Blue Comet Dellima

[Cheese]

Hey Y'all,

I've got a Blue Comet Dellima. You see, I want an MTH Railking Blue Comet 4-6-2. However, I can't decide weather I want the Lionel MPC Coaches, The MTH Coaches, or the Williams Madisons.

The Williams cars have been ruled out, so no go for them. I want to have the longest Blue Comet, without repeating names and numbers, possible. I know the Lionel Blue Comet has several, but does MTH?

How many cars were in the Lionel set, and how many has MTH offered?

Cheese

[dwiemer]

You may be better served by sticking to one brand as paints tend to differ.  If I were looking at a long consist of the Blue Comet, I would probably get a few of each coach and then carefully renumber and rename the duplicate cars verses trying to use other brands.

Dennis

[Cheese]

Sounds Good,

I think I'll stick with MTH coaches, but I'm not to fond of the short 0-27 Heavyweights. I think I saw that they made a Railking Heavyweights that are the size of Madison Cars. Am I right?

Cheese

 

[steinmike]

Cheese:

I have an MPC "Baby Pullman" Blue Comet with six cars: Baggage, Combine, two Coaches, Observation, and add-on diner Giaccobini.  I also have some of the Railking PRR Madisons and looking at the two designs, side by side, the Railking cars look too obviously shortened to my eye while the MPC cars, although smaller, have a more proportional appearance.

I was just skimming through an old copy of the "The Seashore's Finest Train: The Blue Comet" by Joel Rosenbaum and Tom Gallo (Railpace, Inc. 1983) and it looks as though a standard consist for the Blue Comet was between six and eight cars (there was only the one diner) and that the Jersey Central sometimes included standard "Pullman Green" cars (coaches and baggage cars) in the consist as needed.  One advantage of going with the MPC set is that you probably find some older cars around that you can re-paint to add a couple of standard cars to the set.

It also looks like the Jersey Central used a number of different locomotives on the "Comet" in addition to Pacific's 831, 832, and 833 which were painted in the Packard Blue / Royal Blue paint scheme.  Additional locomotives included Pacific 834 which the book states was painted Olive Green and Pacific 835 which was painted black, as well as Camelbacks when none of the Pacifics was available.

I run my Comet set behind a repainted K-Line Pacific (black with CNJ circle logo on the tender) which runs well and looks great with the MPC cars.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[Cheese]

Hmmm,

Since I fancy myself as a collector, I am going to buy the MTH Set and add on cars as well as the MPC Blue Comet and Engine, seeing as I have wanted the MPC since I first saw it. I like that the MTH is a Pacific like the Real One, and it has ProtoSound, so I'm getting that first.

Cheese

[Fred Bear]

If you are going after a Blue Comet, I can vouch for the 263E by MTH. Bought this engine with the proper tender. Had Proto 2 and runs flawlessly. Jake

[Cheese]

Yes,

I like it, but I'm not a tinplate guy. The Railking Blue Comet suits me better, seeing as its a 4-6-2 and very close to the prototype, even though its not scale.

Cheese