Some really good insights above! This spurred further discoveries such as kit-bashing N Scale circa 1950s subway cars for apx. $60.00 each. For example...
[1] Car Shell -- Island Modelworks: (1948) NYC R12 (needs 17m class chassis).
[2] Motorized Chassis -- Plaza Japan. Also see Tomix at Trainweb.
Island Modelworks has a much larger car shell selection for HO Scale or O Scale, and; Plaza Japan for N Scale has many more subway cars & bullet prototypes for post-1960s traction modeling.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Hi -
For info on the Chicago "L", subways and freight service, see the website www.chicago-l.org
Has photos of the classes of cars running, roster and assignment info, details on lines/stations and other facilities.
In general in the early 1950s, the CTA had only a few modern PCC-type rapid transit cars in service - the four 5000-series articulateds and the first 130/200 (depending on the exact timeframe you have in mind) 6000-series married-pair PCCs. There were the 455 Cincinnati-built 4000 series steel cars - 205 with poles from 1922-24, 250 with only third rail shoes from 1914, and a host of older wood-steel cars which had come from the predecessor companies. As the 50s progressed, this balance shifted; 270 more 6000s started coming in 1954; with additional deliveries in the later 50s. By early December of 1957, with the abandonment of the Kenwood and Stockyards Branches, all wood-steel cars had been retired. So the fleet was composed of only the 4000, 5000 and 6000 series cars.
Many of the wood-steel passenger cars went into work service, and there were some specialty cars, built for work service as well. The two steeplecabs that handled the freight service mentioned in the previous post had come to the CRT in 1920.
Hope this helps,
Art
Completely unprototypical of course, but London's subway (or more properly the Underground) does have battery operated locomotives for work train service when the power was off. Perhaps scratchbuilding a freelanced American version would be a fun project.
There was an item in Classic Trains about freight movements on a very small portion of the Chicago Elevated.
Kevin
The Maroon R17s were built in 1955.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Check out this link for NYC subway cars,
www.nycsubway.org/cars/nytm.html
Plenty of pictures, original drawings and built dates.
Absolutely no RDCs on NYC subways. The MTA did have specially designed diesel engines for use in the system but these were for work trains and usually used during the overnight period. I was caught several times sharing a platform with one in lower Manhattan in the 1970s. Not a pleasant breathing experience. Remember the subway system has extremely tight clearances in both height and width. I think the RDC units would have been too long and too high to make it through the system.
Good Luck
John R
John R.
The green Walthers cars are dead ringers for the cars that replaced the old clerestory roofed cars on the NY Transit Authority IRT lines in the early 1950s. They even have the right signage! - assuming that you're modeling the Lexington Avenue local/East Bronx route from Brooklyn Bridge to Pelham Bay Park. I rode them almost every weekday from 1952 to 1955.
How close they are to other system's cars is a ??? They don't even resemble the (much larger) BMT and IND cars from the same era.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I sort of doubt that RDC's would be running in a subway. Each RDC has two diesel engines that will stink up the subway, and they will stop running if there is not enough oxygen for them. Most subway trains have electric cars powered via a 3rd rail. The Walthers P1K cars are a good choice, but I am not sure if they are 50's or later cars.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
After the resurgence of the HO Scale Subway... -- Adding a subway division to the free-lanced CR&T's upper level (N Scale circa 1956) apx. 48" from the floor is doable.
Two neat YouTubes: Mister Beasley's A-Train and SubwayFX's 10-min. Tour.
Other than Budd RDCs -- What what other subway motive power was running in the decade of the 1950s? Also, subway prototypes, subway stations, etc.?