# Passenger Cars



## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

Let's try this again shall we? [*do over!*]

Hi everybody! 


"My name is Scott and I live in Johnson City TN, kind of a railroad town you might say, and I'm currently modeling ET&WNC stuff in Bachmann in 1:20 and Southern stuff in 1:29 in Aristocraft and USA trains".

I recently received a USA trains EMD F-3 [that I'm deliriously happy with] and my hopes are to model the "Tennessean" passenger train that ran up the coast from TN to NY I believe on the Southern line since I'm interested in modelling trains that ran into my new home of Johnson City which has a rich railroad heritage. From my research so far it's kind of an interesting passenger line in that it was pulled by Southern engines at each end and was passed off to Norfolk Western in between in Virginia and then picked back up by Southern engines at the other end.It appears according to the archives I've looked at that it ran a mix of streamliners and heavyweights that, in some cases may have been repainted silver to match the streamliners. Either way I'd love to hear everyone's opinion on who has the best passenger cars and who has the best prices of said cars.

Thanks!


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

The only heavyweights made are by AristoCraft. In my opinion, the best streamliners are those made by USAT. I have an Aristo streamliner, but it had to be lowered to look acceptable. On the Aristo streamliners there is less external detail and no interior detail. They are supposed to be coming out with new lower cars, but I haven't seen them. Judging by your problems with the USAT F3s, I hesitate recommending their streamliners, even though I am very happy with mine. They have a lot of detail, have people in the cars, and run very smoothly. Whether you can mix and match them is up to you and how critical you are.

A while back someone questioned the two cars and whether or not they could be put in the same train. Here are some pictures that I used in that thread. 

Mixed train with USAT, Aristo heavyweights and Aristo smoothside (last car in train). 











Aristo heavyweight left, Aristo smooth side streamliner (lowered) right





















USAT left, Aristo right




















Chuck


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## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

Thanks Chuck! 

Good information and great photos! Especially the detail of how you have matched them up. 

Please overlook my former comments on USA trains, I apparently got a repack or models made at 5 o'clock on on a Friday. 

Do you know who may have any good deals on passenger cars these days? 

Scott


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

It has been a number of years since I bought these cars. Therefore, I don't have any current suggestions other than the usual venders. Get a recent copy of Garden Railways and go through the ads. 

I body mounted Kadee #830s on the heavy weights. This required me to put 830s on some of the USAT cars to match up. The USAT couplers are at the lower truck mounted level, even though they are body mounted. I have several of the USAT cars that have their standard coupler on one end and an 830 on the other. I had to do this also because of the coupler height on the F3s and to match up with the heavyweights. 

The lower coupler height is my only real problem with the USAT streamliners. This should not be a problem if you are going to used the truck mounted couplers on the heavyweights, as they should match up with the USAT couplers. I haven't tried it so I can't say for sure if they will match. The first thing I do with an Aristo car is change the couplers.


Chuck


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## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

Cool, I figured new couplers all around would probably be best solution. 

I'm still researching the Southern photo archives on the heavyweight/streamline lash ups. I may just go with all heavyweights for now from some photos I've seen and I'm eyeing several sets I've seen in garden railways and on line. 

I enjoyed seeing your B&O photos since I hail from that area. Thanks again!


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Exact ditto on what Chuck said. 

I buy my USAT streamliners from RLD. I bought my Aristo HW's from Gscalejunction. 

If you change couplers out, go body mounts, no choice on the USAT. The tang on the Aristo HW's is so long they deflect a lot up and down. The Aristo coupler has a "shelf" to keep couplers from overriding each other. Truck mounted Kadees did not work well for me. Kadee has a kit to do the body mount easily. 

One tip: you will notice it takes much better trackwork to run longer cars with body mounts, especially in the "vertical grade" department" You will find if you have sharp transitions in vertical grade right away! I sure did, and after fixing them, it made a huge difference in running reliability for all trains. 

Regards, Greg


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

The long passenger cars really do show up your track work. I have a bunch of aristo heavyweights, ad have had very good luck with aristo couplers truck mounted. The earlier, first generation of the heavweights coupled comically far apart. Current production couples much closer. I moved mine closer together by slicing the coupler tang off, moving it back, and then gluing and screwing it.


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## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

All good tips. I was weighing the length differences as a factor as well since I believe the aristo heavies were several inches shorter than USA's streamlines. I agree that the coupling gap looked silly and figured that would be the first order of business. 
I probably will not buy for some time since the engine purchase exhausted the toy budget for a while. Although I may call gscale junction to inquire about the rolling stock sale...but that just make me succumb to temptation and spend more money. 

Thanks for the advice.


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## Chris France (Jan 3, 2008)

It'll be well worth it. I have a mixed consist of USA Streamliners and Aristo heavyweights as well and together it makes one impressive train. I went the lazy route converting the streamliners to Aristo couplers which turned out to be pretty easy, but considering your locos are USA I'd go that direction for now, shorten the coupler tangs on the heavyweights and convert them to USA, but if you wanted to go all Kadee eventually anyhow I suppose that works (I'm to cheap to do that right now).


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Greg:

On the Aristo heavyweights I put a piece of aluminum bar stock 1/8" thick x 1" wide x1 1/4" long under the 830 box. I also cut out the first third of the side of the 830 box. This permits the coupler to swing out a little more on my curves.


