Trying to finish a train..

[Dan McDonald]

OK, I have the PC Hudson loco, and I grabbed a lot of cars off eBay to try to complete a nice passenger train. Once I gather them all I will be looking into weathering hte whole unit..
I got 1 mail car, and 2 passenger cars.
Problem is, I don't know what they are called so I can try to find more.I want 2 passenger cars, 1 dome car if they were available on this style, and a caboose.
The ones I have now are from Model Power, here is a pic

 

[Jim Krause]

I doubt that you will find any dome cars to match the one shown in your photo. There is about a 60 year time span between the two. What you have are 1890's vintage cars that in some cases were used up into the 1940's. The dome cars originated in the late 1940's. You would not see the two types on a train together. Dome cars were used primarily on the diesel powered name trains of the major railroads in Canada and the US.

 

[Dan McDonald]

Good to know! Thanks Jim, that explains my lack of success... Any idea what type of caboose would best fit this train?

 

[Dan McDonald]

From what I've read the 4-6-4 came about in the late 30's. I'm not too far in to change my mind with the passenger cars. I'm open to suggestions for a better set of cars

 

[Jim Krause]

Dan: Normally, a caboose was not used with passenger trains since the train crew traveled on the passenger cars. You would find an occasional caboose with a passenger car on what were called mixed trains but they were only on branch lines and consisted of ,as the name implies, a few freight cars and maybe one passenger car.
As for your Hudson, try to find some 1930's-1940''s era passenger cars. Riverossi, IHC, Bachmann etc. Are you doing CNR or CPR railroad? Probably some of the Canadian folks here on The Gauge would be of more help in that respect than I am.

 

[LongIslandTom]

Yup, the Hudsons are mid-20th-century passenger locomotives.. They would have pulled steel passenger cars with enclosed vestibules, rather than wooden coaches with open end platforms like in that photo. By 1910, steel passenger cars with enclosed vestibules would have largely replaced wooden cars on U.S. and Canadian railroads.

For that CP Hudson, I would look for cars like this to pull: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-16744

Hope this helps!

 

[60103]

Jim: there's an outfit that has just brought out some smoothside CPR cars that would be ideal with your loco. Only a coach at the moment and a price upwards of $50 (cdn). Streamlined cars like the Canadian would very rarely be pulled by a steam loco.
There was a dome car in 1902 (approx) on CPR. It had 2 cupolas like a caboose and open platforms. A model kit came out for it in late 60s -- I haven't quite completed mine - problems with the railings. The car didn't last long; dome cars needed air conditioning to be practical.
When I was very young, our town was served by a small train that consisted of steam loco, coach and caboose. I was too young to remember the details; I was also too shy to accept the invitation into the caboose. But the coach would have been newer than those.

 

[Dan McDonald]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll set these cars aside and find a better loco for them some other time.
For now I'll find some good cars for my hudson. I'm repainting the hudson so I can re-decal it to CN or CP. Whichever cars I find I guess will decide...

 

[Glen Haasdyk]

Whoa! Isn't that the president's choice hudson? If so it's already in Canadian National colors. I have the same engine with a few mods. I'm pulling athearn heavyweight passenger cars with it which pretty much fit it's era with a resonable cost (10-20$ a car) CN steam era passenger cars were painted CNR olive with black roofs and gold lettering.

 

[Dan McDonald]

Hey Glen, yeah this is the PC Hudson, I removed the side runners and cut off the deflectors, right now the side runners are back on but not glued. Your topic about the hudson mods was what sent me on the hunt for this loco.
I'd love to see pics of your complete trainif you have any.

 

[fsm1000]

Often a pallor car took up the rear as they had a tad bigger open platform to stand on. An "open platform" car simply had a larger platform to stand on at each end. Only a foot or two really, so it wasn't that big. SO instead of a caboose, if you can find a passenger car with a little larger platform, that will do the trick.
Hope that helps.

 

[Dan McDonald]

Everything helps! I'll be surfing the web all day by the looks of things.

 

[Glen Haasdyk]

Unfortunetly I don't have any good pictures of my CN passenger train. This is the best that I have, the cars are on the top shelf:

My train consists of an RPO, coach, dinner, and an observation/ pallor car. I'd add more but it would be too long for my current layout. I painted then about 15 years ago when my modeling wasn't the best so I'm soon going to re-paint them in the proper green paint shceme.
If you're looking for good passenger train modeling, look for posts by Doctorwayne. His are the best passenger cars I've ever seen.

 

[Dan McDonald]

OK, I've found a few on eBay like that but they are all Northern Pacific(same colors), I suppose I could relabel them.
Your other steamer(2 shelves below the CN) is alot like what I have now, I think I'll look for a better matchng loco for those too...

 

[Glen Haasdyk]

That's my Canadian Pacific set. the engine is a cheap model power pacific that I don't run anymore. the three passenger cars are MDC/roundhouse harriman cars that came painted in CPR colors. The train three shlves down are MDC overtons painted in CNR colors. CN never had such small cars but I painted them in sort of a fantasy scheme.

 

[Triplex]

Streamlined cars like the Canadian would very rarely be pulled by a steam loco.

Many railroads did haul streamliners behind steam, sometimes building streamlined steam for the purpose (such as the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha), but I gather this refers mostly to CN and CP.