I have a lot of Lionel F3s and a lot of 2400-type streamliners to pull with them; but I don’t often do that because the undersized cars look silly to me behind the scale locomotives. I also have a few trains of Rail King heavyweights that, although necessarily short to get through O27 turnouts, are much closer to scale height and width. I’m thinking that I should replace the 2400s with Rail King streamliners. Does anyone have these that you could measure for me (width, height, and distance between truck center bearings) to see how much of an improvement they would be and whether I can run them through Lionel O27 turnouts?
I have the RK Daylight and Hiawatha sets plus one NYC 20th Century Limited dome car and one Santa Fe El Capitan coach #3161. I have the 3161 in front of me and that’s the car I’ll give measurements from.
Body width: 5.9 cm
Body length (minus diaphragms and couplers): 31.6 cm
Length coupler to coupler: 34 cm
Height with car sitting on a flat surface (no track): 8.7 cm
Rollers are 20.3 cm apart on center
Centers of trucks are 22 cm apart.
Clearance below car is 1 cm between battery boxes etc. and railhead.
I also have 2 K-Line Santa Fe streamliners: 3481 Taos Combine and 3119 Isleta coach, and 1 Lionel 16060 observation. The Lionel 16060 is of course a 2400 series shell and the 2 K-Line cars are of similar height to the Lionel but 3.5 cm longer than the 16060. The MTH car stands 8mm taller than the other 3 when set on a flat surface. I run the cars behind Lionel MPC Santa Fe 8861A and 8862B Alcos. The MTH car is the same height and width as the locomotives, while the K-Line and Lionel cars are 8mm shorter and 5mm narrower.
If you need anything else, let me know!
Becky
That’s a lot of very good information, Becky. Thanks!
It seems like the Rail King streamliners are very similar in bulk to their heavyweights, which is what I was hoping for. The only measurement that I have any remaining worry about is the center distance of the trucks, which is just a little longer than on the heavyweights. There is just a little clearance to the switch machines on the O27 turnouts with the heavyweights, so I am hopeful that moving the trucks out that small amount (about 15 millimeters) is not a show-stopper. You wouldn’t have an O27 turnout (1122 or 5121-2) to check the clearance, would you?
I do have one modern era (mid 90’s) O27 manual right hand turnout installed on my old layout. Sorry, I don’t know the model number seeing as the switch base is covered with ballast. Anyhoo, I took the car and checked it against it and it barely cleared the indicator housing. So, I would assume that MTH made these cars compatable with the remote control versions, but I can’t say for sure. At any rate the clearance was 1mm or less between the side of the car and the brown plastic housing. Legthening the wheelbase would cause a derailment. BTW I also have the MTH RK Southern Crescent set with the heavyweights and they always cleared that switch with no problem.
Lucky for you I’m lazy! My old layout is scheduled for demolition and upgrade and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet! [(-D]
Becky
Thanks for checking. Mine are all remote-control; and they have a “panhandle” on the housing that looks like it comes a little closer to the track than the manual ones do. Does anyone else out there have a Rail King streamliner and a remote-control turnout to check it against? I’m probably going to have to buy these (if I do) sight unseen, since I haven’t had any luck at the train shows.