Dear All,
I guess I have collected enough F3, F7 and Alco PA locomotives. Now it is the time to hunt cars. My fleet is mainly a passenger fleet of SantaFe and Lehigh Valley. I am trying to collect information on realistic trains without any considerable success.Assuming this has been clarified, the next step is the source of rolling stock. I am seeking realistic train compositions. It will be nice if I build accurate trins but I am ready and willing to compromise and enjoy a fleet of generic trains rather than giving an arm and a leg to have this particular car behind this particular locomotive. From what I could find Santa Fe F-units hauled streamlined cars. Lehigh Diesels hauled heavey weight cars. Apart from the very nice and very pricy Walthers streamlined units, I can find something I can use here and there, but when it comes to LV there is only the scarce Rivarosi sets at premium prices. Are there any other options?
Thanks in advance
Walid
khierFrom what I could find Santa Fe F-units hauled streamlined cars.
EVERY railroad used heavyweight cars. Some railroads used "streamlined cars" and some railroads used stainless steel cars.
The LV used mostly older heavyweight cars and had a very simple paint scheme.
The ATSF used alls sort of heavy weight and stainless cars and had passenger service right up until Amtrak.
You will have to paint your own for LV (Cornell red with gold lettering). Bethlehem Car Works sells lots of kits that could be used to make cars similar to what the LV had.
As far as consists go, the Santa Fe is really easy, Googled "Santa Fe passenger consists" and the first return was this site :
http://santafe.gmbus.com/1-2SanFranciscoChief/CONSIST1-2.htm
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Googling "Santa Fe passenger train book" came up with a number of hits of books written about Sante Fe passenger service. I'm sure many of them have info on consists of particular trains in different eras.
https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&biw=1280&bih=612&ei=YpF1XJuJHpu2jwT_mZeQDA&q=santa+fe+passenger+train+book&oq=santa+fe+passenger+train+book&gs_l=psy-ab.3...22035.23361..23664...0.0..0.218.1310.1j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71.NFruUXJLJmU
Passenger Train Journal magazine's first issue of 2017 (2017-1) had a cover story on Lehigh Valley passenger trains:
http://passengertrainjournal.com/passenger-trains-lehigh-valley/
The Anthracite Railroads Historical Society also has Lehigh Valley info:
http://www.anthraciterailroads.org/lvrr/lvrr-operations/passenger-train-schedules-consists/
I believe a number of books have been written on the Lehigh Valley also.
For freight train composition, look for videos of old LV and ATSF railfan film. These sometime have roll-by footage of complete trains. With some stop action on your DVD (or VHS even) you can pick out what other roads were represented in the train. If hi def enough, you can pick out specific car types, road numbers, etc.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
try fallen flags
As far as passenger consists on the Santa Fe are concerned, the source Dave mentioned
http://santafe.gmbus.com
actually provides a plethora of information. The site covers consists from the 40s to the 60s; the variety supports the idea that there is a prototype for nearly every possibility a model railroader can come up with.
There is a whole bunch of full-length Chicago-California streamliners (e.g., the different "Chiefs"), but if you like heavyweights, you can model the "Grand Canyon". Or if you just like head-end cars (baggage/express/RPO), there is the "Fast Mail". If you are limited in the length of your trains, there is the "Clovis-Carlsbad" connection, which early on had a baggage/coach/sleeper/sleeper composition (with the sleepers on through service from Chicago or Albuquerque), and later featured a doodlebug/observation car set-up. Perhaps the easiest Santa Fe passenger train to model would be the "Fast Mail" in September/October 1967, after the contract with the US Postal Service expired. It consisted of one heavyweight chair car, pulled by an ALCO PA.
Just doing some searching around for Lehigh Valley trains, this site looks interesting:
Heres a Google search for LV timetables:
https://tinyurl.com/y36chpw2
Heres part of an article in Passenger Train Journal:
Theres also the Lehigh Valley Historical Society:
http://lvrrhs.org/history/index.htm
I'm sure you'll find a lot more info on the ATSF by the links others have provided.
I was just trying to find a sampling of the info on the Lehigh Valley.
Mike.
My You Tube
There is a sense of comprimise with most any fleet of cars. That happened to me when I started out. It got tiring of chasing the shiny objects and now focus on the cars needed.
To help me firm up the N&W fleet, you might consider the HO swap site. There's someone buying/selling whatever reporting mark, car type, etc. you can imagine. I always bought 6+ cars to reduce the percentage of shipping. No need to pay $6-8+ shipping when you get 1-3 cars.
Thank you all for your input.
I did not know ATSF ran heavy weight trains with F3/7 units.
Regards
The Santa Fe was one of the first railroads to get into streamlined passenger cars in a big way, but yes their secondary (and tertiary) trains used the heavyweights through the 1950s and perhaps into the 60s, behind Fs and PAs. Indeed the PAs got demoted to lesser trains of the sort that would have heavyweight cars pretty early on.
The late Andy Sperandeo got into this in his article about his Cajon Pass layout in Model Railroad Planning for 2012. But as expert as Sperandeo was, the letters to Model Railroad Planning for 2013 corrected some of his assertions!
There is so much to learn about chronology and other details for each railroad. This is why joining a railroad's historical society is so important for modelers for whom this kind of accuracy is a priority.
Dave Nelson
Here is the link to a pic of the Santa Fe "Fast Mail" in fall 1967: An ALCO PA and heavyweight chair car 3001.
https://www.kshs.org/index.php?url=km/items/view/51180