I’ve been eyeing a MicroTrains 50’ smooth-side Penn Central boxcar at my LHS for some time. At $13.95 (-15% club discount since I’ve diplayed my layout at his show), it’s a fair price indeed.
So today I bought it.
There are some discrepencies from the prototype (most noticble being the door and the style of lettering above the car number):
…but otherwise a beautiful car. I plan to use the lower photo as a weathering guide.
My 5-year-old son is obsessed with Amtrak and with the occasional Conrail GP38-2 used as a helper in and out of our town of Apex, NC (so named because the SAL, now CSX, climbs grades from both sides).
So I thought maybe developing a late PC/early CR/Amtrak roster would help keep my tiny layout interesting until I can go bigger. Who knows; I may even stay PC/CR and make the retro-Pennsy equipment I have now become the special run stuff.
Watch that slide into CR timeframe, you may have to remodel everything! That being said, Walthers used to make a decal set that was a for PC boxcar that had been relettered for CR. It’s a rusty car with the PC noodle and reporting marks painted out in jade green
Living in what used to be NYC/PC territory, you may well have a prototype - PC used about every lettering combo you can think of - some as ugly as [}:)]!!
Brethren and Sistern. I say Brethren and Sistern. Let us pray for our poor benighted brother Dave who has lost his way and now wanders in the wilderness of Penn Central despair. Only with constant prayer can our brother be returned from the outer darkness to the paths of righteousness that he may walk in the light. Can I get an “Amen”? [(-D]
Used to trainwatch at Waterloo, IN when it was NYC then the merger. Shot some film there too.
There was a branch that ran from Ft Wayne to Waterloo that ended or crossed sometime. GR&I that is. A friend walked it all the way from Ft Wayne and we met him up at Waterloo and took him home. Active line, so the action was hot, double track, trains taking the crossovers to do a pass or whatever. Then The passenger train would come and stop. Time went by and the passengers didnt stop. The depot was closed and moved, I guess maybe as a historical spot or museum, dunno. Whatatyme.
We’d watch the signals and guess what the action might be, a train might come screamin thru or hit the crossover, or the local came by and did a little work, the engine sometimes there idling away.
Then we go and hit Pops, a little Ice Cream spot run by this fella, just some little trailer sized place in the middle of the sidewalk, and get cones or Ice cream or floats.
My original layout concept was an early Conrail theme, with lots of PC power and paint outs, Amtrak phase 2, and a spin-off shortline with a live interchange. When I see Ed’s growing collection of paint outs, I sometimes pine for those days. I cut my railfanning teeth back in the late 70’s with trips to Enola and the Middle Division. Those big stone arches, the lousy track, Trailvans with six geeps up front…
(They did that to make sure that at least 3 of them were still working by the end of the trip…)
Between the historic landscape built by the Pennsy (and the other CR predecessors of course…) the corporate intrigue that created and ultimately brought down the PC, and the determination that Conrail and its people had to bring it all out of the ashes, and literally changed the way the nation’s railroads did business… makes for some fascinating stuff.
I dunno I could ever do the PC, after the greatness for what the NYC and Pennsy were, it feels like the doldrums and that the 2 could even think about merging, the great competitors. When that happened just about everybody was WHUT?!?!?!
But maybe its like modeling a beat up backwoods logging line, there gets to be a certain frugalness about it, and yes your right, track maintenance wasn’t always best, rockin and rollin cars, I got film to prove it. Consider modeling that…err…hehehe (/me carves out a few dips into the roadbed)
!960’s after thru the 70’s is kinda like also the shock of no more steam either on the railroads. I think the railroad world was going thru an adjustment. Its also the time of favorite lines abandoning or edging on abandonment like the North Shore and the C&O letting the South Shore cars rust out on thinking they will abandon the electric.
Lots of Doldrums and bailouts and recovery (or losses)
Folks have strong feelings about the PC, and they’re rarely good.
I’m really leaning toward doing very early Conrail which was still heavy w/ PC stuff.
The ideal train would be a blue CR diesel with a black PC/CR paint-out behind with maybe a RDG paint-out for a third, with a mix of cars from the Northeast bankrupts, and a CR cabin.
I love the Pennsy and am not giving up a single piece of my PRR roster. Allowing a second era (namely the mid- to late-70s) gives me the chance to model what I remember as a young boy (I was born too late for Pennsy), as well as to strike a balance with my 5-year-old, who loves Conrail and Amtrak. Of course, he’d rather run P42s and Superliners and doesn’t quite realize that the Conrail diesels he sees around here are owned by CSX and will be repainted in due time, but…
The attraction to model what one remembers as a child is a very strong one. If only I’d been more aware of the GG1s and all of the rainbow Conrail paint-outs I took for granted when I was so young… All gone now, even Conrail.
I did Conrail railfanning from Penn State as a college student… …so the day they moved a Conrail (ex-PC ex-PRR) GP30 into the Railroad Museum of PA (along with the Silverliner cars I rode with my mother from Lancaster to Philadelphia), I began to realize how much had changed.
Speaking of PC and Lancaster… Anyone remember the pair of PC baggage cars that sat next to the head house at Lancaster station well into the 90s? They finally came out to Strasburg for restoration. It’ll be interesting to see if they come back PC or NYC.
My interests are Milwaukee Road in the late 50’. My son was interested in ‘Amtrak’ and those flashing FRED’s on the back of freight trains. I guess it has a lot to do with what you think you remember when you were a kid!
I think the era you are talking about is perfect. I have several PC diesels and CR diesels and some early patch jobs. There is something about those PC patches. You have my support, do it.
I guess I’m an outlier on that “model what you grew up with” trend. If that was the case, I’d be modelling the '90s… modern diesels are just too ugly for my tastes (though I can live with some of the 1st generation ones… barely [;)])
