Con-Cor Passenger Cars?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I happen to see a few Con-Cor passenger cars at my LHS the other day. They have been there for years, just the first time I happened to look at them. What caught my eye is the coloring on the cars. I love Santa Fe War Bonnets passenger colors, but was told all Santa Fe passenger car where silver with black letters.

These have the war bonnet strip on the cars! Doing a little digging in my Walther’s Catalog they are for the Valley Flyer.

I asked Ken, owner of my LHS what he thought of them. He gave them a glowing review that I cannot post, but terms like POS comes to mind.

He would not sell them to a new person to this hobby, but at this point he knows I have the skills to make them roll and track well. I think after he saw me pull 34 Old Dutch Hoppers (cheap Tyco) cover hoppers around his bench he knows I have a clue.

Other thing I like is they offer 72 foot passenger cars, 18" turns are gone, but still have 20" in one section that I cannot see.

I know the following will need to be done.

1 Add weight to NMRA standards

2 Add coupler pockets and long shank Kadee’s.

3 Tune the trucks and PK 36" wheels.

Have I missed any thing?

I not a rivet counter, so details are not that big of a deal. Plus I am half blind anyway, broke off 1/2 of the lifting rings of a E-6 before I knew it had them!

Now a few questions.

1 Can I add lights, from what I know the PK 36" wheels may not work. I all so know it would cost more in the long run. But, I can get them pretty cheap new from Walther’s and LHS. Plus I like to fiddle with stuff to make them work great, that is the Hot Rodder that is in me.

I am DCC with 8 amps of power.</

2

Interiors for Con-Cor from Palace Car Co.

The “Easy-Peasy” battery-powered lighting kit from Rapido is now available in a version designed for 72’ Athearn or Con-Cor cars. The current MR has an ad for them I believe.

Easy-Peasy from Rapido

Note that even 72’ cars may not be able to take a 20" radius curve in HO if they have body-mounted couplers installed. Walthers/Rivarossi 60’ cars like 24"R or larger for example. If you’re going to have sharp curves (like 20") on your layout, you may want to consider leaving the truck-mounted couplers in place.

3

I’ve got a seven car set of the Con-Cor Valley Flyer cars and am very pleased with them. I use an E-8 A&B set to pull them with. Though such a train never actually existed, it looks really cool making its rounds around the layout…

Tracklayer

4

DC Fixer has had some “super” posts regarding passenger car interior work and lighting.

This might be of some help: http://cs.trains.com/forums/1412580/ShowPost.aspx

5

I used to have a 4 set HO Milw Rd. made by Con-Cor. They served their purpose, were smooth runners and I cannot complain. I would recommend them.

I replaced them with museum quality Rapido cars instead. Of course for more than twice the price, but they came with lights already installed using batteries and a magnetic wand to turn them off/on. Lights are no big deal by the way. You have to have the room completely dark to really enjoy them.

6

Ken–

I’ve got several Con-Cor cars, and for the price they’re nice cars. I’d consider using Intermountain 36" wheels on them instead of the P2K–the Intermountains seem to have more ‘heft’ to them, and actually add a little needed weight to the car. As far as body-mounting the couplers, that 20" radius section you have might be a little tight for that. McHenry makes a long-shank knuckle coupler that snaps right into the truck to replace the horn-hook, and is pretty reliable. I’ve used it on my Con-Cors with very little trouble. And Palace Car Co. makes really good interiors for the cars. That and some of the Prieser ‘passengers’, and you can have yourself a pretty neat passenger train.

Tom [:)]

7

Ken, I know you like small radii curve, but remember you’re running HO and not N. If you just have to have that small 18" radii then I would switch scales. You can run nice passenger conists on N on 18" radii curves.[;)]

8

Dear ‘Hot rod’:

  1. Santa Fe had all olive colored heavyweight’s and corregated stainless-steel lightweight’s for their passenger trains. The very few smooth sided cars they had were re-painted to look corregated.

  2. The ‘War Bonnet’ scheme came into play with their pre-war E-1 DIESELS and was applied only to passenger diesels, including the M-180 doodlebug. 3. The ‘Valley Flyer’ never sported a red/yellow stripe. It was an all-heavyweight train pulled by a 4-6-2.

