Which Passenger Cars to Use

[ALEX WARSHAL]

This website might help you: http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/passenger.htm

I has the NYC passenger car roster.

-Alex

[wabash2800]

True, the New York Central K-11 Pacifics were built with (relatively) smaller 69" drivers for freight service but fast freight like in reefer trains on the West Shore. In my second book I'm working on, the "Fort Wayne & Jackson Railroad Company", they were occasionally used on frieght and as a back up for the gas electric (with trailer car) on the Fort Wayne Branch. I promise a few photos of this class in action on the Fort Wayne & Jackson.

Victor A. Baird

www.erstwhilepublications.com

[wjstix]

The OP doesn't list an era, but NYC got passenger E-units in 1945, so maybe he could get one of them for passenger trains and use the Mike for freight. BLI even makes sound-equipped N scale E-units now.

Oddly enough, NYC had some 4-6-2 Pacifics that were designed and built to be freight engines.

[PJM20]

wabash2800

Now, if you could get your hands on an N Scale  NYC Hudson or Pacific...

The NYC J3s have been made: http://www.spookshow.net/ccj3a.html Not 21st Century detail, but still pretty good, and the Kato made version runs well.

[wabash2800]

Yup, since this a protoype modeling board, you asked:

It's a freight engine. The only reason it would be on a passenger train would be on a special movement or for ferrying cars from one location to another, which might have never happened if at all. It's doubtful it would have even have had a steam line to connect to the rest of the train.

Now, if you could get your hands on an N Scale  NYC Hudson or Pacific...

 

[PJM20]

Micro Trains makes Pullman heavyweights, and Intermountain/Centralia and Walthers make good lightweight cars. Concor and other companies toolings are nice, but old and lack detail found on modern tooling.

[wjstix]

NYC used heavyweight cars, painted Pullman green, in the 1920's. In 1938 it bought it's first streamlined cars, to go along with their newly streamlined Hudsons. These cars were two-tone gray, with a dark gray band going through the window area, and the areas above and below being light gray. About 10 years later, this was reversed, so the light gray was through the windows and the dark gray above and below. A few heavyweight cars may have been repainted into the first scheme, and a fair number were painted in the later two-tone scheme in the fifties.

In Dec. 1941, NYC introduced the streamlined Empire State Express, which used fluted-side stainless steel cars.

Through the forties, the railroad tried to keep the same type of cars on the different trains, but by the early fifties they started to wander. By say 1955 you could see a passenger train on NYC with Pullman green heavyweight cars, two-tone gray streamlined cars, with a few stainless-steel cars all mixed together.

[ACY Tom]

Kato's N scale Mikado represents a USRA heavy 2-8-2.  There were 30 class H-9a,b,c, and d engines assigned to the NYC's Pittsburgh & Lake Erie and Pittsburgh McKeesport & Youghiogheny RR's in the Pittsburgh area.  New York Central also had 195 class H-6a USRA light 2-8-2's which had a smaller boiler, but similar overall architecture.  These could be found on many NYC lines, system-wide.  Both classes were introduced in the 1918-1920 time period, and remained in service until dieselization in the 1950's.

Heavyweight passenger cars were the standard at the time these engines were introduced, and heavyweights remained in service into the 1950's.  Lightweight, streamlined equipment began to appear before WWII, so both heavyweight and lightweight equipment operated concurrently with these engines.

It should be noted that these, and most other, Mikados were generally considered to be freight engines.  This is mostly due to their relatively small drivers, which restricted their speed.  No rule says you have to be bound by that, however. 

Tom 

[BATMAN]

There are old NYC videos on You-Tube. Another place to look is Google images. In my case, I model Canadian Pacific and had the same question a few years back. The end result after researching articles and photo's online was, other than photo op's for the railroad the trains could quite often be a dogs breakfast of old and new. Occasionally in these old movies and pic's you will see things in the train that really look out of place.

[KisNap]

Hi Everyone,

I have a Kato Mikado New York Central engine and I was wondering what type of passenger cars it was used to pull.  I have some short passenger cars made by Bachmann, but I don't really like them.  Would the Mikado be used to pull heavy weights or smooth sided cars or did they come after the Mikado was retired?  Thanks.