I bought a set of BLI Cal Zephyr cars and could not be more pleased. They have better looks and detail than my brass cars (of which I only have a few) or any other passenger cars that I have. Does anyone know if they intend to build more passenger sets in the future? I sure hope so, I can’t say enough good things about the CZ set. Given the choice of $50 a car for old brass passenger cars (cheap ones, yes) or new BLI’s I’d buy the BL’s every time.
Bill
I have a complete set of the first run Zephyr cars also and a few extra. For th emoney, they are impossible to beat.
BLI/ PCM has announced the complete 1941 Daylight train for mid next year and are listed for reservation under PCM. They are the same company using two names for marketing reasons.
I believe you can see the advertisement onm the PCM web site.
http://precisioncraftmodels.com/SP-Morning-Daylight-Passenger-Car-Set,-HO-c3128.html
Features:
I hope so. I even hope they run these again with different car names until they recreate the entire real fleet. I really want a “Silver Buffalo” that I don’t have to decal myself 
I would think with the success of these they will certainly be considering it. There are many great trains out there no one has begun to do plastic justice to like the Hiawatha’s, Colorado Eagle, North Coast Limited. On the other hand the CZ cars consumed my entire railroad budget for the year. I don’t know how I’m going to afford the Walthers Empire Builder cars.
This is one product I can say I believe is truely worth the MSRV. They look better, run better, and sound better (not like a tinny box rolling down the rails) than any HO model passenger car (brass, plastic, or wood) I’ve ever dealt with (even Craftsman kits).
Over time, I’ll make up another set, mixing it up with D&RGW and WP. These are fantastic cars. I’m glad to hear that they’ll be making the SP set, as I’ll have to grab one. SP is what I collect and tell my wife that it’s hers. She always talked about how beautiful Daylight and Black Widow engines were so I started buying them for her. It’s kind of a standing joke with us as she has a pretty good collection of SP even though she’d never actually buy any for herself. Most recent addition was Golden State ABB E7’s (P2K) after finding some old Blue Line metal cars and adding in a Katsumi brass set for 11 cars. I’d love to find more of the old Blue Lines but they are hard to find.
I model too many roads but I am weak and can’t resist. I model the 50’s, AT&SF, CB&Q, GN, NP, SP and UP and some of their subsidiaries. I now consider adding Rock Island as they worked with the SP Golden State and WP and D&RGW for the CZ. It may never end.
Thanks very much for letting me know about the SP passengers coming up. Now I won’t look for brass.
Bill
It might not hurt to email BLI and make suggestions for the names. I find they are very good about reading the emails and usually email back a reply to requests. Your request should be in line with future productions. I would hope they make every car that was named.
The one thing you might have to add to the train is weight in the baggage car. We experienced some problems on tight curves and the weight of the baggage does not match up to the NMRA standards.
Overall, you can’t beat the price or l
I have a few Walthers and some other EB HW’s from Athearn. They might be Bev Bel as they actually look better than the Walthers cars. Not a perfect match but such is life on Joe Average’s layout. Did Walthers make a LW set of EB? This is another of the supertrains and is beautiful. Again, if BLI comes out with an Empire Builder set, I’ll sell all my other LW EB’s to have it. I have an 11 car Tenshodo brass shorty set which is very pretty but incorrect. I’d sell it too.
Hey, let’s not say too much about what a great value BLI has created with the CZ set, they might get some ideas about raising prices. Great stuff. I would not be at all surprised to see them produce another run of these cars in the future. I think it went over very well and is now driving the price of P2K E units to the roof. Glad I bought mine a couple of years ago. Also have a Stewart F3 ABA painted for the original CZ, I just have to detail them. If Athearn Genesis had been around at the same time, I’d have taken the lazy route and bought them instead.
Bill
Bill
I took the lazy route, but the Genesis F3’s have the stainless steel side panels, which is correct for the WP F3’s. Sounds like your power is CB&Q.
BLI has a third set of cars coming in but I don’t think they increased the price.
