looking for a passenger train, not very large possibly two cars in length. what i am trying to do is create a passenger shuttle from one end of the layout to another and the locomotive needs to be DCC compatable and i was hoping it could be an electric prototype. my layout is N scale and is modeled in the late 1990’s - current. i was looking at some of bachmans spectrum locomotives such as the amtrak, however what i would really prefer is a subway train type set-up. i’ve looked on alot of websites search and found nothind so far so any help at all is appreciated thank you.
Walthers has distributed a couple of different four-car NYC subway sets. I see no compelling reason that the two center cars can’t be left out of the consist for operating purposes.
Back in the dark ages when I was a resident of New York City, I recall there being a shuttle train (2 cars on evenings and weekends?) between Grand Central and Times Square. IIRC, it was upgraded to cars similar to those distributed by Walthers in the mid-1950s.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - including catenary EMU service)
Why not use an RDC, or two in a unit?
Wolfgang
Buy a PRR P70 coach and cut 16 feet out of the passenger section. Add a pantograph and you have a PRR MP54.
Take a streamlined stainless steel Budd coach, with doors at each end, add windows in the end bulkheads and Faivley pantographs, put an RDC mechanism under it and you have a silverliner, used by the PRR and RDG (you can lose the side frames on the trucks too).
The suggestion of RDC’s would be the simplest.
For the railroads that used them, the RDCs were the equivalent of bus service between towns in 1950s and 1960s. I didn’t have a car during my first 3 years of college, so I would often use rail to get around in New England on weekends and breaks - just before Amtrak came into existence. Most all the local runs outside the Boston - New York corridor were RDCs.
Fred W
I don’t know a lot about what is available in N gauge but Bachman may have made the Metroliner in N gauge that had a nonworking pantograph. For an engine and car arrangement I would look at what is available in Europe or Japan as they both have far more catenary operated engines. You could kitbash one into a more US appearance.
Well, in the United States during the 1990s, the fact was there were very few DMUs (almost all of them rebuilt Budd RDCs), there were some EMUs in metropolitan areas (for Northeast EMUs, you can start with these guys (Imperial Hobby Prod) - for other EMUs, like for example the South Shore, in N scale I can’t help you), and a fair number of commuter Push/Pull operations around the country - this could be any standard diesel, as long as it has HEP (Head-End-Power - produced either by tapping off the main alternators, or from an Auxiliary Power Unit - in effect a small diesel generator in the loco) to power the lights & hvac, 2/3 coaches - Walthers Horizon cars are a good example, but they may be only HO scale, and a cab/control car (again, Walthers Horizon Cab control car are good expamples, but may be only HO scale) or another loco at the other end - that was a common 'commuter ‘shuttle’ arrangement during the 1990s (and today too). Note: the Metroliner EMUs mentioned in the previous posts were also used for diesel push/pull service as control cars (as were, I think, some of the SPV2000, which for whatever reason failed as DMUs - actually I think the SPV2000 had the same body as the Metroliner EMUs, and the initial Amfleet cars for that matter).
If you’d be happy with cars whose prototypes run in the country that has been producing most of the light rail cars now going into service in the US, there are LOTS of Nj scale models of EMU and DMU cars to choose from. Contact KatoUSA (one of several possible sources) to see what they might have available. (There are also a lot of HOj scale EMU and DMU available.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with EMU and DMU, some in shuttle service)
Model Railroader Magazine runs their “Pike -Size Passenger Trains” theme every other year, and you’ll find (23) examples in these three M.R. issues…
(7) June 2007 - http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=6&YR=2007&output=3&sort=D
(8) March 2005 - http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=3&YR=2006&output=3&sort=D
(8) May 2003 - http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=5&YR=2003&output=3&sort=D
There may be prototype examples with readily available N Scale locomotive power & rolling stock. By the 1990s, sometimes these small passenger trains used “what was still left” before the next coming RR merger.
To be prototypic, in the late 1990 period in the U.S. your choices are:
- An entirely separate track from all your other tracks (no connections at all), on which you could operate subway vehicles, light-rail vehicles, trolleys, or monorail vehicles.
- A track if shared with freight trains and passengers must use FRA-compliant vehicles (able to withstand high compressive forces in collisions). The only thing available in the U.S. at that time were Budd RDC cars or locomotive-hauled trains, or compliant electric multiple unit cars such as the equipment used by NJT, Amtrak, etc. The subway style cars are not an option, if prototypic fidelity is desired. But it’s a model railroad not a real railroad, so you can do anything you wish, and just say “I have a powerful Congressman who got an FRA exemption for my railway.”
RWM
On further thought from my earlier post why not a trolley car. What you want to do is exactly what they are used for.