My GS2 whips em with ease. Thanks Roger Lewis and Mr Oh...! 

that’s the model not real 1:1

Okay...I will go ahead and make my paltry submission behind Rattler21, Erik, Tom, et.al.

I have traded off about 1/2 the cars and locomotives in this 2016 video.

The AT$SF

Here is my 21" Pennsy passenger train.  It will be pulled by my Lionel E7 ABA or by my double headed Lionel K4s.  On occasion I can see using my Lionel Centipedes or T-1.

“Go Blue”! Oh...add a little B&O and Wabash too...🚂

CAPPilot posted:

Here is my 21" Pennsy passenger train.  It will be pulled by my Lionel E7 ABA or by my double headed Lionel K4s.  On occasion I can see using my Lionel Centipedes or T-1.

Ron those 21/22-inch cars are beauties.  But, in my opinion the need O-106 min and preferably  O-120 which leaves most of us out.

My 18/19-inch again in my opinion need O-89 min and preferably O-96.

But again your 21-inch car do look great.

Ron

Due to circumstances I have had to pack most stuff up.  But did take some pics before hand.

"The Chessie"

The cars were designed and BUILT for the C&O M-1.  And contrary to some opinion three sets were actually built.  And for a couples of weeks two M-1's and cars toured the C&O System.

The B&O" Columbian"

With a heavyweight RPO car head end car.  Use MTH E6's A-B (powered) set to pull.

A B&O Heavyweight set.

Southern "Crescent Limited"

more modern times Amtrack

When the mood strikes lay down some track and.

And sometimes add some Pennsy cars to the consist.

Ron

My first Lionel 21 inch set

Another one from The S Files:  The American Models S Scale Texas Special.

Rusty

I just have 3 cars. Lionel Lines, I'm more of a freight guy

CAPPilot posted:

Here is my 21" Pennsy passenger train.  It will be pulled by my Lionel E7 ABA or by my double headed Lionel K4s.  On occasion I can see using my Lionel Centipedes or T-1.

                           Double headed K4s would be a sight with these gorgeous cars!

The Northern Pacific Yellowstone River executive car.

Here are some of my favorite Southeast region passenger cars. Just took shots of the observation cars.

PRRronbh posted:

Ron those 21/22-inch cars are beauties.  But, in my opinion the need O-106 min and preferably  O-120 which leaves most of us out.

My 18/19-inch again in my opinion need O-89 min and preferably O-96.

Ron,

I agree that these cars might not look great on my proposed O-96 curves, but I can live with that

I have another complete set with maybe a couple more cars but with 18" cars by Lionel and K-Line (no MTH-too short).  I use Weaver RPOs with it.  Here are some of those:

Great thread.

Here are some photos of my Atlas New Jersey Transit Comet II Coach

Some commuters practicing "Social Distancing"

Just took these out of the box after quite a few years, a move...working on a new layout.  One thing discovered after storage, the "gangway" or "corrider" curtains were squashed and coming apart.  The rubber items aren't really salvageable, so I need to locate a source for replacement curtains.  

The passenger cars are the best of the K-Line error..."Heavyweights."  If anyone knows where I can purchase replacement gangway curtains, please leave a comment here...thanks...

Thanks for the tip, John...

There’s some amazing quality stuff shown here and I can’t match that, but here’s a couple of my examples.

First, these are the latest things I have tracked down. A long while back, someone here put me on to the fact that there was a 2 car add-on pack, Lionel 6-29152, to the fine set of anodized aluminum Santa Fe cars issued in about 2003. That set was my first serious buy in passenger car collecting and although they are not scale, the finish on them is brilliant in every respect. Earlier this year I went on a hunt for what I regarded as the mythical add-on and it finally turned up. It’s two sleepers with full interiors. The cars required some cleaning up and a repair to one end cap but otherwise are fully functional, including the original lighting:

As time has moved on so have I to scale 21” cars, preferably aluminum. Only GGD makes them now but I have the Lionel Texas Special set from about 2007, which I believe is based on K-Line tooling. I have heavily modified two of the seven cars so far, in particular this diner which now has prototypical roof vents and a full interior, both dining compartment and kitchen. There’s some operating features too, including smoke from the four exhaust vents on the roof:

Oldcarsrule posted:

I can see a couple of beaver tail cars there but what are the rest? 

