Well, I am starting to build up what I have always wanted to model, and that is a NY Central Passenger Car Consist from the early 60’s. I grew up and saw many of these come through some of the local grade crossings as a young boy and I was always impressed with the speed and the handsome Engines.
I have recently purchased my Locomotives for this Consist and have gone with 2 Proto 2000 E-8’s with DCC and Sound.
Rolling stock behind these two is the issue right now. It looks like I am going to have to pick and choose between the new Rapido units, new Walthers Goldline, and if I can find them, a Con-Cor or two.
I have One Wathers Baggage car on my layout and I have two Rapido Train cars coming soon. The City of Albany Deluxe Sleeper, and one of the Lightweight Coaches. I know I will need more of the coaches and a dinning car also.
My question is on the Observation Car. I doubt that I can find or have the funds for a brass one, and I want to add a Tomar Drumhead kit for either the 20th Century Limited or the Pacemaker which Tomar makes. My question is, I want to have good quality and reliability in my consist, will a Con-Cor Observation Car work without too much effort “IF” I can find one?
I weighted my my Con Cor cars according to NMRA specs. I have long shank Kadees mounted on the car bodies. Since then I have no problems at all with those cars. An alternative if you can find one is the Rivarossi Budd observation car. It would need to be modified as the Con Cor car with weights and body mounted, long-shank Kadees. Also, if it had plastic wheel sets, I would change to metal.
NYC56, a bit off target re your timeline build for consist, but…
Went to Big-E/West Springfield, MA yesterday and asked owner of BLI who was in attendance about status of previously announced Dreyfus Streamlined Hudson. Apparently BLI is waiting until they have enough reservations in hand to justify approximate $400K investment in tooling for this new iteration of Hudson. Once sufficient reservations are in hand BLI will be more specific about production schedule. As a follow up I asked if response is favorable to this premier Hudson whether BLI would produce a passenger set for it per the California Zephyr and SP Daylight. He responded that is their thinking at the moment. He indicated as several posters on the forum have noted that the magnitude of response to Zephyr was a very pleasant surprise for the company.
Just thought you might want to save one or two slots in your consist for a BLI NYC 20th Century passenger issue. Again, the caveat is response to Drefus Hudson.
I am really trying to do this “right” the first time due to the costs involved. I figure my consist will be “representative” of the prototype but not exactly. I was looking over some of the consists listed for the 20th Century Limited, and in their heyday, they had some LONG trains.
I am figuring in on dinner car, an RPO or Baggage Car, one or two sleepers, 4 coaches, and then if I can find it and LIKE it, and Observation car to finish it out. I want all the cars to be lighted, and the OBS car to have a lighted drumhead on the end.
I am also planning a special display case to keep it away from the little hands that visit the house too.
This HAS to happen for me. I just found out today while searching for some E8 Pictures that a local Museum is buying the E8’s from the Tenessee Train Museum and these NYC E8’s will be here in about 60-90 days. Looks like I’ll need to join up and be a member at another Museum! LOL!
Here’s a thought for your NYC observation. I just received my Walthers February mail-order flyer in the mail today. On page 20 they are selling their Budd Tavern-Observation (NYC and some other roads) for Only $13.98. Now that’s a deal. If you want a NYC 1938 scheme P-S 10-5 sleeper they have one for $16.98.
Thanks for the tip. I probably need to make a trip down to Central Hobbies in Syracuse NY. Heard they make a bunch of NYC Passenger sides and kits to boot. Just recently picked up some hobby items to make things easier for me, new Tru-Color light for the workbench and a new magnifyer that seems like it will work just fine for me. Much better optics than the ones I used while soldering in the USAF.
You mention “kits”, and I see part kits but not a whole passenger car kit. Are you saying you need to get multiple PART kits to build a car up?
I think this is going to be a fun project and one that will test my modelling skills.
I’ve had an Empire State Express set that was jointly issued by Rivarossi/Concor for the 50th anniversary or its innaugural which was also the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. The cars were stainless steel Concor and the loco was a streamlined stainless steel trimmed Hudson by Rivarossi. Just yesterday I replaced the truck mounted couplers with body mounts. The gap between cars with the truck mounts was ridiculous, even more than is typical with train sets. They need weight as well. I don’t think the set is still available but Concor might still issue the cars.
One thing I have noticed about NYC trains from the 1950s and 1960s is that except for the premiere trains, they usually had a mixed consist of stainless steel and smoothsided gray livery cars. I have a book by one of the company photographers and he used to have arguments with the operations department about getting homogenous consists for photo shoots. Except for the 20th Century and Commodore Vanderbilt, little or no effort was made to make the consists photogenic. He even had a pic of a heavyweight RPO in a cosist of streamlined cars.
I would love to find a model of the boat tailed observation cars built for the original streamlined 20th Century but I don’t think they exist in anything other than brass.
I have seen a few of the BRASS cars and they are very nice, but too dear in price for my wallet. I have had a few good ideas from the folks here and I am going to make an effort to build this up.
By the way, What book or referrence did you mention? Is it worth looking around for this?
If you use the brass car sides, you’ll need a “core kit” to mount them on. This consists of a floor, ends, and a roof. The Train Station Products core kit is the best. Don’t bother with the ECW one–it’s junk. I used the TSP core kit as a base to mount my kitbashed PRR PS124 sleeper sides on. These sides, were made from sections of Rivarossi cars, rearranged to get the windows in the proper places.
BTW the Penn Central Historical Society sells a “May 1968 Passenger Car Directory” which lists many of the NYC cars still around at that time. Side and end drawings, as well as as a floor plan of each car class are provided…along with car numbers, names, etc.
Well, Last night I recieved my 2nd and 3rd cars for my consist. They are Rapido Cars, one Sleeper and one coach. I took them out and looked them over and the detail is incredible. I really thought they would have a little more heft to them.
Paint quality is very good with crisp lettering. There is a minute shade difference between my Walther RPO and these, but I think they all look good together. Just with one E-8 and these three cars hooked on, it looks so good. I really need to get my next layout made so I can really enjoy these on some wide sweeping curves. I was going to check out the lighting kit, but decided to wait until such time as I can run them in the proper way.
I am getting very excited about the way this is all coming together!
Walthers is selling a Con-Cor 72’ NYC observation car for $15.98, and it is in stock (223-973).
Check out my reply today to another post on how to convert the wheels and couplers on each car for another $6 per car. For $22 per car, you will be quite pleased.
Yep, I’ve looked at that one and I am just not sure about the overall quality of that unit.
The quality that I am looking for is someplace near the New Rapido Trains cars and the current Walthers Goldline cars. I really feel that if I am going to have an Observation Car at the end that I’ll have that one detailed with a Drum head kit and nice crisp paint. That car is nearly as important as the engines pulling the train in my book and I want to do it right, but not to the tune of a brass unit either.
My heart belongs to the “Century” too! I did lay out some $$$ for the Railway Classics “Sandy Creek” 5 db. lounge obs. Very Pricey and I’m one who is hoping Broadway Ltd. does the same thing for the '38 Century that they did for the California Zephyr! I’d be first in line for that!
Here’s my Sandy Creek at the bumping post of La Salle Street Station ready for departure. Got to get a 1:87 20th Century red carpet!
