Amtrak

[Anonymous]

How much is enought for a Amrak tain carsm trying to figure out how many will look good as a one amtrak train with the cars.

[Anonymous]

Depends on how much you are willing to compromise.

I use at least one observation car, one dome and one coach (three of my Athern cars) on commuter movements. I use all these and a diner and a baggage car on scheduled intra city service. I throw in a combine and a sleeper for longer trips. I wish I had another coach or two and another sleeper. I also have a MHC which I add now and then. Oh, whenever I use more than five cars, I use two engines.

If you want to model a specific train, you will have to look at that train; for example, if you model the Auto Train you will need at least five full dome lounge cars and five Amtrak autoracks with a few baggage cars and a MHC or two and probably a diner and some sleepers.

Hope this helps. - Ed

[Anonymous]

If it's HO, careful.
Some of the Amtrak Walther Cars require 24" radius
curves.
Listings in MR by Trainworld @ a discount.
Hope this is what you mean.

[Anonymous]

The Amtrak PASSENGER train that roles past my neighbourhood twice a day has a consist of

[Anonymous]

OK, Let's try this again.........Amtrak comes trough my neighbourhood twice a day in this order .......two engines, usually 5 or 6 Amtrak box cars, 5 to 7 passenger cars with the dinner, then a string of 8 to 15 of the semi-trailers on rail wheels. Not the most glamerous looking train consist, but it's the real deal......Jamie

[dknelson]

There is a wide variety of Amtrak consists.
The cross country trains resemble what Jamie sees. There are shorter runs. And between Chicago and Milwaukee we have trains of three to four Horizon cars, sometimes with an Amfleet car mixed in, with Genesis engines on either end, or a Genesis on one end and a "dummy" F40 on the other. In the earlier days of Amtrak this same run used 2 former C&NW bi-level commuter coaches -- the same kind Walthers is about to introduce in HO
Dave

[Anonymous]

At my local club I'm a huge Amtrak fan so I have 2 consists of completly different orrigin. #1. An athearn version with a FP 54 and two of all the athearn cars excluding the RPO and the observation. Common show visitors think that is cool and can't tell that it never ran in real life. #2. A protipical train with two P42 locos and a full line of walther Superliners in Phase three with a few MHCs and a few roadrailers at the end.

[BR60103]

The Toronto-Chicago train (International) usually has one locomotive and 4 cars.
Loco used to be F40, was something else, and is now a Genesis P42. The cars are now usually Horizon/Amfleet but we have had times where they were superliners. There's usually one cafe/custom coach.
The Toronto-New York train was Amfleet last time I saw it, about six cars, last one a cafe. Loco used to be F40, now I think it is P42.
David

[Anonymous]

Is there a place where I can get a Amtrak engine for a really good price andn not break the back? Thank You.

Mike

[Anonymous]

What do you consider a good price? I bought a Spectrum (Bachman line I think) and a Walthers (both HO Scale). Less than $100 each and I am happy with both.

Ed

[Anonymous]

LESS- under $30.00 :)

[Anonymous]

I find that, as far as single-level equipment is concerned, 3 or 5 passenger cars behind a single locomotive look good.
If you're doing single level, for a long-distance run, a sleeper and 2 coaches (3 cars), or two sleepers and three coaches (5 cars) should do the trick. I read somewhere that an odd number of cars looks better to the eye, and I found that to be true.

For the Superliners, because of their size, I think that 5 is the minimum you need for a good looking train.

As for the motive power, you can get an P40/42 ($30-70), F59PHI ($50-70), F40PH ($40-80), AEM-7 electric ($80-100), or an E60 electric if you can find it somewhere (I bought mine on eBay for $30).

If you like kitbashing, you can get a Jouef French BB36000 ($150-200), and kitbash it into a passable HHP-8 electric (the prototype HHP-8 is a close derivative of the prototype BB36000).