If you want to run some smooth-sided cars, it’s OK. It’s your RR, not ATSF’s.

Cars with similar couplers and weights will perform better. Some (later) ConCor cars came with metal wheels, some earlier did not. With 18"-20"r curves I’m not sure if body-mounted couplers will be succesful. Remove the ersatz brake shoes and add lube (teflon-grease) in the journals to run decently. McHeny (or KD whisker) long couplers should work.

  1. Frankly, Athearn’s passenger cars (heavyweight & streamligned) are closer to ATSF’s style, and are all 72 footers, designed to run on 18"-20"r curves.

I have stopped adding interior illimination as one cannot see it in the prototype in daylight hrs.- only at night - plus the flickering in affordable lighting destroys the illusion. Richmond Controls (@$35 per) will spoil you. It did me.

9

Athearn is HQ out of L.A., and based their heavyweights on ATSF cars. The HW RPO is 63’ and Baggage car is 67’. Those 2 and the 72’ Coach are ‘full size’; only the diner, sleeper and obs car are shortened (from 80’ to 72’) even though people often refer to all Athearn cars as “shorties”.

If you click on the link below and scroll down a few cars to “Santa Fe, Valley Flyer, Dining Car” you’ll see the cars he’s referring to. Does look like smoothside lightweight cars with striping along the bottom, but I don’t know how prototypically correct the cars are.

Con-Cor 72’ cars

10

Don, Rapido’s Easy Peasy lighting is about $15 per car. They now have “shorty” sets for the 72’ cars. They are battery operated and use a magnetic “wand” to turn the reed/micro switch on/off!! My [2c]

11

Better link to Con-Cor “Valley Flyer” car…

From Walthers website

12

I stand corrected:

Make that most all are 72 foorers. (Baggage and RPO cars excepted).

13

I have a question about this Con-Cor car. From the picture it appears the car has an interior. I was under the impression that Con-Cor did not produce interiors in their line of rail cars.

14

The particular car in the picture appears to be an N scale car. I don’t recall that any of the Con Cor HO scale cars came with interiors.

15

I’ve got interiors in all of mine. The only passenger cars I’ve ever gotten from them that didn’t have interiors were Amtrak double deck Superliners that were produced in recent years.

Tracklayer

16

Jim:

I think you are right - although ConCor made some upgrades through their product’s lifetime.

I only bought their 85’ cars with Plastic trucks and wheels ala Rivarossi. Later units came with metal wheels.

Their 72 foot cars WERE smooth sided, Generic eastern design, and totally unlike the ATSF ‘Valley Flyer’ (a short lived heavyweight train) running through the San Joaquin Valley.

This train was replaced by the ‘Golden Gate’ E-2’s and 3’s, pulling lightweight corregated coaches Bakersfield to Richmond CA. with connecting Bus service to LA and SF.

17

kudaken,
I don’t mean to highjack your thread, but I’ve got some Rivarossi 60’ers coming. I think ConCor made the same cars at one point (?) I’m going DCC and before I buy the older DC lighting kits, I’d like to know if they’ll work with DCC powered track. Obviously new to DCC.

I’ll be buying Con Cor stuff too so I’m looking forward to the answers to your question.

18

I have both DC & DCC kits in my Walthers pass cars & don’t notice any difference - DC on DCC voltage may burn out faster though. My [2c]

19

Thank for all the great answers. On my love of 18 inch turns, NOT!!! But till I get another bench going I have to work with what I have. Still in the ruff stages new bench will have 30 inch turns, but with summer here that may have to wait till winter.

Lights our a passing thought, but I do run the trains in the dark some times.

Knuckle couplers mounted to the trucks, first time I have heard that is a good idea![:D]

For $6.00 each, what the heck so off I go again on a new quest!

Cuda Ken

PS, thanks for the great input Mr Gibson, and others.

20

Ken, I have several sets of the AHM cars, with truck mounted McHenry’s on them. They work fine, and even run on 18" radius. I prefer Kadee for most applications, but this is one I will use the “clones” on. And it only takes about 2 minutes a car to convert! [tup][:D]

Rotor