AMTK1007: Thanks, I ordered from Hiawatha Hobbies and now have an inquiry in about the extras. I also asked Walthers, and they said I'd get a separate box after delivery of all nine cars, but they didn't say who it would be coming from.
Amtrak207 wrote:Would anyone have accurate consist info for #25/#26 for a 1950's and 1960's train? For example, I am specifically concerned with how many 4-4-2's, 10-6's, multiple cars of the same type were on a daily run, and were was their placement in the consist.
Also, if anyone has a consist (and placement) with the later 1960's Sleepercoaches (Slumbercoaches) and regular coaches, that would be greatly appreciated as well! Is the Walthers Pullman Coach for NYC accurate, for instance: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-16785 ?
Interesting that it sounds like you're planning to model the later days of the train.
I'm not going to be able to give you a 100% accurate car by car consist, but I can tell you the following things based on the excellent "20th Century Limited" book by Karl Zimmermann:
* The stainless steel cars (including sleepercoaches and coaches) are mostly at the front of the train, at least in the early days of these cars running in the consist. This was when the train was really being run as a combo of three trains: the Pacemaker, Commodore Vanderbilt and Century. The equipment seems to have still been kept basically separate for a while, in the order of the previous sentence. Towards the late 60's, I see some smooth-side painted cars near the front of the train and a stainless car or two near the rear, but I can't tell what they are.
* Two sleepercoaches seems like a common number in the pictures (makes sense, as they apparently had four total)
* I'm not sure if the Pullman coach you linked to ever ran on the Century. It may have, but it would have to have been in the late 60's if so, and I doubt even then. The coaches that ran on the Century came from the Pacemaker, which was an all-Budd train. I suppose eventually they just stopped caring and started mixing everything up, but the Century was the last train in the fleet to be homogenized in this way. It was kept pure as long as possible.
From what I heard, 3 engines (E8's?) were almost always assigned to #25/#26 to and from Harmon?
In the combined train days, that seems right, and they ran A-B-A. Before that, when it was just the 20th Century's own equipment, it looks like two E-7's or (later) E-8's is more common (an A-B set, like Walthers is releasing).
I think if you did want to model the 1948 train, you could basically get one of everything and then double up on the sleeper cars and you would have a pretty accurate consist as it is. I count 15 passenger cars on the 1948 publicity photo for the train, including mid-train lounge, observation and kitchen-diner, so 11 total sleepers. But when you're talking about the 1960's, you start to get into Amtrak-style train combining and equipment subs that get a little more difficult.
