Piecemeal passenger train assemblage... what have you cobbled up?

As you can probably tell from several of my posts... I have a tendency to like passenger consists... Hmmmm like the CalZephyr...

Aside from Kato' sets which have been available for many years... there have been individual cars made by various manufacturers since N scale began. There have been brass, wood or plastic parts to assemble your own too (if you had the skill and patience). I've seen several example of kitbashes and scratchbuilt consists over the past few years and thought it would be good to have a thread to show what can be accomplished... just in case Kato decides it doesn't want to persue further complete set releases (say it ain't so!!!).

A few years ago I decided to expand my passenger consist horizon... which included getting the Fox Valley Hiawatha last year... something I never expected to own when I got into N scale. I've been slowly collecting the individual cars for the Northern Pacific' North Coast Limited... from Intermountain Railway, Walthers, Wheels of Time and ConCor... which gives me a full consist; but not fully prototypical due to the 'artistic license' the manufacturers have taken. I recently finished an Illinois Central Panama Limited consist mostly of Intermountain Railway offerings from the past two years... again another set I'd never figured to own. I'm still working on the Southern Pacific/Rock Island Golden State set as well. Despite my complaints about Kato not having create X, Y or Z sets... life for N scale passenger enthusiasts has been good.

If you have any photos or videos of your consists which you'd like to share with us... post them here!

 

No Videos, or photos

But I finally have my ATSF Heavyweights, thanks to an estate sale where I picked up 22 Pecos River Brass ATSF heavyweight cars. I can also add the recent MT cars to outfit 2-3 trains.

I am working on some SRR passenger sets. I want the Crescent and the Tennesean at two sets each and possibly the NCL someday. I have an eager hunger for the NYC 20th Century Limited but I fear the moment I grab a bunch of the IM cars, Kato will release it.

 

I've built a 20 plus car replica of the Canadian Pacific "Dominion" utiizing cars from Riverrosi, Atlas, WOT, MT and some scratchbuilt stuff. I'm also 12 cars into a CN Super Continental, 9 cars into the CN Continental and 11 cars into a Great Northern Empire Builder in BSB....Yes, I have focus issues.....

Here's a link to the Dominion pictures.....

http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h463/Puddingtonvalley/The%20Canadian%20Pacific%20Dominion/

 

Jose,
I sure can sympathize with your dilemma. Passenger cars and moreso, sets are getting rare as hen's teeth, it seems. Just a few suggestions. Warrick in Ft Lauderdale has expanded, redesigned and revamped its train dept, and the last time I was there, loads of Kato passenger sets. No one else northward has anything to speck of.

Next, I am sure you checked the warehouse shop in OpaLocka, but if you haven't they always seem to have lots on hand.

Third, Deerfield is having its next train show and swap meet on November 5 at the Martin Luther King Park in Deerfield just east of I-95. I am on the hunt for older passenger cars from ConCor, Atlas and Rivarossi myself.

Fourth, Ken Sargeant is hosting his train show on November 20, and I am putting in a special request that you attend that one. I will be buying a table, health permitting, and selling off some stuff I will never use, but not selling any N at least for now. But his show is always large and chances are decent you may find something to your liking.

There is another show in December in Palm Beach Gardens which is very special because a father of a son lost to cancer throws a very good show once per year in his memory. I will provide more info as I get it. This is a large show, multi scale and getting larger every year. I am really looking forward to this one.

Last but not least, when I moved down here to south Florida in the mid fifties, FECRR still ran passenger trains, but by then, it was quite rare to see two passenger cars of the same roadname. Plus, I have lots of photos of the end of the steam era/beginning of dieselization with mixed trains behind them. With that in mind, I tend to run a mish mosh of passenger trains of varying roadnames, which I hope you may consider to tide you over until you get what you want.

What I do is to try to keep the passenger cars regionally matched, like not putting a SF car in a NYC consist, but thinking of some of the common stations they both served, it is remotely possible.

Right now, although I have a decent selection of passenger cars, I am still in a scrounge and forage mode when it comes to passenger trains. For example, I just sold a recently acquired N&W J because I deduced the N&W passenger cars were way beyond available.

Good luck, ask around, and continue your hunt. Remember the fun of the hunt and the anticipation is part of the fun of this scale and hobby.

Regards, to an old friend

Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman

 

Ken Sargeant's show is November 19.

 

Hello Ken,

Nice to hear from you again. Thanks for the heads-up on the South Florida train shows... they are a great place to find nice stuff at reasonable prices (most of the time ). Hope your health is improving... we can have all the trains we can afford... but... having our health is just as important.

This thread is actually about sharing photos and/or videos of passenger consists in action. Anyone that wants to share any special scratchbuilt items, such as Puddington' website posted above... and discussion about items they are looking for in particular.

I have an enormous collection of passenger equipment which sadly spends most of its time in boxes and shelves. I miss the model train club I used to belong to... it offered me at least a place to run my trains every so often. So Ken... if you set-up a passenger consist on your layout... take a picture and post it to this thread!

 

Using Con Cor, Kato and Rapido cars I have cobbled together a close representtion of the Great Northern Empire Builder. I also have a few additional cars which can be added for peak season service.

 

Since my era is late-steam I am slowly gathering together cars that will be fit for the era, MT Pullmans and parlor cars (the parlor cars to be rebuilt to coaches like the NYC's 2825 and 2842, which will be my lines' way of covering increased traffic as well as replacements for older coaches). MT's observation cars are going to be rebuilt into business cars for my lines (along with a few other types though I am unsure as of yet what I will use).