Amtrak Rainbow Era

I posted these on a different thread recently but as I have few MTH cars I thought I'd add them here. This is one car from a DAP set issued with MTH's PS2 DDA40X when it was introduced. MTH cars are all sub-scale and fairly generic ACF designs but some, like this one, are a little unusual - and of course MTH provides full interiors and passengers. 

This is the sleeper Green River with clerestory windows above the main ones. I understand that the extra "portholes" were meant to give upper berth passengers a view:

Copper Cannonball. 1930's AF coaches, one converted to a beavertail observation. Custom smoking Marx loco and tender.

A variety of passenger railroads. 

Here are mine - taking a rest on their shelves in the Great Room:

Bill T posted:

Amtrak Rainbow 

Bill,   Nice collection of cars.  The train could be an annual AAPRCO trip.  Thank you for sharing. John in Lansing, ILL

Hancock52 posted:

This is the sleeper Green River with clerestory windows above the main ones. I understand that the extra "portholes" were meant to give upper berth passengers a view:

Imagine anyone with claustrophobia being up there.

Business cars

Ron

Left: Lionel MPC observation car. Right: MTH Railking, O-27 heavy weights in PRR livery.

MTH Railking, O-27 heavy weights in PRR livery behind  a MTH GG-1.

Lionel, MPC Blue Comet observation car with a custom lighted drumhead.

Annie and Claribel behind Percy. Lionel.

Here are some of mine - I have a bunch more, just no videos/pictures of them.

1957 El Capitan (coming at you) - all Lionel Consist:

The Sarah Express (project I did with my daughter):

C&O Consist (Lionel E-8s pulling MTH Cars) with many more consists at the station:

Chessie Steam Special (Lionel Legacy T-1 with MTH and Williams Cars):

Union Pacific (All Weaver except the Aux Tender which is MTH):

A combine built with ICC components and Lobaugh trucks:

My RMT "shorty" on a friend's layout:

My K-Line observations (and others):

My inventory shows a total of 73 passenger cars.

jvega2 posted:

That is a very nice Santa Fe car; is it one by GGD? Judging by the finish I think it must be.

As a late addition to this thread, here's a few more GGD models. First, the Silver Meteor set:

Second, although these are not great photos of it, the single Santa Fe Great Dome GGD did in brass:

Here is a picture of my MTH pretend American Freedom Train cars being pulled by MTH fantasy Freedom Train power at a National Capital Tracker's show.  It is a great looking train and people liked it, although I had to explain to them the real AFT did not look like this.  It did run good with no problems.

ADDED:  Found some more from that show.  The GG1 is a fantasy scheme mainly because the PRR was long gone by the Bicentennial.

PRRMP54 posted:

 

My K-Line observations (and others):

My inventory shows a total of 73 passenger cars.

Only 73!

Of the umpteen passenger cars I have, here's the consist of passenger cars that has made me the happiest...

He is a cousin-in-law, and my wife and I decided that since he took such a strong interest in our layout, that he deserved an impetus to begin his own.

"Uncle Frank"

                             Sunset Models brass Southern Pacific Harriman 70' baggage car.

Night time line-up back in 2015 of Amtrak Amfleets and New York MTA M7's at the Sunnyside Yards in Queens (aka the indoor/outdoor carpet on my Living Room floor) getting cleaned and serviced overnight before the next day's rush. 

And a couple shots of my LIRR M7 rolling stock

B&O train arrives at Patsburg station.  ( K line, early MTH, and Weaver ) 

The N&W Powhatan Arrow with a K line silver business observation car at the rear. 

Home grown from 25+ years ago, the GM&O "Abraham Lincoln" liveried PW Lionel aluminum cars (based on coaching from Richard Sherry, longtime Chicagoland painter who passed much too early); and, NP North Coast Limited (before LIONEL or MTH produced their versions):

Currently completing two offset vista domes for the NP NCL train (a coach and sleeper, ##559 and 306, respectively) which were made possible by Christine Braden painting the vista domes and decals custom made by LBR Enterprises, a former forum sponsor.

2 Labelle cars:

NYC Big Four consist by MTH.  The brown & tan with gold lettering is a nice departure from the usual Pullman green or two tone gray. 

It’s been fun enjoying the hobby with you fellas. Nice stuff! 

Here is my postwar passenger car/train collection.  With these cars you can run any train that was in the Lionel catalog from 1946 to 1946.

These are the trains shown in the 1948 catalog.

And here are the locomotives for those sets.  Some of them had to be pulled from the shop for the photo-op.

My collection isn't all postwar.  You can see my 10E set in the background.  Also there are a dozen cars from the 20's on my waiting for restoration shelf.

