Con-Cor - 0001-041257-1 - Passenger Car, Lightweight, Budd - Atlantic Coast Line - 208

Prototype History: In the post-war period, passenger rail service boomed. In order to increase efficiency, the railroads set to replacing their old wood, steel and concrete heavyweight passenger cars with newer lightweight, streamlined cars. The new cars were made from stainless steel, aluminum and Cor-Ten steel. These cars required less motive power to pull and were cheaper to manufacture. Production was also concentrated in a few manufacturers rather than each railroad making its own. This led to standardization which further reduced costs. The new "lightweight" cars were also given "streamlined" designs to make them more visually appealing. Budd, Pullman Standard and ACF were all well known manufacturers of these cars.

Budd was well known for their corrugated cars (for which they held a patent).

Road Name History: ACL’s roots go back to the Petersburg Railroad in 1830. By the 1870s, their successors and some affiliated lines began using Atlantic Coast Line as a nickname and through a number of consolidations Atlantic Coast Line became the official name by 1900. Atlantic Coast Line funneled traffic from northern Virginia (and its connections to the northeastern trunk lines via the RF&P) down through the Carolinas, Georgia and into Florida as far as Naples on the Gulf Coast. Acquisitions after the war added routes from Columbia and Spartanburg, South Carolina to the coast and lines linking Atlanta, Birmingham and Montgomery to southern Georgia and Florida.

At that point, the Atlantic Coast Line boasted 5,743 miles of railroad, 629 locomotives, 361 passenger cars, and 31,284 freight cars. To put that into perspective for you western guys, that's four times the size of Western Pacific.

ACL was the premier route for New York to Florida passenger traffic. The ACL's "Champion" left New York on the Pennsy, was handed off to the RF&P from Washington to Richmond, ran on the ACL to Jacksonville, FL and was then handed off to Florida East Coast for the ride to Miami. The "West Coast Champion" skipped the FEC as ACL went all the way to Tampa on Florida's Gulf Coast on its own rails. ACL also forwarded some Chicago to Florida trains via connections. Much of the system was relatively flat, allowing ACL to use 4-6-2’s in fast freight service (one of the few railroads to do this.)

ACL is best known for its purple and silver diesels. This scheme was used on freight, passenger, and switcher power until 1957. By that time, it became clear that these colors were difficult to maintain, so the ACL switched to racing stallion black with yellow “tack.” The Atlantic Coast Line merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad in 1967 to form the Seaboard Coast Line.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.