Hi All,
I’m in the UK and my knowledge of American prototypes is limited.
I’ve purchased two Rivarossi HO GG1’s and would like to buy some matching passenger cars.
The first GG1 is in Tuscan Red livery circa 1952 with five gold stripes and small insignia.
The second is in Silver with one red stripe and large insignia. I think this is circa 1955. Is this “Congressional” livery?
Does anyone know what passenger cars would match these liveries? If anyone knows the matching Rivarossi HO passenger cars and their catalogue numbers, this would be a bonus.
Bob
Actually, the Tuscan with 5 stripes — not the silver paint one — was the scheme the PRR inaugurated for the Congressional trains in 1952.
Regarding passenger cars, Walthers makes some Budd stainless cars that can (with varying degrees of liberties) be used as PRR Congressional cars. One of them which I believe Walthers calls a “lounge car” is actually a perfect model of the Congressional 29 chair - 1 DR parlor car.
Some of the Rivarossi smooth side sleepers are passable for PRR use and are even made with PRR factory paint and lettering. Their flat-end observation car is a model of the Broadway Limited cars “Mountain View” and “Tower View.” You could run your GG-1`s in either color scheme in that service.
Sometime later this year Walthers will offer a 28 ch - 1DR heavyweight parlor in their heavyweight cars series. PRR used those well into the modern era (1960s) and they can be used on the same layout as your stainless Congressional equipment.
Some authorities on PRR modeling will probably expand on this quite a bit
The silver GG1 was the intended version for the Congo and Senator and a couple were painted in this manner but the scheme was shortlived. The grease and dirt from the pantographs caused them to look very dirty very quickly thus the scheme was eliminated. I have only seen two or three pictures of the silver scheme and have been following the PRR for over forty years. I use mine to pull my Silver Meteor of ACL cars. The PRR had numerous run through trains from other railroads and the engines weren’t dedicated. The red G’s (five in total) were often seen on specials also. One picture shows two of the red ones pulling a boy scout jamboree train through Philadelphia on its way to Valley Forge. ACL, Seaboard (later SCL), C&O Fast FLying Virginian, Southern, Lehigh Valley, New Haven and some other cars made frequent visits to Pennsy rails. Rather than a through train a couple of Bachman P70 coachs were regular fare right up to the end on clockers between New York and Washington DC. the real ones usually had eight and up and ran every hour. You could also have a mail train with the R50b and B60b express and bagagge cars that are out now. head end cars from nearly every railroad in the country were evident on many trains carrying mail. If you want definitive information regarding the make up of a particluar train join prr-talk. There are more experts in that group than you could possibly believe. Just send an e-mail to listmaster@dsop.com with the subject subscribe prr-talk and you will be welcomed. One thing is certain. The use of red G’s on the Broadway was not a common happening. That was the domain of the R1 for much of its life. Unusual that the PRR would assign a one of a kind to its name train.
Any good Pennsy book will show Pennsy had at least 5 or 6 paint schemes and few trains ran in matched sets. Most cars were tuscan red with stripes - gold at first and dulux later. However, head end cars had no stripes, but were common on most trains. In later years, cars had no name on the letterboard, but keystone logos on the sides. Also, because PRR was so big, there were often cars from other railroads mixed in.
So, you could run most any PRR car you find behind whatever GG1. Be aware, a great many models on the market in PRR are not models of cars the PRR actually had.
Some of Walthers’ Budd cars are NYC prototypes. They’d look fine behind a black GG1 in Penn Central days 
BTW, didn’t the PRR assign green GG1s to the Broadway Limited?
New Haven cars would be more than appropriate behind GG1’s…
The unfortunate thing is no one makes any that are correct, currently…
emdgp92: Yes, green was more prevalent; I think the whole fleet was green until a small number were painted red. There were variations on the stripes as well – the initial panelled style, then the 5 stripes and the single stripe. (Don’t have my references handy) Then they went wild with the silver and commemorative schemes, PC black, Conrail clue, NJDOT and …
Since they were the main loco between NY and Washington, they would have pulled anything from heavyweight commuter coaches to stainless steel.
As ndbprr said, they would pickup trains or cars from any of the southern and other roads at Washington and take them to NYC.