All of the curves on my mainline are 10' diameter. I do not have any problems running the heavyweights through these curves. 

I tried using gauge 1 kadees, they didn't work as well. They really got the coupling close, but I had some derailment problems on the curves. I can't remember whether or not I cut out the sides to help with the swing on the gauge 1s.


Originally I used the pivoting mount that Kadee sells for these cars, but for some reason that I can't remember, I didn't like it.

Chuck


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## LogSkidder01 (Jul 30, 2009)

Greetings Scott: 

Welcome to the often raucous world of Large Scale model railroading, and a special welcome to East Tennessee. If you have not already run into them, you will be able to find a bunch of like minded train buffs of Mountain Empire Modular Railroaders http://www.memrr.org/) huddled around N, HO and LS layouts at the Carter Museum at ETSU (http://www.johnsonsdepot.com/glcarter/cartermuseum.htm). They can put you in contact with the rest of the LS mob who tend to be just as opinionated as the crew here. 

But back to the subject: I have modeled various version of the Tennessean in N, HO and LS which are often be found running at the Knoxville Area Model Railroaders layouts at the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge (http://www.knoxmodelrailroaders.com & http://childrensmuseumofoakridge.org). 

For HO and N scales, I have prototypical options of E6's, E7's, F3's, DL-109/110 and N&W J's pulling the consists. As no LS manufacturer has produced E6's to model the 1941 train set, I opted for Aristo E8's for power with thoughts of a future E6A-B bash, but the Tennessean was pulled by steam equipped F3's at times. For cars I agree with the guidance towards the USA corrugated streamliners. But as noted for the heavyweights you will probably have to buy the Aristo which will require stripping and repainting to get the shadow line effect of the original 1941 Pullman 12-1 and 10-3 cars. Great results, but not an easy bash. 

If you build it, it will run your life (for a while). 

Ken


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## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

I'm kind of keeping a running mental tally here on all the experiences regarding the different cars and couplers. All good stuff Thanks! 

Ken, you're right, the mountain empire guys have a nice little display over at the Carter Museum and also very much enjoyed the display down the road in Hendersonville on the Apple Valley's club display in the Southern Depot there. The LS train garden display at Knoxville was fun at Christmas but I've not looked into the Knoxville Modeller's stuff. I'll check the website, Thanks. 

I may not get too hung up on doing a prototypical perfection with the Tennessean train and may just run the green crescent heavies and call it "finished enough" Average folks I know hardly remember the Southern RR and many haven't even heard of it due to their age and other interests, the bulk of people don't know a diesel from a steam loco let alone an E6 from an F3 so.... a green diesel pulling green rail cars with windows in them with the name Southern on the sides will probably satisfy 99.7% of the people who ever get to view my trains.
I mean this modeling stuff is great fun and all but I need to also make time and money for the convertible, the motorcycle, the mountain bike, the kayaks, the..........


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Scott,

If you can wait a few months, there is a big large scale only train show in York, PA the last weekend of March. That is a great place to hunt for and buy trains. If you do your homework and figure out what your consist goals are, you can find out what the going prices are from the few online stores left. If heavyweights are your ticket, you can sometimes find new old stock at the Nicholas Smith booth in the $75 to $100 range. Be advised these cars will likely not be the exact roadname you desire but the Aristo heavyweights are lettered for the Crescent Limited anyway. You can also check with Charlie Ro, who makes the USA Trains streamliner. If you call them ahead of time, they may bring a Southern set for you. Typically, you can find good deals at that show. 

Mark


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## SRW (Jan 13, 2010)

Thanks Mark, I was just up your way three weeks ago to visit family in MD and friends in PA. Don't think I'll make it back up for the York show but someone else told me last month that a show was coming up in Dalton GA in the not too distant future. May be I can collect my brother in SC and drive to that one. I can wait this may not happen for a long time as there's some new tires and a set of brakes and other assorted things that need attention first.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By chuck n on 19 Jan 2010 02:22 PM 
Greg:

On the Aristo heavyweights I put a piece of aluminum bar stock 1/8" thick x 1" wide x1 1/4" long under the 830 box. I also cut out the first third of the side of the 830 box. This permits the coupler to swing out a little more on my curves.


All of the curves on my mainline are 10' diameter. I do not have any problems running the heavyweights through these curves. 

I tried using gauge 1 kadees, they didn't work as well. They really got the coupling close, but I had some derailment problems on the curves. I can't remember whether or not I cut out the sides to help with the swing on the gauge 1s.


Originally I used the pivoting mount that Kadee sells for these cars, but for some reason that I can't remember, I didn't like it.

Chuck 

Thanks Chuck.

I needed to improve my trackwork. It's fine and my minimum diameter is likewise 10'. I have 8 of them and run them just fine with unmodified Kadees, but I am using the Kadee kit with the pivot for the 830, simple bolt in.

I used the Kadee 881 and the 883 or the 838... (883 is flex mount, 838 is flex mount AND and 830).. 881 is the mounting block/spacer.


From the conversion list: *http://www.kadee.com/con...>*

Unfortunately they do not have the instructions pdfs on the Kadee site, but quite easy.

Regards, Greg *
*


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