A few years ago I purchased several Walthers streamlined/lightweight (Loewy
scheme) 86’ passenger cars. To my knowledge Walthers never produced a tail end
car. Does anyone know of an HO scale tail end car that would be compatible with
the rest of my NP passenger cars?
Roger Johnson
Sedro Woolley WA
I found a couple of the Streamlined NP coaches in the Loewy livery.
Checking E-bay and train shows would be best bet for these.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/348-48193
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/223-196019
I would recommend thisone.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/381-356010
The picture shows a different paint scheme, but that is a great end of train coach.
And by luck, MTH has a set to be released soon
I have been frustrated in my efforts to put together a North Coast Limited.
I have the Walthers cars. They are great, but they do not have the observation car. The GN Empire Builder observation would be “close enough” to me if Walthers would simply offer it in NP colors.
Mixing manufacturers has not been good in my experiences because the colors do not match well at all. The Kato NP business for example car looks great by itself, but looks funny coupled to a Walthers NP car becasue of differant shades of green. Next, the NCL needs NP F-units, and including the locos adds more shades of green to the train.
It is good to see MTH will offer NP cars, but I suspect they will bring on two more shades of green.
Thanks for the suggestions. I had already checked eBay but didn’t find anything suitable. Would the business car you recommended go with the Loewy paint scheme streamlined cars? It looks more like a heavyweight.
Roger
The Kato business car is on super detailed passenger car.
The level of detail is great. It certainly is not a perfect match for your set, but it would IMHO be a great end car.
The car appears to be between a heavyweight and a smooth side car. Note the four wheel trucks.
My Kato NP business car is identical to my Kato Burlington business car except of course the paint. It is a replica of an actual CB&Q car made by Budd. Sides and roof a fluted.
Garry,
You are generally correct about the differend shades of paint. I have an A-B-A Athearn Genesis set of F-9’s factory pained in the Loewy scheme. I just compared them to the Walthers cars. The dark green on the locos is slightly darker than that on the cars but it is close enough for me, especially since I will probably very lightly weather both the cars and the locos. The light green on both the cars and the locos is spot on to my eyes.
Roger
They made an undecorated set. Wouldn’t it be fairly easy to just paint one up. Fairly simple scheme.
You think so? When I first saw the Kato paint scheme I wanted to puke. To me it looks like they took paint samples from an old NP car that has been sitting neglected out in the sun for a couple decades. I bought the CB&Q painted model instead.
No, its not. I was hoping BLI would beat them to it.
TZ … I know what you mean about the Kato NP colors. My CB&Q business car by Kato is one of my favorites. I wish Kato made more HO passenger cars.
Uh huh, and they’re going the old Athearn route to boot: mass repainting of I belive their NYC or N&W cars into every other road they did the Alco PA’s in. A superdetailed Foobie train. For that price, I ain’t interested.
The NP-decorated Kato business car is nothing like anything NP ever owned. I believe it’s a Budd car with semi-fluted sides, with the stainless steel fluting painted light green…
NP was pretty strict about never putting a business car at the end of the NCL, at least until the last few years of operation.
One option is to not use an observation car. Many if not all NP trains had quit using oberservation cars by about 1966-67. A late-sixties Mainstreeter would be a good choice, after the mail contracts were revoked by the government, the train was normally only about 6-7 cars with no observation car.
The NP only owned 5 of those NCL streamlined sleeper/observation cars(and the CB&Q owned 1) The Mainstreeter did not get an observation. By 1967, NP had pulled the observation cars off the NCL, and replaced them with modified Dome/Sleeper/Lounge cars. These replacements were built out of the Budd Dome/Sleeper that NP received in the mid 50’s. The NP cars were built in1948 and were in a Pullman 4-1-lounge configuration as follows:
390 Rainier Club 391 Arlington Club 392 Tacoma Club 393 Spokane Club 394 Montana Club
483 Minneapolis Club(CB&Q)
Jim
Jim: Good info. Thanks. The Q’s obs was painted silver after the observations were pulled from the NCL for use n Burlington passenger trains.