Hi.
I will admit, I’m a passenger car junky. Recently I got a full set of CZ and also now a complete 1953 set of the Super Chief. I’m now contemplating the Hiawatha,
My question is this. Do you collect name trains? If so which do you got?
Magnus
Well, I only have one named train so far…I put together, from various manufacturers’ equipment, the San Francisco Chief, circa 1969. I have extra equipment so that I can just sort of throw together a generic Santa Fe passenger train, though. [:)]
Robert Beaty
The Laughing Hippie
Right now the only name train I operate is a late '50s consolidated El Capitan/Super Chief, and am going to purchase enough equipment to operate two seperate sections as was during peak seasons.
I am currently working on a late '50s Sunset Limited.
Only one, and its a goody, the Pioneer Zephyr.
I don’t and I’ve never even thought about it, but it’s an interesting idea. It would be a nice excuse for collecting and running something besides the specific railroad you’re modeling (that is, if you model a specific prototype). It would be cool to have the Hiawatha or Super Chief etc, and it would be a nice break from just focusing on one railroad (or in my case two–I’m modeling Seaboard and L&N).
I don’t “collect” per se, but I have two: the 1955-59 Empire Builder-complete 15 car set with a mail-express car in the planning stage. This was the Walthers passenger train released this past year. I also have a complete set for the GN’s 1950-1960 International as done with Northstar kits. So, I guess I collect the trains that the GN ran out here on Lines West.
Only the Empire Builder. When I was a kid growing up in Montana,thats how we got anywhere that was more than 150 miles away.
I would say that I am doing this. Up to date I have the N&W “POWHATAN ARROW”, a stunning brass model from Overland, both the cars and the engine.
But I am looking for the 1938 version NYC “20th CENTURY LTD” because I have the matching Dreyfuss Hudson.
I would need a PRR passenger train like the “BROADWAY” as well because I have the matching S1 6-4-4-6. Same with the “HIAWATHA” because I have both the A and the F-7.
In plastic I have a 13-car B&O passenger train composed of WALTHERS’ Heavyweights, and a fairly complete C&O train built of both Heavy- and Lightweights from WALTHERS.
Currently I am building a GN Fast Mail train with an H-5 class Pacific, and since I am really a GN nut I would need the late “ORIENTAL LIMITED” very badly.
I also have several WABASH steam engines for which I will need some passenger cars, too. But up to date nobody did the “CANNONBALL”. Hope it will come sometime in future.
While technically, No, I am not a “collector”, I do model GN circa '47-'50 and one of my trains is a 14 car Empire builder, pulled by a pair of BLI E-7’s. All the rest of my equipment is freight with a small amount of MOW. If I were going to expand my passenger fleet it might be to add a long heavyweight 2nd class train with a lot of mail and baggage on the head end. jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
I don’t, but my wife does. When we downsized from HO to N scale ( she still let’s me hear her opinion of that now and then) my wife kept the HO passenger trains. She has several of them displayed close to the cieling of our model room. I think her latest endeavor is one of the R.I. Rockets that went through Grinnel Iowa in the mid fifties. We’re both Rock Island ‘nuts’.
Bingo! For years and years I thought I was the only one that collected and ran passenger trains. The problem, until just recently, was the availability of affordable passenger equipment. Thank you Branchline & Walthers. Passenger trains are so much harder to do then freighters.
I started with a 1949 Super Chief.
The 1955 El Capitan was next.
I discovered that passenger trains could be other colors than silver in 1974 and immediately began modeling the Great Northern because I loved the Big Sky Blue. It was only this year I was able to almost get a full train from Walthers (still missing the baggage cars - why didn’t Walthers make them???).
In my opinon to have a good passenger collection my have-to-have list of trains include the following. I only have 6* of these almost complete, mostly just bits and pieces:
One of the UP trans-con “City Of” trains
New York Central - 20th Century Limited
Pennsylvania - Broadway Limited
Santa Fe - Chief or Super Chief *
Santa Fe - 1955 El Capitan, this train set the standard for high level cars.*
Great Northern - Empire Builder *
Northern Pacific - North Coast Limited*
Southern - Crescent
Southern Pacific - Coast Starlight
Illinios Central - City of New Orleans
Wabash - Cannon Ball
Baltimore & Ohio - Capitol Limited*
Milwalkee - 1936-1951 Hiawatha
Norfolk & Western - Pocahontas
California Zephyr*
Then there are the really interesting trains that are more fun to model & run:
Leigh Valley - Black Diamond
D&RGW - Yampa Valley Flyer
Santa Fe - California Limited
B&M - Flying Yankee
Central of Georgia - Nancy Hanks
Frisco & Katy - Texas Special
I also have:
A Missouri Pacific - Colorado Eagle (my version is not very correct & mostly reworke
I have a pretty good thing for passenger trains. However, instead of collecting “various” famous name trains, I am collecting trains that ran on the Santa Fe in the Houston and Galveston area…
the all-streamlined Texas Chief…
the California Special/Texan which ran a mixture of steamlined and heavyweight in the 1950s
and the unnamed #5/6 (formerly known as the Ranger) a mostly mail-and-express.
