I have found a Milwaukee Road version of this. Complete in wood simulated box and with button. Owner says its a Kato drive. It sure looks nice, however. There are no road numbers on any of the pieces. The observation car is far from Milwaukee prototype. So my question is, is it at all worth the $180.00 price tag? And has anybody got this set? It sure was pretty, but I want thing to be somewhat correct. Lol
I would need to see a picture of the set to evaluate it. I don't recall any ConCor E8's with Kato drive mechanism's. Here's the thing if it is a Milwaukee set the passenger cars would have round windows, not ConCor's oblong windows. If it was a Kato set, I would say buy it as priced but, I don't know of any Kato, Milwaukee's with the accurate windows. So what you got there?
I had this set many years ago , I think I was lucky to sell it . Nothing resembles a Milwaukee road train except the locomotives. The better way to end up with Milwaukee equipment is to get the cars and engines from Fox valley models . If you are a builder Brass car sides, GHQ and Athabasca all have Milwaukee equipment. Randy
All of the Con-Cor collector sets were just a marketing gimmick - nice paint jobs on generic equipment. During the time period of their manufacture, there was virtually no such thing as prototypical accuracy - on anything in N Scale. Only a true "collector" of N Scale equipment would find any value in owning these sets at the prices that people are asking for them.
I had a set too many years ago, but it came with an ALCo DL109 for power. As I recall, yes, that unit had an older style Kato drive. I don't remember them doing one with an EMD E unit, but they might have since then. ConCor was well noted for painting any scheme on any body style, regardless of being appropriate, or often not. A photo would be helpful. Is this in the yellow "Cities" paint?
Back in the 80's, Con-Cor's E8's used Kato mechs and Rivarossi shells. The Kato mech was built along the lines of their old (1960s) PA mech and has nothing in common with the E8's Kato USA sells today. After Kato and Con-Cor parted ways, Con-Cor relocated production of their E8 mech to China. -Mark
Here is the pic. Thanks for the quick response. My gut told me to wait and get some advice first. Glad I did!
That is definitely the old set with ALCo DL109 units. MILW owned one pair of those engines. It could be an OK stand-in for modeling on Lines East, about sixty years ago.
The "Wood Grain Boxed" sets that Con Cor sold for a while were sort of popular with various folks. Back then, there was very little available in passenger equipment. Con Cor filled a void producing special sets of roads with limited appeal to most folks at that time. At that time the big sellers were Santa Fe, UP, PRR, NYC etc.. Rivarossi, sold by Atlas and then Con Cor had the ATSF heavyweight cars with the paired window coach and Pullman added in, the three light weight Rock Island Pullman built corrugated cars (baggage/dorm, coach, boat tail observation) and the three PRR & Monon light weight smooth side cars (baggage/RPO, 10-6 sleeper, blunt end observation). Rowa had the semi-corrugated C&O cars (coach, dome, sleeper, slumbercoach and blunt end observation car). Then Con Cor had the smooth side lightweight Great Northern cars with mirror image sides (baggage, baggage/RPO, coach, diner, Pullman, boat tail observation). Add to that the Con Cor Budd dome and dome observation cars. Bachmann and Model power had a weird mix of various cars and Arnold sold some light weight shorties based on the generic HO Athern cars along with some shorty old timers. So everything basically got painted for every road name under the sun if the manufacturers thought it would sell. Sometimes they did not. I remember a little hole in the wall model shop in Blue Ridge, Virgina that had boxes of the Atlas/Rivarossi corrugated cars in Penn Central paint. I bought a bunch for kit bashing.
The engines are fine I think. But I really dont want all the work to make the cars prototype. But if some onne wants it. just PM me and I will give you contact info!
Some of the ConCor sets (whether accidentally or not) actually were near-prototypical. Set #18 for example had a NYC Hudson and a set of NYC "Pacemaker" paint scheme 50' boxcars. The generic caboose was an ATSF type but mighjt have been close to NYC. Same with set #27, which featured ABA UP E-7s in yellow/gray and a set of merchandise express boxcars in the "Challenger" scheme. Set #20 featured PRR "mechandise service" freight equipment. The odd thing was, even though the ConCor smoothside cars were based on GN "Empire Builder"prototypes, I couldn't find any record of a GN-painted passenger set of the EB set being made.
The first set was The Chessie Steam Special. They used a 2-8-4 steam engine with silly looking paint instead 0f a 4-8-4 like the real thing. it didnt come in the fake wood box but was instead shrink wrapped.
I have the Kansas City Southern set mostly because it came with the observation car lettered for the Good Cheer, a car I have traveled on when it was in operation at the Gulf Coast Chapter of the NRHS. This scene is an attempt to recreate the story of when I became detached from the Sunset Limited on its way back to Houston from Lafayette, Louisiana after an outing at horse track near there.
