Available Items

20-64263

O Scale Premier 4-Car 70’ Streamlined Passenger Set (Smooth Sided)
  • Norfolk & Western

20-64264

O Scale Premier 2-Car 70’ Streamlined Slpr/Diner Passenger Set (Smooth Sided)
  • Norfolk & Western

20-64265

O Scale Premier 70’ Streamlined Full Length Vista Dome Passenger Car (Smooth Sided)
  • Norfolk & Western

20-64266

O Scale Premier 2-Car 70’ Streamlined Baggage/Coach Passenger Set (Smooth Sided)
  • Norfolk & Western

20-64267

O Scale Premier 70’ Streamlined RPO Passenger Car (Smooth Sided)
  • Norfolk & Western

20-94781

O Scale Premier R50B Express Reefer Car
  • Norfolk & Western

November 12, 2024 - M.T.H. Electric Trains will be releasing the 2025 Premier O Scale Streamlined Passenger Cars in Norfolk & Western livery next Spring. These cars make an excellent complement for the Premier N&W J Class Northern announced earlier this year. The passenger cars will be limited in production and expected to begin shipping to M.T.H. Authorized Retailers in May 2025.

Check out each of the offerings in the list on the left.

PROTOTYPE HISTORY

The lightweight, streamlined passenger car was a product of the Great Depression. While the heavyweight steel cars built in the teens and 1920s were dependable and often luxurious, their dark colors and solid, battleship-like exteriors did little to lift the spirits at a time when the entire nation needed a pick-me-up. As noted railroad historian John H. White, Jr. put it in The American Railroad Passenger Car, “Some hope during these gloomy years was offered by a new design concept called streamlining. It presented a sleek, modern image of speed and innovation. What had been an obscure technical term in aerodynamics was made into a household word through an astute publicity campaign mounted by several railroad traffic departments. It succeeded in creating a general interest in railroading practically unknown since the opening of the first transcontinental line… According to Railway Age, ‘For the first time in many years, the words ‘sold out’ re-entered the ticket clerk’s vocabulary.’”

But as White notes, the real change in passenger car construction was in weight, not the streamlined appearance that was largely for show: “Weight, not air friction, was the chief obstacle to economic operation.” Unlike the heavyweights, the lightweight cars that debuted in the mid-1930s featured sides and roofs that contributed to their structural strength, eliminating the need for the heavyweights’ massive underframes. Trucks went from six wheels to four, non-revenue space was decreased by using a vestibule on only one end of the car, and lighter, stronger, more rust resistant steel alloys came into widespread use. A typical new lightweight could be 15-20 tons lighter than the heavyweight car it replaced.

Check out each of the offerings in the list on the left.

Product Features

  • Intricately Detailed, Durable ABS Bodies
  • Stamped Metal Floors
  • Detailed Car Undercarriage
  • Colorful, Attractive Paint Schemes
  • Metal Wheels and Axles
  • Die-Cast 4-Wheel Trucks
  • Fast-Angle Wheel Sets
  • Needle-Point Axles
  • (2) Operating Die-Cast Metal Couplers
  • O Scale Kadee-Compatible Coupler Mounting Pads
  • Constant Voltage Overhead LED Interior Lighting
  • End-of-Car Diaphragms
  • Separate Metal Handrails
  • Detailed Car Interiors
  • Sliding Baggage Car Doors
  • Detailed Brake Wheel
  • 1:48 Scale Proportions
  • Operates On O-42 Curves