Pictorial Reference Guide: Kato Passenger Cars

[gdmichaels]

What's in your (train) box? Sometimes the answer isn't that obvious. Case in point: Kato pre-Amtrak passenger cars.

When Kato decided to model pre-Amtrak passenger car service in the United States, they took on a complex task. They produced some fantastic, high-quality models that illustrate the uniqueness of each type of passenger car produced by the major U.S. manufacturers: ACF, Budd, and Pullman.

Unfortunately, there are a LOT of different body styles in production by Kato that, at first glance, can seem very similar to one another. For instance, you own an ACF ("ACF Smoothside") Union Pacific dome car. But is it a Dome Diner or a Dome Observation car? Ambiguous documentation and the fact that these cars look INCREDIBLY similar make it very challenging to know for sure what exactly you have.

The answer to this conundrum? If you look closely at each car, important differences can be discerned.

So, after lots of googling and close inspection of the different rolling stock, we created this page, which serves as a visual guide to recognizing the different kinds of Passenger rolling stock produced by Kato over the years. We hope fellow train enthusiasts will find this helpful.

Here is a link to the page. http://www.trovestar.com/general/blog/blog.php?Article=21

[gdmichaels]

If anyone spots any errors in here, please let us know.  Also, let us know about any missing body styles.  Yes, we know we are missing the Pullman 11-DB sleeper, but we can't find a good example photo of this model...

[thomasjmdavis]

Well, I think you were missing all the ATSF cars (Super Chief and El Cap)- unless they have their own page or for some reason don't show up in my browser. 

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish here.  Between Fred Klein's and Spookshow's websites, there is substantial material out there already.  Plus, of course, the Passenger Car List and Jerry Laboda's Passenger Car Photo site.  I can't say I've ever encountered a problem finding info on Kato cars.

[sundowner]

The UP business car is a converted Pullman coach also the lounge sleeper and 11Br sleeper are also a Pullman

[gdmichaels]

Well, I think you were missing all the ATSF cars (Super Chief and El Cap)- unless they have their own page or for some reason don't show up in my browser. 

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish here.  Between Fred Klein's and Spookshow's websites, there is substantial material out there already.  Plus, of course, the Passenger Car List and Jerry Laboda's Passenger Car Photo site.  I can't say I've ever encountered a problem finding info on Kato cars.

Thanks for taking a look at the blog page.  And yes, Super Chief, among others, are on my "to do" list to add to this page. Fred Klein's site is a useful resource on Prototypes; we just added his site to our N Scale Resources page. Here's a link to that page. http://www.trovestar.com/general/resource/resource_display.php?Collection=4  Will get to work adding the other resources you shared. Thanks for the info. and feedback!

[gdmichaels]

The UP business car is a converted Pullman coach also the lounge sleeper and 11Br sleeper are also a Pullman

Thanks for checking out the blog and for your comments.

[arbomambo]

Wouldn't it be more useful, to modellers, to actually list what the actual prototype for each Kato cars is? and which roadnames actually used the car as produced by Kato?
Otherwise, this is just a listing of Kato cars...and not even how many roadnames, of the car, were actually produced by Kato...
 I'm thinking that this could be a fairly useful blog for the modeller, if the accuracy of the cars were discussed (per actual prototype and roads that used that car),
and it could be a useful blog for the collector, if all the roadnames, for each car, were listed and when, and how (as sets? individually?) they were released...
 Otherwise it's just a collection of pictures of each model Kato car.
Respectfully,
Bruce

[OldEastRR]

Wouldn't it be more useful, to modellers, to actually list what the actual prototype for each Kato cars is? and which roadnames actually used the car as produced by Kato?
Otherwise, this is just a listing of Kato cars...and not even how many roadnames, of the car, were actually produced by Kato...
 I'm thinking that this could be a fairly useful blog for the modeller, if the accuracy of the cars were discussed (per actual prototype and roads that used that car),
and it could be a useful blog for the collector, if all the roadnames, for each car, were listed and when, and how (as sets? individually?) they were released...
 Otherwise it's just a collection of pictures of each model Kato car.
Respectfully,
Bruce

Is there any kind of resource like this for any types/road names/paint schemes of ANY cars in N scale? Klein's website is a good start but he stopped doing individual car notes and only currently keeps up complete passenger consists. As for freight stuff --- yeesh. It would probably be a huge task to do everything, but certain classes (like open hoppers and coil cars) might feasible be possible to list classes, road names/numbers, dates of service, etc. The number of models available in N could be a determining factor. (Boxcars would be impossible).

[gdmichaels]

Wouldn't it be more useful, to modellers, to actually list what the actual prototype for each Kato cars is? and which roadnames actually used the car as produced by Kato?
Otherwise, this is just a listing of Kato cars...and not even how many roadnames, of the car, were actually produced by Kato...
 I'm thinking that this could be a fairly useful blog for the modeller, if the accuracy of the cars were discussed (per actual prototype and roads that used that car),
and it could be a useful blog for the collector, if all the roadnames, for each car, were listed and when, and how (as sets? individually?) they were released...
 Otherwise it's just a collection of pictures of each model Kato car.
Respectfully,
Bruce

Thanks for your comments and taking the time to look at this blog. Feedback is always appreciated. To your comments about the target audience for the blog, we created this page with the collector in mind. Having said that, if you click on the very first picture (the ACF Coach), that will bring you to a page

http://www.trovestar.com/generic/zoom.php?id=90820

with lots of stats (reference data), such as Manufacturer, Brand, Road Name, Color, Body, Release Date, etc. If you click on Body: "K_PAACFCO," that will bring up another page

http://www.trovestar.com/generic/index.php?Collection=4&Body=K_PAACFCO

with information on trains with that body style (Kato Passenger Car ACF Smoothside Coach) created by Kato. You will notice that this page lists 4 trains but clearly there are many more that should be listed here. The n-scale database is a work in progress and is clearly nowhere near complete. We are hoping that people interested in Kato might consider sharing their expertise to help make this a more complete db / resource. To encourage this activity, we have launched an N-Scale Trains Rewards program, which has been well received. Here is a link to our blog about it.

http://www.trovestar.com/general/blog/blog.php?Article=20

Hope this helps explain our intent behind the blog. Again, thanks for your feedback.

P.S. I think I will include some of this explanatory text in the Pictorial Ref. Guide blog.

[gdmichaels]

Is there any kind of resource like this for any types/road names/paint schemes of ANY cars in N scale? Klein's website is a good start but he stopped doing individual car notes and only currently keeps up complete passenger consists. As for freight stuff --- yeesh. It would probably be a huge task to do everything, but certain classes (like open hoppers and coil cars) might feasible be possible to list classes, road names/numbers, dates of service, etc. The number of models available in N could be a determining factor. (Boxcars would be impossible).

Yes, Klein's site is a very useful resource. And you are soooo right on many points....this is a huge undertaking to do everything....we appreciate all the feedback we have gotten and keep chugging along. Thank you.

[gdmichaels]

Many of the Super-Chief body styles are now populated.  These include a new diner, Pleasure-Dome, and Sleeper-Lounge-Observation.

From what I learned most of these are Pullman designs.  However, if we mis-classified any ACF's or Budd's as Pullman's, please let us know.