Streamline Passenger Cars

Brown Box Era HO-Scale Trains

Streamline Passenger Cars

Broadway Limited Train Set

Typical of most R-T-R (Ready-To-Run) manufacturers, TYCO's Streamline Passenger Cars are all a bit shorter than prototypical length. Standard length for a passenger car is 85-feet, these cars measure about 72-feet. This is likely done to accomidate operation around the sharp curves of 18"-radius most commonly offered by TYCO. All cars in this series are lighted with electrical pick-up via the cars trucks. The cars featured a strip of paper that was inside and attached to the car's window sections that had silhouettes of passengers. A metal antenna is found running down the roofline of the Observation car. Though never deocorated with a train name or logo, the Obs tooling included a drumhead on the rear that had a snap-in clear round plug. The last roadname TYCO produced for the steamliners was Amtrak Phase II paint and it is last cataloged in 1981 as part of The Broadway Limited train set.

Roadnames
Stock Numbers and Catalog Appearances

Streamline Passenger Car

Combine

Amtrak (Light Blue Stripe)

-No.520N

Amtrak (Phase II paint)

-No.520N

(1977-1981)

TYCO switches its Amtrak paint scheme beginning with the 1977 catalog. The solid light blue stripped Amtrak cars are changed to resemble Amtrak's "Phase II" paint. The cars carry the standard TYCO nameplates of COMBINE, COACH and OBSERVATION. The Amtrak Phase II painted trio of streamliners remains as a separate item in the Rolling Stock section of the catalog only for a couple years. As part of the Broadway Limited train set pulled by TYCO's shorty GG1, the Phase II Amtrak cars remain in the catalog until 1981.

Combine Amtrak Phase II

Santa Fe (not pictured)

-No.520D

Streamline Passenger Car

Coach

Amtrak (Light Blue Stripe; not pictured)

-No.521N

Amtrak (Phase II)

-No.521N

Coach Amtrak Phase II

Santa Fe

-No.521D

Coach Santa Fe

Streamline Passenger Car

Observation

Amtrak (Light Blue Stripe; not pictured)

-No.522N

Amtrak (Phase II)

-No.522N

Observation Amtrak Phase II

Santa Fe (not pictured)

-No.522D

The Lost Passenger Cars...

Pictured below and taken from a mid-'50s TYCO catalog, the following bodystyles did not find themselves available by the early 1960s. These cars were offered in aluminum constructed bodies, which switched to plastic around 1960. MANTUA would later resurrect these carbodies and the aluminum construction for its own line of products around 1980.

Streamline Baggage

Streamline Vista-Dome

Streamline Diner

Streamline Sleeper

This Page Last Updated December 3, 2006