Passenger Cars 2021

[bob turner]

Here is another Mac Shops car:

[sleepmac]

Bob, some fine photos of your passenger cars.

Dan Weinhold

[R.K. Maroon]

It seems like this thread has been around the block and then some since I posted the GM&O observation car, which is the last of the cars in the original heavyweight consist. I find it is usually quite a challenge to find other cars to add to a set, as there are several things you are trying to match. It's not enough just to find a model of a suitable prototype, but you are also hoping that the finish on the cars is compatible and that the new car or cars "plays well" together. Additionally, and this might be subject to some debate, I find it's best to match the quality level of the car as well. Sticking a new factory-painted brass import into a string of built kit cars often (usually?) just doesn't look right to me.

At any rate, I always jump at the chance to add more coaches and sleepers to a "one of each type" consist if appropriate. I have also learned from my brother that it's OK to break up what one might call "the Lionel look" and mix paint schemes or car styles, again where there is some prototypical justification for doing so. Bottom line, here is a streamlined coach that I found as an add-in to the consist:



Appropriately enough, this is a Walthers kit, same make as the heavyweights. The general design of these kits gets few accolades, in part because the end of the roof is part of the end of the car -- the white-metal end casting comes up to the bottom of the roof. Ugh! I am biased, but I would say a good build and a good paint job goes a long way here.

Jim

[De Bruin]

First the comments - I want to post this $75 K-Line car as an example of a pretty good deal, and also to show you my interesting sand-cast UP trucks.

Notes on the above - the vestibule door bottom is below the lower red stripe, as before. I have strings of B&O, UP, GN, some PRR and California Zephyr all in K-Line 21".

Yeah Bob, no denying that is a nice car and apparently not all the K-Lines have that floor height issue I described. I saw a Prospector set this weekend at the Piedmont Show in Cartersville that had the same design as this B&O pair I copied off an Ebay listing. Floors and doors are lower and roughly even with each other.


Only nits I’ll pick on these are the short factory trucks and the plastic underbody insert, nice looking cars regardless. Speaking of trucks, the cast trucks on your UP coach are fabulous, I’m sure Maroon would love to a have some for his 1940 era COLA

[up148]

Here is another Mac Shops car:

Ann interesting car that Wasatch never offered back in the day. Roger is now offering some of these last built UP cars, along with taking over the CZ train from KEY. I hope he does fantastic and if anyone can pull it off it will be Roger, but $1500 passenger cars could be a tough sell these days.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.

[E7]

Not for the faint of heart or the weak of wallet!

I think I saw somewhere (maybe an old Key ad) that mentioned 13 cars and the diesels. It was a photo and I think the power was an A,B,B,A!

That poses another problem apart from finances. With Key out, where does the motive power come from if you don't have it already?

Maybe they should offer it with an Allegheny or a Big Boy up front!

[bob turner]

Mine are currently in the station behind UP PA-PB-PA. Seems pretty adequate, although I have to replace a bunch of split sockets to get them out of the station.

[De Bruin]

....Walthers kit, same make as the heavyweights. The general design of these kits gets few accolades, in part because the end of the roof is part of the end of the car -- the white-metal end casting comes up to the bottom of the roof. Ugh!...Jim

The other (non-Milw Rd) 485# series lightweights offered by Walthers suffered for the lack of an end plate as well. Three different sleepers, a diner, lounge, and observation, RPO and a baggage combine as well as Jim's coach which is a #4853 and somewhat enigmatic in that its window plan does not match any long distance coach I'm aware of, though is pretty close to the PS post war NYC and LI MU's.(!)

This one was free-lanced as an SP car, done about the time (early nineties) I discovered that the old BC-M end plates really improved the looks of any PS kit, opinion but certainly a big step up from the stock Walthers or all the other builders variations having Lionel end caps.

[ScaleCraft]

A lot of ends I can live with...except those stupid plain bent metal Kasiner ends. Geez, what uselessness!
You don't like Lionel ends....but that fixes the Kasiner cars easy. Vestibule side doors and all.
Especially if they're shorties destined for a 3-rail pike.

[steamaheadstephen59]

[url][/url]Kline Rio Grand Observation Car I really like this one https://photos.app.goo.gl/kHYvFh3ut9dPGKGq8 cant find the address for the photo, Im working on a Mac maybe thats the difference. I might have to try Bob's hosting site.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.

[De Bruin]

Here is another Mac Shops car:

Concur with Dan and Butch, this an interesting car, has me wondering what you (or Butch who definitely keeps track of these things) know about the plan. It appears to be a fully fluted 3000 series Mac shops car (in the yellow COSF scheme) but what I'm seeing here is the aisle side of what I assume is a sleeper? What's does the other side look like? Is there a series name?

I love MAC shops, they almost always matched Budd's plan.

[bob turner]

I can look. You have to understand, I cut my own, and often there is artistic license. This one, like many of my cars, may be 79' long - uncommon for Budd.

[De Bruin]

Custom cut then, that explains that, thanks. I have a bunch of full length Weitzel amfleet extrusions I would like to mill windows for, either as Metroliners or Amfleets, something I “put off to retirement” but now seems even less likely to get done.


Apropos to your Armour yellow fleet, an Athearn double door done up as a UP 50’ express.


I love head end cars, especially modern postwar versions and have quite a few, couldn’t resist this one either, off of Ebay for cheap as it had damaged (caved-in) doors, which I have pulled out though a little more work and some paint touch up is still needed. I think the trucks and the decal job were the clinchers for me on this one.