A question for all the passenger car gurus. What do the numbers mean at the beginning of the description mean? Example: '10-1 open-end observation car.
Thanks
Here’s a quote from some of the text at Utah Rails . net
http://utahrails.net/pass/pass-pullman.php
Pullman Accomodations
What do the numbers (4-4-2, 10-6, etc.) used to describe a sleeper designate? I know it’s berths, seats and lounges, but which number means what? (Doug Wetherhold, January 16, 2011)
A 4-4-2 car was four compartments, four double bedroom, two drawing rooms. A 10-6 car was ten roomettes and six double bedrooms.
Generally, the least expensive accomodation was listed first, and the most expensive was listed last. In the 4-4-2 example above, the 4 compartments were cheaper than the 4 double bedrooms, which in-turn were cheaper than the 2 drawing rooms.
Most of the time, designating least to most expensive was the rule. An exception would be the 6-4-6 Pullmans, also known as the “S” series, with similar cars going to both Canadian and American roads including the famous “National” series on the UP. They were six sections, four double bedrooms, six roomettes (6-4-6) cars (most expensive listed first, least expensive listed last). This may have been done to avoid confusion with the existing 6-6-4 cars, which were mostly pre-war cars with the “open potties” in the bedrooms.
A three digit designation was not always a compartment-bedroom-drawing room configuration, and a two digit was not always a roomette-bedroom configuration. Railroads h
What he said! ^^^^^^^^
To add a bit to this, an “open section” had an upper bunk that folded down, and the two facing seats below it folded down to make another bunk. Curtains provided privacy, and there were restrooms at either end of the car:
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/classic/CARdwgs4.html
I found some information on PRR HO Passenger cars from the Keystone Crossings:
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I know this is old…But…IMHP, an HO passenger consist doesn’t have to be 1 manufacturer. For that matter the cars can be light weight and heavywieghts mixed. Both of these things do or did exist in 1:1 scale![2c]
I never understood why Walthers advertises them to run on 22/24" curves. Just seems dishonest to me.
I believe Walthers gives 24" as the minimum radius, but it seems like most folks find they need to do some modifications to make them work on that radius.
One thing that has changed since the original post (2017) is that ebay and other sites now have several sellers who make inexpensive drop-in one piece interiors for the Athearn and AHM/Rivarossi cars.
It can be interesting to read my 6 year old responses to these old threads.
Well, that is not going to happen. My Rivarossi Heavyweight train will be built as planned, and no brass replacement of Lambert cars will be purchased.
That is still the same.
-Kevin
It IS interesting to see old threads, because sometimes you realize there are things the OP asked that you’d now answer in a different way- so here goes.
The answer to the original question is “nobody.” Which is to say, nobody makes models of early heavyweights, unless the model is of an early heavyweight as rebuilt to conform to later practice.
Pullman converted its passenger car production between 1907 and 1910, in part to accommodate the enormous change that would be required by the construction of Penn Station in New York (PRR planned to ban wooden cars in the approach tunnels, and I think NYC intended to do the same thing in the new Grand Central, both of which were then under construction).
Pullman therefore developed a new steel car system, both for its customers and its own sleeping car business. Interestingly, the early Pullman system did not use flat plates for the sides of the cars below the belt rail. Instead, they incorporated a system that made the lower side of the car look as if it was sheathed in verticAl strips, so it looks superficially like a wood car. It’s not 100 percent clear how this was done; John White’s book on passenger cars says the pattern was pressed into steel sheets and was only a brief experiment, but Robert Reed’s “Train Wrecks” shows a pictures of such a Pullman car after a sideswipe (page 113, if you have it), and it’s pretty clear from the damage pattern that the metal stripping under the belt line is individually applied, and not a single pressed sheet of steel.
The window and fascia board design on these early heavyweights was visually very distinct from later cars. They often retained the upper transom window and the narrow fascia board of the last wooden cars. I know of only one example that survives, WM business car 203 at the RR Museum of PA, built by Pullman in 1914 (Whits suggests the practice stopped in 1912). I have examined it, and the sheathe
My top choice for heavyweight passenger cars are Branchline RTR. I mentioned 6 years ago that I became frustrated with the kit built Branchline and it remained unfinished. That’s still true. My second choice would be using Rivarossi cars as a starting point and upgrading them with new wheelsets, body mounted KDs, interiors, and maybe even lighting. I know they are generic and not railroad specific but being a freelancer, prototype fidelity is a low priority with me. Walthers cars look good but perform terribly without serious tweaking. Bachmann (at least back then) were even worse. I’ve noticed their new line of passenger cars are top of line price wise but I have no idea if the quality has improved with the price. Maybe somebody who has bought their current line can weigh in.
