Z scale has a psuedo-NCL done by Micro-trains with Loewy two toned F7A/B units. AZL did the 1947 psuedo - Pine-tree scheme with F3A/B units... Yep I got them both. Neither of their consists are close to a 'complete' set... but we are NOT doing any better in N scale.
"Vista Dome" is the nickname, trade name, advertising gimmick made famous by the NP. Other railroads had their own names for the same style of car, which had MUCH better all direction viewing ability than the full length "domes", where you can only look out of their sides. These car top domes were popular from their inception (1947) to the time when they went into Amtrak. Amtrak then began to slowly phase them out due to age. PS- Someone may nitpick as to how there were earlier attempts at such cars. Which is true, but none of those predecessors enjoyed the success and longevity of the post-WWII designs.
Thanks for the information. It will help me understand more about passenger trains. Seeing they seem to be more common in N I may get some. Rich
This discussion sparked me to do some research on the variations of dome cars. It seems that they were very specific. Thus, the tooling for an NP dome will likely have limited use beyond the specific application. Hopefully Railsmith will bring them to market. Additionally, the initial real domes were expensive to buy & required extra crew to operate. The infrastructure in the east limited their use in that area. They seem to have been an interesting failure. Larry
