I picked up one of these cars on ebay a few days ago with another car I really wanted and for a great price. It’s Walthers #932-9061. They say it’s a Great Northern car built by AC&F for the Empire Builder.
My question is…did any other roads use this style or plan? It’s kinda fugly and I can’t find any info other than the description Walthers has on their site.
I will probably just use the basic car and apply some AMB, NKP or Brass Car Sides overlays for a car I can use on the N&W.
The car was built for Empire Builder service. There was seven cars and they provided food and lounge service for coach passengers. The cars were known as the “Ranch Cars”. There was a lunch counter that seated twelve as well as two four place tables. The balance of the car had lounge seats. The area behind the lunch counter was where the kitchen was located. On one side of the car there is a long blank area with no windows. This is where the kitchen & lunch counter were located. Usually the “Ranch Car” operated lounge front behind the last coach/dome coach. There was a door just past the lunch counter that separated the coach passengers from the Pullmans. The first Pullman operated next in the consist.
I personally like the GN and always thought it was a classy road. Beautiful steamers, great paint scheme on the diesels & passenger cars and I love Rocky on the freight cars.
However…with that said…I have no use for a GN specific car running on the Norfolk & Western in the 1950-57 era! As much as I’ve search the N&W photos, books, videos and from memory I can find ZERO GN cars in any train. I have seen, L&N, KCS, Southern, SAL, ACL, RF&P, Pullman, NYC and many Pennsy cars but no GN.
If you can find proof of any Ranch car running on any N&W train I’d be happy to paint my car as such and include it in one of my trains. However, the roof, underbody, ends and trucks would make a great place to add an AMB set of car sides for a D1 diner or PM coach that areboth pure N&W.
I’m betting on the car sides rather than the photo! LOL