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Since travel for business and pleasure is greatly reduced due to COVID, I thought it would be nice to see some passenger trains that we have traveling around our miniature worlds.

Posts can range from toy to real trains at stations, on the move, interior images, old posters, interesting facts... The sky is the limit!

Every gauge, railroad, and era are welcome!



I shall start with my Amtrak GG1 leading The Morning Congressional



Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!

Bryce

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The Morning Congressional
Last edited by Oscale_Trains_Lover_
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This is a great thread, many great pictures shown above bringing back fond memories of those really beautiful trains of yesterday and beyond. I road on the beautiful Texas Special, the B&O, The Illinois Central, the L&N, as a child. They were Wow’s. I always wanted to ride The Sante Fe El Capitan. Hope everyone is having a great weekend, staying safe, staying healthy, praying continually. Happy Railroading         LCCA 1460FE440E36-9B7A-4101-8782-F389488F2367DDE8F396-6695-453B-92E2-FC297523FDBDD6518B83-FA5D-4CCF-BA75-065FC69881D62F5E1796-AB31-4B3B-A818-D5B3125A913AB51F14F2-BFA2-41C6-AE3C-489F1931D57793EC8E7B-1BFD-4195-89F9-99378F4EA70FE6CB9E01-0143-4F32-B48E-6BEC43222A1F1D283F9A-D5F8-4823-9740-469371436AA8

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Last edited by leapinlarry
@pdxtrains posted:

Love the whistling tender. Was that a Lionel set, or is it pieced together? Pennsy cars, yes? Thanks for sharing this. There is nothing like a passenger train, and while I love the detailed models some guys have, I am a toy train runner and nothing is as beautiful to me as a loop of track on the floor!

That is a 763e and a set of the prewar Pullman cars. My layout is designed for tinplate so the curves are too tight for more scale sized trains. When I want to run it, I have to set up a carpet central.

Well since we have some 1:1 scale pictures, here are two I took on a family trip in spring 2019.  It's Irish Rail, the express between Dublin and Belfast.  For those of not too familiar with Ireland, those two cities are in fact in two countries.  Belfast in Northern Ireland, part of the UK and Dublin the Capital of the Irish Republic.

Here is the front view...its a "push pull" train set, not turned at either station.

Irish Rail - front view

Here is the "dining car" - snacks and drinks.  The trip including a few stops is abut 2 1/2 - 3 hrs.  Food is simple but quite good.  Prices are modest. 

Irish Rail - snack bar

Love traveling by train, you can see the country your are traveling through vice over.

Don McErlean

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My GM Train of Tomorrow set.

 https://youtu.be/gLiMGdxV2N4

Sean, I've never been a fan of Fastrack visually but I must say, yours here is the BEST looking FT treatment I've ever seen!  It's nice that the ties are actually reflected on the sides of the rails enhancing the illusion. The ballast is what sets this one apart from most.  Beautiful train as well.

 

PRR E8 and Senator Passenger Cars

https://youtu.be/W7LN3DRiGlQ

 Again, another truly gorgeous passenger train!  That's still one of the consists I am hoping to acquire someday.

 

 

@GG1 4877 posted:

These are some excellent videos to watch - Thanks Jonathan, I really enjoyed them! Especially the longer consists like the Santa Fe high level cars with the regular coaches, dome, and observation behind. Somehow, the last high level car running with an open end never looks 'right' to me  :-)

Is that the Williams Daylight steamer you have there? I remember when they came out with that beautiful gloss finish.

@c.sam posted:

These are some excellent videos to watch - Thanks Jonathan, I really enjoyed them! Especially the longer consists like the Santa Fe high level cars with the regular coaches, dome, and observation behind. Somehow, the last high level car running with an open end never looks 'right' to me  :-)

Is that the Williams Daylight steamer you have there? I remember when they came out with that beautiful gloss finish.

Thanks!  I really enjoy the longer passenger trains and luckily my club layout can accommodate them.  On the fence about getting a '51 Super Chief or a '38 Super Chief to make the combined El Cap/Super Chief.  It's only money?

