This past year my wife and I had a wonderful experience traveling on the Empire Builder, round trip from Chicago to Seattle, and would now like to have a small toy Empire Builder train to display in our office, either the current style or an earlier version.
Where can I find such a toy?
f. walker
fwalker, [#welcome]
If you are looking for something small, you may wi***o look at HO or N scale.
There is a KATO Great Nothern N scale Empire Builder (but not modern era Amtrack version) set here for a reasonable price.
http://www.blwnscale.com/Kato%20Great%20Northern%20Empire%20Builder.htm
KATO also sells various Amtrak car sets which is what the Empire Builder consists of today.
http://www.internettrains.com/kanscamsuca.html
These sets can vary from <$100 (starter sets in plastic) to over $2,000 for brass scale detailed models.
You may wi***o inquire over on the Model Railroader portion of the TRAINS.COM forums as there are more experts for HO and N scale than here which is toy train stuff and typically the larger gauges like O.
Regards and good luck,
Roy
Thank you very much for you help.
Frank w.
The current Amtrak version is pulled by GE P42 “Genesis” locomotives and the cars are called “Superliners”.
The locomotive is made in
N-scale by Kato
HO-Scale by Athearn
O-gauge by MTH.
The Superliner cars are made in:
N-scale by Kato (two 4 car sets) and ConCor
HO-Scale they are made by Walthers and ConCor.
There are also expensive brass imports of these cars.
If you go back in time to earlier versions, the possibilities increase greatly depending on the time and how accurate you desire the models to be. A book could be written on the variations going backward through early Amtrak, to the Great Northern Big Sky Blue, the 1955 Orange and Green Empire Builder with a full dome, back to the original Builder.
These should be available from any local model railroading store or on-line at one of many fine dealers.
http://www.caboosehobbies.com/ ← My local hobby store
http://www.walthers.com/
You didn’t specify if you wanted to run the train or just have it on display. If it is for running make certain the loop of track is larger than normal to handle the long cars.