I'm gravitating to a mid-70s time period for my layout. Northeastern region. I already have a few Conrail locomotives, a GP9 and an SW1500, working a brewery built on an Inglenook puzzle track plan. I'm planning on joining a club that puts together a big modular layout, and I was going to run a local freight job and, for some unique variety, an early Amtrak regional. I can get the E8 from BLI, but heritage coaches in phase I seems to be the sticking point. Any tips?
Have you looked at Walthers? Seems like I saw some recently. Look at MicroMark also. Don't forget ebay as well.
Walthers, has many possible passenger cars for 1976 era Amtrak. The Amfleet coaches were just coming on line, and many trains were still steam heated lightweight cars, mostly Budd, but also PS and ACF builds. Check out Walthers monthly sale books, and Search Trainworld's site for what may be available. Another consideration is your available space. What sort of curves can you handle within the space you will utilize for your layout? If you can go at least 28" radius or larger go with the full length car, if your curves are tighter consider the 72' cars offered by Athearn and Concor.
Using this photo as an example, It looks like the Walther sleeper car here would be closest to what's in the photo above. Would that be accurate for a 1976-ish Empire Service?
Bachman also has the amfleet cars. Model power has the old heritage cars. Just need to change out couplers. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
I stripped out a pile of Athearn Heritage cars a while back. Picked them up cheap, strip, repaint and reletter for what I wanted. Look into Athearn for at least some variation. Lord knows Heritage cars had variation in Amtrak use.
The mid-1970's was pretty much all heritiage equipment Amtrak inherited from the varous railroads that contributed engines and passenger cars. None of the cookie cutter stuff started appearing until the end of the 70's. The new SDP40F loco's began appearing in the mid-1970's but I'm not familiar with the northeast. Some people who are "in the know" say it is only a matter of time until Athearn announces an SDP40F that they reportedly are tooling up. I know I'll be on the hook for at least two if they do! I road behind them in 1976 on the San Francisco Zephyr, both east and west bound between Sacramento and Denver CO, and between Osceoloa IA and Sacramento.
Amfleet I cars (two doors, smaller windows) were ordered at the same time the SDP40F and E60 were ordered. They started showing up in 1978. Amfleet II cars came in the 1981-1983 timeframe. JMS
The "Heritage" Amtrak train I ha is mostly made up of Con-Cor 85 foot passenger cars. The train is fourteen cars long after adding a Walrhwes GN/BN full dome lounge car. A A-B-A set of EMD F7's pull it
Don't forget that Amtrak obtained a bunch of GG1 locos from PennCentral, and used them between Harrisburg, Washington DC, and New York Penn Station throughout the 1970s.
Before Amtrak began painting the original cars in Amtrak stripes the cars on the Santa Fe San Diegans came from every other RR. So that train became the "Rainbow" train. >