Head-end cars by WoT will be acquired soon and I am anxiously awaiting the MT single windowed coach, which will represent the older coaches on the line. Cars representing cafe - coaches will be rebuilt from either the parlor car or single-window coach as well, so as to provide limited food service for passengers.

Streamline cars from the N&W will also be a part of some consists since run-through cars will be operated, as would be possible.

 

I've been using brass car sides on a bunch of cars to do the BN executive train. Got about 13 cars, and most are either Kato or car sides on Con-cor "cores"

 

I have about 9 pecos river cars, I am always looking for more. The only issue I have with them are the trucks are not very free rolling. Without bolsters its not a snap to install either Wheels of time trucks or the new micro trains trucks. I am looking for the Pecos river brass tourist cars, I think they did both the 14 section and the 16 section cars. I'd also like to find a couple "Night" series 14 single bedroom cars that were used on the early Pioneer limited on the Milwaukee Road. I have built about 200 cars from Brass car sides, GHQ and Athabasca. In total I have about 300 passenger cars focused on the Milwaukee road in 1949. I have all of the Fox Valley 1935 cars (in the orange paint) still coming are the coach dorms etc.. I can nearly run the entire timetable... Still not finished.

Randy

 

I want to model the Santa Fe Texas Chief in the middle 1950s as it appeared at Galveston.
I have been collecting piece for my own set. Building the layout has taken precedence over building the consist, I'm afraid.
But this is my "set," NOT ready-provided from any one manufacturer. The train is all corrugated lightweight stainless steel.

F7 ABBA I have these diesels from Minitrix, Bachmann, and Arnold Rapido.

full RPO 60' corrugated Arnold Rapido #5222

Baggage-Express 70’ LW 3 different brass car sides on hand (all are actually Cal Zephyr prototoype)

Coach(Partition required by Texas' "Jim Crow" segregation law)LW Union Station #7504 car sides (unbuilt)

2 Coaches LW _JnJ #045 brass sides for 44-seat coach on Concor shell (built!)
_Concor #420101 Budd coach on hand

Diner LW JNJ #030 brass car sides hand (unbuilt)

Lounge-Dorm LW Atlas (Rivarossi) Coach on hand for bash

Sleeper LW 4-4-2 "Regal" Rowa 10-6 resembles externally

Sleeper LW 10-3-2 "Blue" JNJ brass car sides #035 (unbuilt)

 

I'm trying to put together a later Sunset Limited, but the lack of SDP35's puts a crimp on the whole thing. Every time someone releases SP cars in the red stripe scheme, I pick some up.

 

Here's a few of the Great Northern BSB Empire Builder/Winnipeger cars I've built...These, with the exception of the Obseravtion car (which is a foobie, it never got BSB paint....) are brass side cars I've built.

 

Here's a picture of my coffee table. When the new Intermountain dining cars arrived last week, I quickly assembled a bunch of my car collections to see where I am in collecting the entire train.

The train closest to the front is the Shasta Daylight using mostly Intermountain cars. I bought another Kato Daylight set so I could steal the Observation car and Lounge car for this train. The rest of the cars went to the San Joaquin Daylight (3rd train from bottom). There is a baggage RPO in front that is not correct, but it looks good and I have correct replacement sides for the Shasta Daylight that just fit this car.

The next train is my Golden State - again using a lot of Intermountain cars (I bought 2 of the new Intermountain diners so I could have a Coffee Shop as well as a Diner. I have correct sides for the real car as well as a couple of SP Cpachs and Sleeper that were found on the original train. The Atlas/Riverossi Combine, Coachs and Observation were real finds cause they are prototypical for the Golden State. It was tough to find a paint that matched the Intermountain cars, but my wife found a bottle that seems a good match. Its an acrylic craft paint so I'm not sure how good it is. We'll see. The train will be set in 1954 when they had just started to go to the General Service type scheme.

Next train up is my San Joaquin Daylight using the rest of the cars stolen from my spare Kato Daylight set. I have an Wheels of Time Harriman Baggage that will get repainted in Daylight to make up a fairly accurate consist.

Next up is the beginnings of The Overland set about 1952 when UP still had grey cars and was going to grey/yellow.

Above that is a pretty good City of San Francisco utilizing the new Intermountain COSF Diner.

At the very top is the start of the SP's Owl, the only name train I ever actually rode on back in the day.

There is a lot of work to be done. I am also working on the earlier single level El Capitan and bought an extra Kato El Capitan and Bachmann Big Dome so I could run the San Francisco Chief. Con Cors new Santa Fe Coachs really help thiese trains.

On top of the great sets that Kato does along with the FVM Hiawatha, N guage is very good to passenger modelers.

Gerry

 

Now that I am sure the picture post feature works for me, I'll attach a couple of other views of the same collection.

Gerry

 

Ya know Russell; I might just surrender right here and now.................unreal work kind sir............

 

wow that is a nice group of lineups r_i , was that Daylight photo taken in real daylight? Its hard to tell if that its not a real train :tb-cool:

 

David, that's a good find. Unfortunately, they are heavy and roll like sleds. I've replaced the trucks on many with MT trucks and 36" Fox Valley wheels and they now are excellent performers. Just a thought....
BTW, if you're interested in some PRB ATSF car horsetrading, PM me pls.
Have fun, Otto