Prototype for Lionel 2400 Series Passenger Cars

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

I’ve always wondered what prototype (if any) Lionel used as the basis for the 2400 series passenfer cars - they certainly don’t look like anything that would have come from Budd or Pullman Standard. I was going through an old Model Railroader (July, 1996) and found an article on a “Pennsylvania RR 10-6 Sleeping Car,” by George Sebastian-Coleman regarding a series of cars bulit by ACF for the PRR for a joint service with the Missouri-Pacific on the “Eagle.”

The cars were built were built with “riveted sides with belt rails both above and below the windows,” and have the same vent on the roof above the doors as the 2400’s. The big changes were the reduced length of the car and that the roofs on the 2400’s are much flatter and don’t have the riveted seams. I wonder why they picked such an obscure car to model?

For some reason, I feel better now about weathering and repainting them.

Mike

2

Here’s a picture of an ACF car that has a lot in common with the 2400 series:

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/up315.jpg

3

Allegedly the cars were based on a PS design (The Lionel Inspriration, Morning Sun Books) but I have found some examples of AF cars built in the mid 30’s that feature smooth rounded roof and smooth but riveted sides on two axle trucks (100 years of Railroad Cars). I pulled open my copy of “The Art of the Streamliner” and found a few more examples of riveted smooth sided, round roofed, two axle passenger cars. The B&O Royal Blue (not the remodeled heavyweights used on a second train) and the GM&O Abraham Lincoln had similar cars.