Walther’s has announced that they will be doing the 1955 version of the EB. I have just one BLI CZ car-the Silver Ranch which exists on the BNSF excursion fleet. I still prefer Brass even though it costs more. I have Overlands ATSF 60 Full Dome Lounge which, is the most detailed brass car I have seen and in all likely hood, will be superior to Walther’s GN full dome
Ch
No doubt the Overland full dome is nice. I have a version of the dome by Precision Scale numbered 513 used as new by the Santa Fe. I model in the fifties and it sounds like you have current era models.
The Walthers EB cars should be nice and will make a great train available to lots of modelers. I have a full brass train for the Hi level El Cap, but it took about ten years to assemble the complete train. I got very for
Sooner or later, I’ll pick some up. So far, my CZ power is all CB&Q and the Stewart F’s are correct with the chicken wire for the Q units. I’m not sure how long they used the F units but it makes a nice looking set. I really like the Athearn Genesis F’s as they are nearly ready to go and look good right out of the box. I have an old Athearn F7 ABA set that I stripped and painted for CB&Q freight as there were no correct paint jobs way back when. I started detailing them back in the 70’s and they are still not completed. This is why the newer stuff appeals to me such as P2k, BLI and Ath. Genesis.
Bill
I actually model mid 50’s and allow myself to go up to about 1956 but I prefer the look of the old Vista Dome cars as opposed to the full dome. I’ve finally decided that it’s my railroad and I can do whatever I like. This allows me to go back a few years and model some very nice trains that would have been gone by 1956 such as the Golden State. I used to have a big hang-up about never having trains unless they might have actually been together. I’m trying to forget that and do what I like. I still try to keep each one true to the prototype at least with my locomotives and cabooses. My passenger trains (which I’m just getting into) are probably not as true to prototypes and tend to be more generic except for paint jobs and names.
I have a Walthers Super Chief set and some of the older Chief cars that preceeded them. These are pretty nice for plastic although not as nice as BLI. For stainless steel or aluminum corrugated cars the plastic models do a credible job. When you get into smoothside and paint, nothing looks as nice as brass or metal cars. The finish never looks bright enough and I’ve thought about applying some clear gloss to brighten some of them up. The same may be true for stainless steel.
Of course, I’d love to just buy all the top of the line brass trains that are being made today but at 3k to 5k a set, I’m going to have to enjoy some plastic models too. At least in the case of the Walthers and BLI’s, they have made an effort to copy prototypes like the better brass companies. I have some old Katsumi brass cars in both UP and SP. Some were sold by Balboa and some by Westside but they are the same cars and are rather generic, just have nice exterior paint, do not even have interior detail.
Bill
Actually that is the opposite of what I’ve been trying to say. I like the BLI cars BETTER than these expensive brass things. I got three sets of the CZ cars for less than the price of one of those things (which BTW I sold).
Did the railroadsmix the cars in real life? Did Wp cars run with DRGW cars and vice versa?
Broadway did a good job on these cars with nice plating of the silver color.
CurtMc, yes the RRs were mixed on the CZ, you could find cars with all 3 RRs on it.
BLI has been good about listening. I contacted them to see if the would run the CZ cars plated, undec, and no details added (like RR name boards and such) so that the cars could be used for other Budd cars with full skirting, mainly for the CB&Q. Only a couple are correct for the other cars but they are better stand-ins IMHO than other manufacturer’s offering out there.
Rick
In the beginning, each railroad purchased two complete trainsets and each trainset ran from Oakland to Chicago eastward vis the WP, D&RW and finally CB&Q and a second train set ran from Chicago to Oakland starting on the CB&Q, D&RW to the WP. The train would run all the way with only the extra sleepers added and some extra baggage from time to time. The cars from the train sets did get intermixed over the twenty years by maintenance schedules, but each railroad owned their own equipment. The train ran as a pool trains much like the pool power diesels today are used.
Each railroad owned their own diesels and they only ran on that railroad. The power did not run the entire trip, only the passenger cars.
I purchased the WP version and have the Genesis Diesels with Soundtraxx installed.
Yes, it was a true pool. The cars of all four railroads were mixed and assigned as needed.
Fortunately, the Full Domes on the ATSF only ran on trains 1/2,10/11 and 19/20. once 10/11 and 19/20 were eliminated, the domes ran on other rains, namely 15/16 and on 23/24 when there were tours going