COMME-N-TARY: Hauling passengers in N scale A review of the ongoing revolution About our N-scale columnist
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N scale passenger car offerings – from the era of streamliners to Amtrak ...
I John Drye is our N scale editor and columnist. Click here to learn more about John.
n the ‘old days’, N scale ticket agents had a simple choice. There was a reasonable selection of passenger equipment: coaches, sleepers, diners, domes, and observation cars, along with cars to handle the baggage and mail. But, the Super Chief looked pretty much like the City of New Orleans because the models were all made by the same few
manufacturers. The cars looked and ran well enough – but they all were modeled from the same set of prototypes. That’s where things stayed from the ‘60s into the ‘90s. When Kato decided to expand into the N scale market in the early ‘90s, they produced models of several passenger-hauling diesels: E8/9s, and F3/7s and then produced passenger consists to go with them. These consists looked good and ran well, and even had prototypical-looking couplers. Although they weren’t magnetic, there wasn’t much demand for switching passenger consists. The cars came in a rainbow of colors, but were all based on another set of prototypes, so consists of Kato passenger equipment still looked the same.
Authentic Consists Kato must have done well with their passenger train offerings because they followed up the ’generic’ cars with a series of named train consists beginning in early 2000s. These sets allowed modelers to run consists that were pretty accurate for the specific railroad.
Figure 1: This heavyweight coach, offered in the ‘old days’ from a series of distributors, is still available today, is a nice model and a good representation of a PRR paired-window coach. Switching out the six-wheel trucks for Micro-Trains four-wheel passenger trucks improves operation and better represents the wheel arrangement of the prototype.
Figure 1 Page 37 • Issue 11-12• Dec 2011
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