1970's passenger cars.  

Carl, the GM&O and NP trains look great!  

Scott, it's always a better Forum day when you post photos of your custom O scale pax cars/trains.

As for the GM&O and NP, thanks for the compliments.  I like most that the two-tone colors and striping extend end-to-end like their prototypes.  I realize these are not nearly prototypical examples, but they work fine for me.

Precision Scale brass CB&Q Express Baggage Car, ex-troop kitchen car, #8690. I three railed this car with high speed Timken roller bearing sprung trucks.

Carl, the paint carrying over to the sides of the end caps really looks great.  

I forgot I had videos of my PRR Heavyweight Consist pulled by my T1 and a second pulled by my GG1:

great videos Frank

A few of my American Flyer cars.

I have a preference for the older heavyweight cars.  A challenge - Anyone have a car that is older ?  This is a Lionel 36 standard gauge observation with great end platform and window detailing.

From inspection of the parts, reading Greenberg's books and verifying with him, I've determined that it was made in 1918, not long after the prototype cars were built by Pullman.

All PostWar.  All EXC or better.  While I love Lionel's P/W F units and switchers, these are the best...!

My son David modified these MTH ACL passenger cars into SCL passenger for me.  He even cut off the center skirting because the SCL passenger cars did not have them.

Still rooting around boxes of mixed stuff,  found these  MTH "EL CAPITAN"squirred away for years,

( from 1997) well packed up, excellent condition, a great added back into my  collection,  "Santa Fe all the way"

A couple Passenger cars, A hold up!  And some kids playing and fishing.

Some years ago I had a set of disappointing Weaver 20" generic passenger cars that were painted in NYC colors. I reconfigured them to more closely resemble  wartime 20th Century Limited cars based on the 1940 color scheme. Long time readers of the Forum may have seen these cars before.

Here's the RPO I made from the Weaver baggage car -

On top in the photo above is the original Weaver baggage car I started with and on the bottom is the Lionel-Smithsonian car I used as a guide. My reconfigured car appears in the middle. It is now in the correct colors and has correctly styled and placed doors and windows, appropriate roof details, diaphragms, and six wheel trucks per NYC practice. The Weaver bodies are about an inch short of full length, so on all the cars I modified I reduced the window widths and heights by 3 scale inches. They also have fluted roofs and skirts which I did not attempt to correct.

In all I did seven cars over a year's worth of evenings, working strictly with hand tools. I may post pix of a couple of others later. It was fun at the time, but I'll never do it again.

Cheers,

           - Mike

@Mike Casatelli you should start a thread featuring your work on this and the other cars you mentioned.

I love passenger cars.  I have so many I couldn't hope to post them all but here are a few stand outs that I am happy to have in my collection.

GGD El Capitan Lounges in ATSF and Amtrak

N scale lounge I custom painted and decaled myself.

Another N scale custom paint of a Atlas / Rivarossi baggage dorm.

Not a lot of these in existence.  GGD Canadian in VIA Rail.  I will possibly have a bedroom on the real one next spring depending on which 1st class bedroom my wife and I end up with when we ride this train finally.

GGD Slumbercoach.  I have an order in on the phase III version should the second run of these go forward.

My no so great 1st shot at a P70fbr coach using a GGD plastic P70 at a starting point.  The rear car is proof that just because I am serious about my trains, it doesn't mean we can't have fun. The observation is from the 20's.  I am forgetting the manufacturer at the moment.

Finally, my old Penn coach yard with mostly Walther's kit built cars.

Thanks for your interest, @Pingman. I considered that, but I've done it before and now thought it best to contribute to this thread. This place is full of passenger car junkies like @GG1 4877 above.

In any case, here are the matching diners. The TCL generally ran with two diners operated back-to-back, so I fashioned two cars for my train. As with the RPO in the post above, the original Weaver diner appears on top with both reconfigured cars below, showing the different window arrangements on each side. Per the prototype, these cars also ride on six wheel trucks, and diaphragms and appropriate rooftop details, including the radio antennas, have been added.

The actual cars had full width diaphragms, but modeling those was beyond my skill level, so I used somewhat up-detailed Walthers fabric corridor diaphragms instead. If your eyes can compensate for my splendid photography, you can see the result below -

When I did this  job, nothing like it was commercially available in 3 rail in this color scheme or with this level of detail. A couple of years later, Golden Gate Depot produced a beautiful set of full length, beautifully detailed cars.