Yes, the Daylight is a Williams.  It's a great runner and when I got it about 4 years ago, I don't think it had ever been run.  I don't know if the colors are accurate, but I like the brighter colors over the obviously inaccurate K-Line cars I have.  I just need to add some weight so I can pull all 14 cars.

@GG1 4877 posted:

My first experience around passenger trains was the era of the Jersey Builder on CNJ trains on the NY&LB on the Jersey Shore.  I never knew until later that passenger trains actually had matched cars.

Jonathan,

I was curious about your comment.  I found a picture which shows what you mentioned here: http://www.rrpicturearchives.n...ture.aspx?id=2863963 . Neat.  FYI, you can see a real world example of an inspiration for my semi-fantasy train here:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/jjpetric/40600967805/

Barry

I had the very good fortune of being befriended by noted Chicagoland LIONEL painter, the late Richard Sherry, in the late 1980's and joined a small group of train lovers for Wednesday night get togethers for soda and popcorn in his unfinished basement--great times.

Richard showed me the basics and my first passenger train attempt was the "Abraham Lincoln" of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, a line I'd never heard of but loved because of its striking colors.  It was one of the most requested repaints Rich did using PW LIONEL F-3's as donors; the other most requested was the Rock Island in that beautiful maroon, silver, etc.

At any rate, I did virtually no research before painting the train--for example, I don't know if GM&O ever had streamline/light weight pax cars.  I know I do not remember seeing photos of them if they had any.

Shortly after starting this train, I returned to Atlanta to complete it and; later, the Northern Pacific North Coast Limited you see.  And that was it for the next 25 or so years.

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Last edited by Pingman

Guys - great pictures all, thanks for sharing.  Trumptrain - i have soft spot in my memory for the Pennsy, but not her diesels (although I love the look of your PA2) , my experience was mostly on the eastern corridor behind mighty GG-1's and silver cars.  I rode from New Brunswick where I went to College to Newark near where I lived most weekends to go home to my parents.  It took nearly 2 hrs to drive the 90 miles home, but on the Pennsy it took just 47 minutes behind that "G".  We would board about the front of the train in the coaches with the Pullmans etc strung out behind.  When the engineer hit the throttle, it was like a jet plane and the train would be going 100mph before the last car cleared the platform!

My train today is perhaps not as beautiful or as close to scale, but it represents about a 2+ year hunt for the early postwar tinplate cars in BROWN !  These are much more scarce than the green or blue cars and finding a set that was in reasonable (not perfect) condition that I could afford took a lot of looking!  The "24 series" brown cars came with 2 engines, the 224 in '46 and the 675 in '47 and '48.  Lionel changed the numbering in '49 to a "64" series although the cars did not change at all just the number and after '49 withdrew all the tinplate cars from their sales offerings, never to re-appear.

The photos depict the set with a 224 as it might have appeared in '46 or perhaps early '47.  My first Lionel was Christmas '47 but I got a work train powered by the new steam turbine.  Later on, our passenger roster got filled with a pre-war 1666 and some blue / silver tinplate passenger cars (also pre-war).  Likely bought by Dad as used in '50 or so. 

Here are my "new" cars, some scratches but all in all good shape with lights, and almost as old as me!  (74 years)

Brown Tinplate Pass Cars 1

And here they are in consist (as they would have been in '46) with the mighty Lionel 224

Brown Tinplate Pass Cars 2

 

Have a safe and healthy week everyone.   My students take their final exam in my course on Monday afternoon (virtual) and after those papers are graded and the final grades submitted on Tuesday...I am FREE till August !! - when we start again.

Don McErlean

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Guys - great pictures all, thanks for sharing.  Trumptrain - i have soft spot in my memory for the Pennsy, but not her diesels (although I love the look of your PA2) , my experience was mostly on the eastern corridor behind mighty GG-1's and silver cars.  I rode from New Brunswick where I went to College to Newark near where I lived most weekends to go home to my parents.  It took nearly 2 hrs to drive the 90 miles home, but on the Pennsy it took just 47 minutes behind that "G".  We would board about the front of the train in the coaches with the Pullmans etc strung out behind.  When the engineer hit the throttle, it was like a jet plane and the train would be going 100mph before the last car cleared the platform!

