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Con-Cor HO scale PRR MP54 commuter cars
I saw Con-Cor’s MU’s running at the big show in West Springfield, Mass. last January; they looked beautiful and ran well.
I’d love to hear a demonstration of the sound unit Con-Cor sells for these models. The one time I’ve visited the trolley museum at Warehouse Point, Connecticut (just east of Hartford) an electric freight motor from Cornwall, Ontario was running. Every time the motorman blew its horn I did a double-take, because it sounded just like the MP54’s that went past my Uncle Johnny’s place in Secane, PA, on the line to Media and West Chester.
I lived in the Frankford section of northeast Philadelphia until 1953, when I was seven, and in one of the city’s western suburbs until I went off to college; and my Dad didn’t drive an automobile until 1960, I rode these MU cars many, many times. As a teenager I drew and sent Christmas cards featuring a cartoon of the front end of an MP54 with a holiday wreath between its porthole windows.
I now model the Delaware & Hudson and the Boston & Maine, but it would be tempting to build one of the 4x6’ layouts in one of Atlas’s first plan books, scenic it like Frankford, and run two or three MP54 MU’s along with a Baldwin switcher for freight and a GG-1 with a through passenger train. That prompts a question: what’s the minimum radius curve that Con-Cor’s models will run on reliably?
Incidentally, after wood-bodied passenger cars were banned in the 1950’s, the B&M acquired some ex-Pennsy MP54 trailers, covered the end portholes, and ran them in commuter service to Boston’s North Station. Con-Cor has offered two-car sets of unpowered cars decorated for the B&M and a few other lines.
The minimum radius is 18 inches. I have a few sets: LIRR-Tuscan and the Tichy color schemes. They are good runners and light up real well. One powered car runs a little funky-but I think that one has a little gremlin in it that will be easily pinned down. Otherwise-they are quite fantastic looking and running.
I think it’s really nice of Con Cor to make these run on 18 inch track. Most of us don’t have McMansions that allow for over 24 inch radiuses.
I bought the powered coach. It does indeed run very nice with DCC. (TCS decoder) Again my thoughts turn to the interior color of bland off white. Would it be that difficult to supply the seats molded in a dark color? I recall from being a kid the seats being a very itchy dirty green. And of course no people in the car. Even 7 or 8 of the Chinese made figures (around 20cents each) would give a idea the car was earning its keep.