Cheers,

            - Mike

@Mike Casatelli posted:

When I did this  job, nothing like it was commercially available in 3 rail in this color scheme or with this level of detail. A couple of years later, Golden Gate Depot produced a beautiful set of full length, beautifully detailed cars.

Cheers,

            - Mike

That happen to weigh almost as much at the prototypes they represented!  I am still grateful for the one you sent me to make sure we got the colors and stripes right for Pete's E7 "Beauty Queens".

Too true, @GG1 4877

I always thought the weight problems of those early GGD cars results mainly from the fact that the car ends are heavy solid brass castings. One day, I intend to replace them with plastic parts. One day. . .

I had forgotten about sending that car out to you. It was worth it. I consider my set of Beauty Queens the best of the early 3Rd Rail E7s thanks in large part to John Martin's efforts to make sure that the decoration was accurate. Interestingly, Lionel seems to have gotten the dark gray stripe wrong on their new Beauty Queens. It doesn't zag down at the B end to match the window line of a trailing train.  Perhaps they thought the straight through look on an A-B-A would look better.

Here, by the way, is the Club Car car or my remodeled set. The small window toward the left center of the car serves the barber shop -

Cheers,

           - Mike

@GG1 4877 posted:

That happen to weigh almost as much at the prototypes they represented!  I am still grateful for the one you sent me to make sure we got the colors and stripes right for Pete's E7 "Beauty Queens".

The cars match the 3rd Rail Dreyfuss but not the 3rd Rail Beauty Queen.
This is Lionels current E7 next to the 3rd Rail Tender, then the 3rd Rail Beauty Queen B unit. Still looking for 3rd Rail A units.

Pete

As always, Pete - @Norton - has a point.  The various pieces of 3rd Rail / GGD equipment made for the 1940 - 48 Twentieth Century wear different shades of gray. But that's not for lack of trying. I know how hard Jonathan - @GG1 4877 - and Scott Mann - @sdmann - worked to get them to match across a rather lengthy span of production in an ill-fated effort to satisfy @Pete Kruimer.

In my experience, grays are particularly tough, and the eyeball perception of them varies with ambient light, painting techniques, screen registrations and the like. At this stage of the game, I've given up on chasing "that perfect train."

I have the 1940 Dreyfuss Hudson, the twelve car matching set, and the Beauty Queens, all of which were produced at different times and probably in different places, and while not "perfect," I think they match reasonably well. Below are various examples coupled together for comparison.

Tender to RPO

Tender to E7B

E7B to RPO

Note how the lightning stripe on the B unit drops to match the cars. Almost.

___________________________________________________________________

For anyone who may still be interested in the Weaver cars I reconfigured, here are a couple of pix of the observation car to close with.

Of course, I think my grays are the best! 

Finally, Carl - @Pingman -  also had a point above. I should have made this a separate thread instead of inadvertently hijacking @PAUL ROMANO 's. I'll return it to him now, with my apologies.

- Mike

It is grand to see I'm still dismembered by all my old friends.  And I agree with Mike; if you had any hair your grays would be the best.

Interesting Mike’s B unit has the stripe drop down to match the passenger cars but mine do not. I also see Scott did the correct outside curve in white outline. Mario noted that few if any renditions of the beauty queen white outline have that small curve but are all pointed. Too bad we can’t post pics of the prototype that illustrate the curve.

I should add I asked Scott a few times to include a few E7s painted in the Beauty Queen scheme in the last run, but apparently he felt there wasn't enough interest.

As for the grays, none of the Dreyfusses match each other and only a few match the cars they go with. The GGD cars match the 3rd Rail Dreyfuss and MTH last Dreyfuss run has cars that match but none of MTH’s earlier engines match their earlier cars.

Maybe Lionel’s Smithsonian match its cars but I have not seen the two together.

Petee

My new, got on Friday, Lionel NYC ESE Franklin D Roosevelt Observation Car. Populated it today with Lionel and Little People.

Pete

Here, @Norton, is the Lionel-Smithsonian Dreyfuss Hudson tender coupled up to the RPO in the set. You be the judge -

Personally, I think the 3rd Rail / GGD combo has a better color match. The other interesting thing in this picture is the presence of a mail crane. The model has four installed. The real car may have been delivered with them, but as far as I can tell they were never fitted in actual service. I don't think this train picked up mail enroute, and I've never seen a picture of a real Century RPO operating with mail cranes installed.

Now onto other business: I envy you that gunmetal CV 4-6-4. Great train, great model!

- Mike