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| TEST TRACK | ARRIVAL BOARD | MAINTENANCE OF WAY |
Walthers Milwaukee Caboose
A2Z CNC |
Roundhouse Overland Roundhouse Trains Ready To Run Old Time Overland Passenger Set HO Scale Available Sets: 
Passenger accommodations in the early years of railroad travel were at best spartan and often dangerous. Wood coaches with wood bench seats, dubious ventilation and questionable sanitation were standard. Following the War (Civil War) the railroads consciously began to add coaching stock that was more commodious and plush to their fleets to attract the traveling public to their trains. 
From the 1870s until the turn of the twentieth century wood open vestibule passenger cars with truss rod reinforced under frames plied the rails in mail line service. Painted in bright colors with wood inlay interiors and velvet seats they offered the traveler the finest in rail transportation. Heat was provided by coal stoves in the winter and open windows allowed a cinder laden breeze to blow through in the summer. One and sometimes two conveniences were located on board each car with a direct path to the roadbed below. Illumination was provided first by kerosene lanterns and later by gas lamps. The advent of the all steel passenger car introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century sounded the death knell for these cars on the major railroads, however, a surprising number soldiered on in branch line and short line service into the 1950s. Happily, a number of example of this era still remain, thoughtfully restored on several tourists railroads around the country. Roundhouse Trains has released newly revised models of these classic passenger cars that are fully assembled and ready-to-run. We received Roundhouse No. 84824 Pennsylvania 4-Car (RPO, Combine, Coach, Sleeper/Business Car) "Overland" Passenger Set for our current review. This set is a revised and improved ready-to-run version of the Roundhouse 50xx series "50' Pullman Car" kits originally introduced in the early 1970's. The car bodies all measure 51' long over the corner posts, and the cars are all 61' long over the coupler pulling faces, the measure more often used to describe a car's length. In the advertising from that 1970's, Model Die Casting described the cars as being an express baggage, combination, a coach or sleeper (depending on lettering applied), and business car. The car now identified as an RPO is more likely based on a baggage car prototype, as it has two 4' 6" baggage doors on each side, and lacks the narrower door usually provided on RPO's for the postal clerk to operate the mail hook. Baggage cars in the years after the Civil War often had more windows than in later 1800's. 
The original Roundhouse kits came with an infrequently modeled "duck-bill" style clerestory roof, where the raised portion of the roof tapered down to join the lower sides of the roof at the ends of the car body, and combined to form a single, gently arched roof section which extended out over end platforms. The revised cars now have a more typical clerestory roof, where the raised portion of the roof begins a semicircular curve at the end of the car body, and the raised portion meets the lower sides of the roof only at the very end of the roof over the end platforms. This change results in a more conventional appearing set of cars, and moves their era from the late 1860's - early 1870's more into the 1880's. Another improvement is the window glazing. The original kits came with strips of transparent material to glue to the inside walls of the cars. The improved cars come with cast window inserts, which raise the outer surface of the "glass" to a more realistic position in the window frames. Green glazing is used in all the clerestory windows. The original kits came with underbody detail that included queen posts with truss rods modeled from carpet thread, water or air tanks on the car centerline between the queen posts and trucks at both ends, storage boxes at the edges of the car between the queen posts, and a "K-type" combined air brake cylinder and reservoir in the center of the car between the storage boxes. The improved cars replace the thread with blackened metal wire truss rods, and move the brake casting towards the end, replacing one of the sets of tanks. This makes the brake casting more visible when the car is viewed from the side, but is less typical of prototype practice. 
The revised cars come with body-mounted couplers, a big improvement over the truck-mounted couplers used in the original kits. The trucks themselves are also much improved, with better proportions, finer detail, and very free rolling metal wheel sets. The trucks represent a cast steel, single drop equalizer, 7' wheelbase truck more typical of a 1920's express car or commuter coach. A wood or early steel beam truck with bolt-on journal pedestals would be more in keeping with the era of these cars. The cars now come with Bachmann EZ mate Mk. I Kadee compatible couplers already installed. All of the cars are weighted in line with the current NMRA RP standards and will operate effortlessly on 18" radius curves and Snap-Switches. 
Special comment should be made about the color scheme on this set of cars. They are a most handsome, neatly applied combination of a slightly dark red on the letter boards, a very light cream yellow through the windows, and a rich, deep green below the belt rail, with gold leaf style lettering and striping, all combined with black roofs and underbodies. Pennsy fans know this as the "Yellow Kid" scheme. In "Some Classic Trains", Arthur Dubin explains that PRR officials visited the Pullman plant while the company was completing the 4 new sets of cars for the 1898 re-equipping of the premier Pennsylvania Limited (which later became the Broadway Limited). On the plant floor, the officials saw some private cars being completed for President Don Porfirio Diaz of Mexico, painted in the colors of the Mexican flag. The Pennsy brass were so impressed that they specified similar colors for the new Pennsylvania Limited cars. The Yellow Kid was a character in a popular comic strip of the day, and that quickly became the nickname for the new color scheme. Each of the 1898 trains sets included a baggage-buffet combine, a diner, 3 sleepers, and an observation, all 80' cars. One hopes Roundhouse some day offers this same color scheme on a set of their 80' "palace" cars! Roundhouse's latest releases of these model railroad classic models have been upgraded to reflect current model railroading standards. The four car set makes for a great pike-sized passenger train to couple up to some of the latest old-time locomotives. - Gary Quale |
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