UP Gas Turbine Typical Freight?


Artieiii

Member
I have 2 HO scale Lionel Veranda gas turbines and I have no freight cars to go with them. I posted a similar question before and someone suggested Pacific Fruit express reefer cars but I can't find anyone who makes them in HO scale at this time. I found some used ones on ebay but I want to buy 5 or 6 cars. What other freight was commonly carried by the big blows? They must have carried some type of ore throughout the west. I would like to buy a 6 pack of period correct cars in HO scale. All the video's on youtube focus on the engines and no closeups of the freight cars in the consist.
Thanks in advance.
-Art
 
Hi Art,
I too am a turbine fan and have one Lionel and two Athearn versions.
The obvious source for Turbine consists is the video "Union Pacifics Mighty Turbines" which I have not watched for a while but I think shows full or part trains.
Another video is " Union Pacific Classic Collectors Series" which does show the Turbines and trains.
What comes across is that they hauled anything required of them suitable for the period so anything that the Big Boys or Challengers hauled was hauled by the turbines.
A couple of points for reality are that in the early days the turbines operated without the fuel tender and if used with a steam loco the steamer was always behind the turbine to prevent the turbine sucking in smoke.
To contradict this I have seen one photo of an FEF in front but this was explained as exceptional.

Just to whet your appetite here is my Athearn standard turbine on a PFE consist west on my layout "Dale Junction"

th_StandardturbinePFEwest.png


Hope this helps, Colin.
 
Hunslet,
Nice train! So what brand are your PFE reefer cars? How do they run on your layout? Nice to hear they ran with the challengers....I have a Lionel HO Challenger as well. I liked the video /) /) Ideally I would like to buy a 6 pack or 2.
-Art
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi Art, The PFE cars are from Intermountain and Trix.
The Trix cars come up on Ebay occasionally but can be expensive, in fact some of them are Marklin re-wheeled to RP25 profile.
Here in the UK we have to get what we can !
Keep searching.
Regards, Colin.
 
There are a few books that show pictures of the Gas Turbines and they also show what kind of freight cars they pulled.
 
The best book I have found for specific Turbine photos which also shows part of the consist is "Union Pacific's Turbine Era" By A.J.Wolff. Withers publishing,
ISBN 1-881411-30-3.
As I said this concentrates on loco shots but some of the consist can be seen - not all are PFE cars but are really mixed.
The best DVD is "Union Pacific's Mighty turbines" from Pentrex .
This shows all turbine versions and moving trains so is very useful for realistic consists.
Hope this helps,
Colin.
 



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