My train today is perhaps not as beautiful or as close to scale, but it represents about a 2+ year hunt for the early postwar tinplate cars in BROWN !  These are much more scarce than the green or blue cars and finding a set that was in reasonable (not perfect) condition that I could afford took a lot of looking!  The "24 series" brown cars came with 2 engines, the 224 in '46 and the 675 in '47 and '48.  Lionel changed the numbering in '49 to a "64" series although the cars did not change at all just the number and after '49 withdrew all the tinplate cars from their sales offerings, never to re-appear.

The photos depict the set with a 224 as it might have appeared in '46 or perhaps early '47.  My first Lionel was Christmas '47 but I got a work train powered by the new steam turbine.  Later on, our passenger roster got filled with a pre-war 1666 and some blue / silver tinplate passenger cars (also pre-war).  Likely bought by Dad as used in '50 or so. 

Here are my "new" cars, some scratches but all in all good shape with lights, and almost as old as me!  (74 years)

Brown Tinplate Pass Cars 1

And here they are in consist (as they would have been in '46) with the mighty Lionel 224

Brown Tinplate Pass Cars 2

 

Have a safe and healthy week everyone.   My students take their final exam in my course on Monday afternoon (virtual) and after those papers are graded and the final grades submitted on Tuesday...I am FREE till August !! - when we start again.

Don McErlean

Don, great looking trains!

Are you going back to face to face in the fall? I'm teaching at university and we are remote, but no word yet on fall.

Pdxtrains. Thank you for the compliment. As to the fall, the University has announced that fall classes will be face to face BUT with distancing guidelines in place. At 6 ft that reduces the classrooms to about 25% capacity. My course has 22 students at this time and we have no space for that big a group under those rules. So I will have to do multi-sections or do it on-line. Still awaiting that decision. 

Don McErlean

Great thread, guys!  I'd "like" every one!  Permit me to show some of my passenger trains.  My layout wasn't done and is now in storage in preparation of an eventual move whenever the sequestering allows house sales to go on in a manner that allows folks to actually SEE houses.  In the meantime, since 99% of my trains are in storage, these photos will have to do.

Custom painted salvaged Gilbert cars behind a Lionel Flyer EP-5 and NH head end boxcar:

Custom painted salvaged Gilbert cars in Milwaukee Road colors.  Diaphragms from American Models added.  Painted to match Lionel Flyer EP-5 (which MR never had, but cool anyway!):

Same train on the Southeastern Michigan S Gauger's display layout:

Scratch built Thomas train on the Southeastern Michigan S Gauger's display layout:

Custom painted C&O cars from American Models behind my BL-2, also custom painted running on another S club's layout (sorry, I can't remember whose):

PRR observation car under the viaduct on the Southeastern Michigan S Gauger's layout:

C&O BL-2 passenger train and American Models PRR GG1 passenger train on my previous Flyer tinplate layout:

Lionel Flyer PRR observation car clearing a crossing on my previous Flyer tinplate layout.  The marker lights have been illuminated although they weren't illuminated from the factory:

My scratch built RDC running on another S club's layout.  The car was built as a "what if" Gilbert made an RDC:

Gilbert Flyer PRR K5 salvaged from a parts box pulling a long string of American Models PRR passenger cars on the SMSG display layout:

Salvaged Gilbert Flyer aluminum cars in front of my Ann Arbor Michigan Central depot (the depot has been "in progress" for years) on my now disassembled layout:

American Models C&O 4-8-4 with custom tender pulling a consist of C&O heavyweights on the SMSG display layout:

My scratch built AEM7 pulling a short string of American Models custom painted Budd streamline cars:

Finally, why we do what we do, isn't it?  Photo taken at a set-up of the SMSG display layout at a train show.  The little guy and his mom were checking out the interiors::

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