the northern pacific i quickly becoming my favorite railroad so i would like to model the north coast limited but no one has made it yet so i would like to know how to madle it in ho or n scale
What era are you interested in?
The North Coast Limited ran from 1910 to when Amtrack took over passenger service.
You are able to use steam or diesel. The cars ranged from Heavyweights to steamlined.
A google search will take you to a number of sites covering various eras.
The two tone green NCL was most attractive in my opinion. It seems each manufacturer has its own shades of the two greens, and therefore, mixing brands will get unmatched cars. As of now, none of the manufacturers makes all the cars in NP colors for the NCL unless your budget allows for some very expensive brass models. .
I wouldn’t be surprised if Walthers made a “typical” North Coast Limited (the dome one) in a year or two.
Ed
The North Coast Limited started with wood cars in 1900. It was a heavyweight train from about 1920 until streamlined in the early two-tone green (Pullman green and olive green, with stripes between the colors) after World War 2. It took several years for NP to get enough streamlined cars to make the train fully streamlined.
Athearn heavyweight in the 1st streamlined paint scheme.
The “Loewy” two-tone green (forest green and light green, with one white stripe) came along in 1954, same time as the Vista-Domes. That lasted until BN in 1970, although cars painted in that scheme were seen on Amtrak trains for several years after Amtrak started.
The book you want to get is “The Vista-Dome North Coast Limited” by William R. Kuebler Jr. It includes a chapter on modeling the Vista-Dome NCL. Walthers and Rapido make cars that range from accurate to very close to reasonable stand-ins for NCL cars.
You can use brass overlays from Brass Car Sides to get exact matches if you want.
You also might check out the NP Ry. Historical Society.
Check out the NP Historical Group:
In the late 60’s, the NCL usually ran with about 12 car. 2 dome sleepers, regular sleepers, Slumbercoach, 2 dome coaches, full diner, Lewis & Clark lounge car, coaches, RPO/dorm, and a Water/Bagg car The Water/Bagg car had tanks to carry extra boiler water for teh S/G’s in the engines. The observation was dropped about 1965 and replaced by a modified dome sleeper with a ‘lounge in the sky’ up in the dome.
Jim
I was surprised at how long it took NP to fully steamline the NCL. In a picture dated 1952 showing the North Coast Limited and the engine is a Northern steam engine and the cars are stil heavyweights.
Also, not to forget that there was a sister train on the transcontinental route also, the “Mainstreeter”
I know when GN ordered streamlined cars for the Empire Builder, there was like a two year waiting list because of how many railroads wanted the new lightweight cars.
Keep in mind too that trains back then often ran in sections, so during the Korean War (1952) with all the troop movements etc. you might have 6 or 7 “North Coast Limiteds” running on basically the same schedule, maybe only 10 min. apart. Until NP had a lot of streamlined cars and passenger diesels, they’d have to fill in sections with steam and heavyweights I imagine.
I think the hardest car to model will be the dome sleeper. It was unique to the NP. Several of them had the 4 rooms under the dome converted to a lunch counter in the 1967. I ran across car 610 in Madison Wisconsin in 1987. Tried like mad to figure out who owned it. By the time I did they had sold it to a fellow in Fargo where it still is today.
NP was pretty slow in updating all equipment. It didn’t really start dieselizaion until 1940 with two switchers (NP 101 and NP 102) at the Northtown Yard. Compare that to the Santa Fe which already had diesels on mainline passenger trains.
And before the “Mainstreeter” there was the “Alaskan”. I don’t remember when the Alaskan gave way to the Mainstreeter, but 1952 comes to mind.
The hot rumor on the net is that Walthers next HO “name train” will be a Loewy-schemed North Coast Limited, will have to see what turns up.
A good “pike size” NP passenger train would be the later Mainstreeter. After the mail contract was removed in the mid sixties, the Mainstreeter was typically an A-B set of F units and 6 cars, no domes. It would fit on most layouts better than a 14-16 car NCL would.