NOBODY makes specific “sets” for these trains so I am not so much “collecting” as “amassing” the desired equipment from many sources over several decades (decades of my modeling efforts, not decades of the prototype)
I had a complete early 50’s UP “City of Los Angeles” including a modernized heavyweight diner and dorm car. I sold it when I moved from California since I thought I would spent the rest of my life in my RV. Dope. [sigh] I’m now up to 10 UP passenger cars again but from various eras and nothing that could be called a name train. I’m also modeling the Southern “Cresent” when it was still mostly heavyweight cars and black and white E-7’s.
I grew up (to age 16) in Chicago & did most of my train watching of psgr and got seriously bitten by the psgr bug. The upper level of my MRR is exclusively psgr w/ 3 yds, one for loose cars, one 12 trk for short (10 cars or less) trains and one of 23 trks for trains 10 cars or longer (I had to build a 12X24 bldg extension for that). W/O going out & taking inventory I’ve got the following trains (and a pair of fleets) up and running, not counting partials and “in process”.
Pioneer Zephyr, '35 Twin Z, '37 Twin Z, '49 Twin Z, '55 Empire Bldr, '47 Olympian Hiawatha, '50 Oly Hi, '42 afternoon Hi, '53 Afternoon Hi, CNW 400, Golden State, Cal Zephyr, '42 Panama Lmtd,'37 Denver Zephyr, Hi Level El Capt, '50 Super Chief and 3 “generic” trains; a 7 car Southern hvywt so my Proto Lt USRA Mountain will have something to pull, a NYC stainless steel train (James Whicomb Riley??), and a 7 car generic pre-WWII Budd coach train that can change ID depending on what engine’s pulling it (the letterboards are blank) and a dozen Branchline Pullmans to serve as whatever. Most of those were bought when you didn’t need a producing oil well to buy brass psgr cars. The Panama is a mix of 2 Soho (bag/dorm and obs), 2 Railway Classic (diner and lounge) and 8 Walthers sleeper painted to match the Railway Classics. Those 2 Railway Classic cars are the last $400 cars I’ll be buying now that we can get whole trains for that.
Yes.
Specifically, the American Freedom Train. Have a set of BLI CZ cars lettered for the CB&Q (sorry, no WP/DRGW allowed on the layout). Interested in the 1947 era Freedom Train and the pre-AFT Preamble Express.
Regards,
Burlington John
PS - think about it. A 26 car train filled with some of our nation’s most significant artifacts traveling all of the continental 48 states, pulled by a steam engine. Who would have thought it would have been possible, then or now?
Hi Lillen
Not as such
But I do have the beginings of the Flying Scotsman the Loco second tender and a couple of coaches sleepers next I think.
Does The Hogwarts Express count as a named train[swg] I have that.
So it looks like I will have to build Kings Cross making sure I have platform 93/4 for the Hogwarts[:D] and platform ten which I am told is where the flying scotsman traditionaly left from.
regards John
Famous Trains
I built a display cabinet for famous passenger trains and another for freight trains with a separate shelf for each type of car. These are older photos and many new cars have been added.
Passenger Trains from the bottom up:
#1 Aero Train (1956) New York to Pittsburg
#2 Blue Comet (1940) New York to New Jersey Shore
#3 South Wind (1940) Chicago to Miami
#4 Congressional (1952) Boston to Washington
#5 Broadway Limited (1956) New York to Chicago
#6 The Broker (1957) New York to Bay Head NJ
#7 Fleet of Modernism (1938)
#8 Senator (1953) Boston to Washington
#9 East Wind (1940) New York to New England
#10 Transcontinental Service cars
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j98/topcopdoc/My%20Trains/PassengerDisplay.jpg
Doc
Until recently my Seaboard and Western Virginia Railway ran a crack all-Pullman express called the Gustavus Adolphus den Store, however it wrecked at a place called Lützen and it’s remains are now in the junkyard at Riddarholmskyrkan.
On a serious note, I ran a very unprototypical - but all first class, by the way - Super Chief for many years; exact prototypical cars did not become available in N Scale until just recently by which time my interest in these things - name trains - had long since waned.
1957 Santa Fe El Capitan
And I plan on a 1985 and 2007 Southwest Chief soon.
No[:)]
I only run freight trains. But as a Milwaukee Road fan I like the fact that you are planning to get the Hiawatha[:D]
Oh I forgot, I do have one Swedish Y6. You now what that is Magnus, our American friends can have something to think about.