I like the Branchline cars, both the early ones and the ones after Atlas bought the line. They have nice detail and even though they are not as short as the classic Athearn shorties they navigate my 24" curves with no problem. Whether they look sufficiently prototype on such tight curves is a subjective matter, but they don’t come off the track. I have one or two Bachmann Spectrum cars, too, which also perform wonderfully and have nice detail. The only heavyweight passenger car that has given me problems is an old AHM blue-and-yellow box baggage car, whose wobble I complained about vociferously in the forum here but have so far been unable to remedy.
[tried to embed a video on my Google Drive page here but it didn’t work. Here’s the link:]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p-sJ08R_yakKzvoBVFs5A7vZ0ZwGHmPP/view?usp=drive_link
-Matt
Have you tried Kadee 33" wheels in your Rivarossi trucks, Matt?
Rivarossi-old by Edmund, on Flickr
The original pizza-cutter wheels are indeed awful.
Rivarossi-gauge by Edmund, on Flickr
Kadee wheelsets snap in easily. A little graphite (I use molybdenum disulfide) in the cone helps. You may have to tweak the brake shoes a little.
Rivarossi-truck by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
Hi Ed, my trucks don’t look like that at all. Those look solid, mine are plastic, and I think nowhere near as old. They have a plastic, friction-mounted pin. I was given a link (by a very friendly and helpful vendor at a train show who heard me whining) that turned out to be a link to a post on this forum about how to fix AHM/Rivarossi passenger cars so they don’t wobble, don’t uncouple, and don’t derail. I haven’t gotten around to revisiting the issue, but I glanced at the thread when he sent the link a while ago and I have a feeling you yourself may have weighed in on that thread.
Anyway, thanks. I do love Kadee products. Not sure my wobble comes from the wheels. It seems to be how the trucks are mounted to the underframe, and everything I tried failed, even shimming under the coupler and adding proper weight inside the cars. I’ll have to go back and revisit all that, but I don’t want to steal any more time from this thread’s very simple survey question.
-Matt
These are the later version of Rivarossi truck on their ‘shorty’ heavyweights:
Rivarossi Truck by Edmund, on Flickr
IMG_8037_fix by Edmund, on Flickr
Is that the style truck you have and is the wobble caused by a loose-fitting bolster screw?
Regards, Ed
“Rivarossi” can be a bit confusing, because the 1960s-90s AHM / Rivarossi cars really have nothing in common with the later Rivarossi / Hornby / Walthers 60’ cars (which are based on actual 60’ C&NW cars).
Note that Athearn heavyweight Baggage, RPO and Coach cars are not “shorties”. In heavyweight days coaches were generally around 70’ long, like the Athearn car, head-end cars like RPO and Baggage cars were normally 60’-70’ long, again like the Athearn models.
My apologies for the confusion, guys. @Ed, I think my car is not an AHM but an IHC. Here’s my original post from a year or so ago.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/290810.aspx
Again, sorry for highjacking an already necromanced thread.
-Matt
From everything I’ve ever read, seen or heard, whether or not there may be other causes for car wobble, the monster flanges on the so-called ‘pizza cutter’ wheels will either create new or exacerbate existing problems.
My first step in avoiding such problems, particularly for older cars I’m attempting to upgrade to play well with others, is to immediately swap off the pizza cutters. The junked pizza cutter wheelsets end up parked on a maintenance facility flatcar or in a pile in some yard, sufficiently rusted to make overlooking their poor appearance easy. Without doing that as a first step, I’ve found that all the other fixing I try to do never has the desired full effect. If changing out the old wheels seems to necessitate installing entirely new trucks, I can still use these old prizes on my layout to populate static scenes while final fixes await my budget catching up. I’m a lifetime subscriber to the old adage that some car is better than no car, so nothing goes to waste even if I have to wait to get it up and running. Some of the old cars, even the cheapos, can be really handsome with a little TLC.