Centralia Car Shops - CCS7504-01 - Passenger Car, Lightweight, ACF Observation Lounge - Southern Pacific - 2954

Model Information: The 2-1-1 Observation – Buffet Lounge is a new N scale release from Centralia Car Shops. This new model is painted silver, to represent the Pullman car Muskingum River. The lettering is black. The new car is tooled with interior details and lights. The car is equipped with Micro-Trains® trucks and couplers.

I am not overly impressed with the delivery of this model. It looks great but mine arrived broken. It came with a damaged antenna wire and the pull-strip for activating the batteries was unreachable without disassembly of the body. For a $50 model this is pretty bad to have not one but two defects. I was only able to remove the battery activation strip after removing the batteries. I then discovered that the batteries were dead or the wiring was defective. Furthermore the batteries had leaked, damaging the battery storage plate. After trying to repair the antenna and failing, I threw the model in the spare parts bin.

Prototype History: American Car & Foundry was a prominent player in the post-war lightweight streamlined era. They produced many different models for most of the major players in the passenger space. Most of these cars were of the 'Smoothside' style. Being lightweight, they were equipped with 2-axle high-speed bogies. One example of this period is the Observation-Lounge car built for the Great Northern by Pullman Standard in 1951 for the Empire Builder as the “Mountain” series observation cars. The cars were configured as 2 Roomette-buffet-lounge-observation units. These cars were moved to other GN trains such as the Western Star in 1955, and replaced by the “Coulee” series 6-4-1-observation cars.

Road Name History: The Southern Pacific Transportation Company (reporting mark SP), earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern Pacific or (from the railroad's initials) Espee, was an American Class I railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and eight years later became part of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease. By 1900 the Southern Pacific Company was a major railroad system incorporating many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad. It extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through Tucson, to Los Angeles, through most of California, including San Francisco and Sacramento. Central Pacific lines extended east across Nevada to Ogden, Utah, and reached north through Oregon to Portland. Other subsidiaries eventually included the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt), the Northwestern Pacific Railroad at 328 miles (528 km), the 1,331 miles (2,142 km) Southern Pacific Railroad of Mexico, and a variety of 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge routes.

In 1929 SP/T&NO operated 13848 route-miles not including Cotton Belt, whose purchase of the Golden State Route circa 1980 nearly doubled its size to 3,085 miles (4,965 km), bringing total SP/SSW mileage to around 13,508 miles (21,739 km).

By the 1980s route mileage had dropped to 10,423 miles (16,774 km), mainly due to the pruning of branch lines. In 1988 the Southern Pacific was taken over by D&RGW parent Rio Grande Industries. The combined railroad kept the Southern Pacific name due to its brand recognition in the railroad industry and with customers of both constituent railroads. Along with the addition of the SPCSL Corporation route from Chicago to St. Louis, the total length of the D&RGW/SP/SSW system was 15,959 miles (25,684 km).

By 1996 years of financial problems had dropped SP's mileage to 13,715 miles (22,072 km), and it was taken over by the Union Pacific Railroad.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Centralia Car Shops is an N-Scale manufacturer based in Des Plaines Illinois. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Des Plaines hobbies. Des Plaines Hobbies was founded by Ron Sebastian in 1984. Centralia subcontracts its manufacturing to InterMountain and 'piggy-backs' the production runs onto the InterMountain runs using the same factories in China as InterMountain. Shipping from factories in China is also coordinated with InterMountain as is distribution to retailers.

Des Plaines Hobbies is a old fashioned hobbyshop with an emphasis on Model Railroading. It was started 33 years ago when you could purchase a tube of glue and sticks of balsa wood. That is still true today, although we have added a few items. About 20 years ago we ventured into some light manufacturing and are also home to Centralia Car Shops, S Scale America, and O Scale America lines of kits, decals and parts. Also along the way we have purchased a few small lines that we still offer such as Microscale's S Scale decal line and Mullet River Model Works HO and S lines.

Des Plaines Hobbies is located 3 1/2 miles north of O Hare International Airport at 1524 Lee/Mannheim (US 12-45). Pace buses conveniently run north and south on Lee/Mannheim from O Hare and the Des Plaines Metra station (1 mile north). For drivers, there is parking for a couple hundred cars out front and on the right side of the store. We are located on the south side of the Jewel food store under the red awning. Come for a visit. ADA restroom available. Coffee is usually hot, if not, ask and we will put a pot on.