SP Coast Daylight cars

[lionkingcmsl]

Most of you know that I am a serious H-O scale model railroader. I addition to modelling my own road, the South Jersey & Western, I am entranced by the Southern Pacific's Daylight series of trains.

They have been called "The most beautiful trains in the world".

The Daylights had some very unique cars. One of which was the articulated triple unit diner. Three cars semi-permanently coupled together riding on four trucks. One of the others were the twin unit coaches. These were two coaches semi-permanently coupled together riding on three trucks. These were labeled as men and women, as the bathrooms were located one in each coach next to the articulation joint, with the men's room in one coach and the women's room in the other.

Here is a picture of those two types of cars with a standard 85' long observation car for comparsion:


The top car is the diner. It is set up as follows: Coffee Shop - Kitchen - Table Car. This car is over 27 inches long! Each bridge is 9 inches long and are standard Atlas Deck Truss bridges.
The bottom left car is the twin unit coach and the bottom right is the Observation car.

These cars are H-O scale and are from Broadway Ltd. Imports and I have 14: 5 twin unit coaches, triple unit diner, observation car; of the 19 car train set. The rest are on back order and I have two GS-4 steam locos and a PA-PB-PA diesel set to pull the consist.

All I need now is a layout to run it on. :=3

Comments

[thefoxaroo.livejournal.com]

Now I *really* want to know more about this train's history. I've never known of such a carriage arrangement, and it sounds very interesting.

Just looked it up in Wikipedia. In the eyes of many the "most beautiful passenger train in the world."

"no sleepers or parlor cars"? A great train is one that you should be able to sleep on.

"Amtrak has worked on plans for resuming Coast Daylight service from San Francisco to Los Angeles since the late 1990s. It may be merged with the existing Pacific Surfliner route, thus extending the line to San Diego. More specific plans have been made in the last few years, but any restoration of service would start in 2013 at the earliest." - That could be interesting.

In any case the only Australian venture that would have come close to this was the short-lived, over-priced and ultimately debit-ridden Great South Pacific Express more commonly referred to as the "Southern Pacific Orient Express."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_South_Pacific_Express

[lowen-kind.livejournal.com]

The Daylights that ran from LA to San Fran were not overnight trains, so they didn't need the sleepers. :=3

And the railroads in the U.S. were known for unique car designs. They were not afraid to try anything that would make people ride their trains versus those trains of another line.

When you move to Canada you're going to have to change your vocabulary. :=3

In North America we don't have "carriages" in trains, we have cars. :=3

[(Anonymous)]

Oh hell no! When I *was* in Canada I delighted in putting forward my vocabulary and pronunciation. Every single time I had the opportunity to say tom-ah-toe I did! XD

For some things though I'll have no choice, such as the date format Month/Day/Year. That's going to annoy me to no end.

[thefoxaroo.livejournal.com]

(Forgot to log in again before posting)

Oh Hell no. When I *was* in Canada I delighted in putting forward my vocabulary and pronunciaiton whenever I could. In particular saying tom-ah-toe at every opportunity.

For some things though I'll have to adapt, such as the date format month/day/year. That's going to annoy me to no end.

[smrgol-t-kirin.livejournal.com]

I will have to bring down my KATO N-Scale version so we can photograph them together.