Passenger Cars

The Most Remarkable Car in the Train

“Would you like to go to Chicago with me?” asked Peter one day in early April. The newly-merged CPKC had just announced their Final Spike steam tour, and Franklin Park, Illinois was the stop closest to us. My first impulse was to politely decline—I’d just taken several days off work to spend time with my son during the Total Eclipse, and a twelve-hour drive each way to and from Chicagoland didn’t sound particularly fun, steam or no. On further consideration, though, I changed my mind. Peter’s a transplanted Aussie, retired, and a big New York Central fan. The Final Spike Tour’s headliner, restored Canadian Pacific 2816, was the closest he was ever going to get in this day and age to his beloved NYC J3a. I suggested Amtrak instead of I-90 to him, and he immediately booked us seats on the Lake Shore Limited.

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Programming a Long Address into a Kato FL12 Decoder
The end car of a Kato 485 series EMU, with headlights and head mark lit.

A veritable tsunami has swept over my N scale club. Several of our newest members collect Japanese-prototype trains. It’s easy to see why: there’s a dazzling variety of sleek, colorful models available, many of them made by a manufacturer (Kato) we already know and love. The interest is now spreading to our older members, including me. In the wake of my discovery of Usui Pass, I found myself wanting models of the trains that once operated there. When Steve said, “I’m putting together a Plaza Japan order, you want anything?” I said yes.

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Mail Enhancement Products
An assortment of N scale mail and express cars.

I’ve devoted a considerable amount of ink to my recent HO purchases lately, but not so much with the N scale. It’s not that I’ve stopped buying N scale rolling stock—I haven’t. To me, the novelty of HO hasn’t worn off yet. Patience, please!

My N scale purchases have tapered off, but I’m still making strategic acquisitions in certain areas, such as mail and express trains. My interest in them probably stretches all the way back to Dad’s American Flyer 718 Mail Pick-up Car. Scooping up and launching little plastic mail bags under the Christmas tree with that thing was one of my favorite holiday pastimes.

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Budd Wiser

When word came round last August that the hobby shop had just gotten in a large N scale collection, I went to see it, thinking I could use another passenger locomotive, or perhaps some more Kato passenger cars. You know, something with lights, that would look good in a darkened driveway. What I found checked both boxes: a Kato RDC (Rail Diesel Car). The prototype was manufactured by Budd, the same company that made those lovely stainless-steel streamliners, and served as a one-car passenger train for railroads working to economize their passenger service. Never mind that none of the railroads I model had RDCs, this one was in Budd demonstrator livery, so it’s easy enough to rationalize its presence in my railroading activities.

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This is Gonna be Lit

Kato, bless their hearts, makes it easy to add lighting to their N scale passenger cars. Let me rephrase that slightly: mostly easy. Their lighting kits aren’t quite the no-brainer drop-ins they’re intended to be, but I’ve installed enough of them now to know their quirks. (more…)

Upgrading My Broadway Limited

Broadway_820

I remember my first trip to the big show in Springfield, nearly ten years ago. I carpooled with some clubmates, and we spent a weekend operating on a very large Ntrak modular layout, with members of several clubs participating. On Sunday afternoon, there was a competition known as the “Parade of Trains.” The idea was simple: put a train on the track, and run it for three laps around the layout, past a panel of judges. My entry was a mix of mid-Sixties freight cars, weathered, pulled by three diesels in two different paint schemes. A lot of the other entries were passenger sets, matched cars taken straight of of the box and dropped onto the railroad. “That’s pretty lame,” I said to myself, “I’d never do something like that.”

Actually, that’s exactly what I do with my Kato Broadway Limited passenger-train set. I have to eat my words now.

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Lead Us Not Into Penn Station

GG1_523The trouble began a few years ago, at the Syracuse show. I had just dropped a sizeable chunk of pocket change on a new NCE PowerCab, thus hurtling myself headlong into the world of Digital Command Control. With only two decoder-equipped locomotives in my entire fleet at that point, I had some tough choices to make. In order to get more decoders, I had to swear off buying any more locomotives for a while. It was easy at first, but then the GG-1 on the table winked at me. (more…)