Speaking of Passenger Service

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Most people don't have the space for curves wide enough to handle 85' cars, nor to they have big enough yards and enough towns to justify and real passenger ops.

There are plenty of opportunities out there! Even before the arrival of the first "modern" 85' HEP Push-pull sets in 1971, the CNJ and the PRR both had push-pull operations.

The CNJ would use GP7s, (possibly trainmasters up to 1968?) to run push-pull sets with its older 1920/30s coaches. These actually continued to run well into Conrail and NJ DOT. They were probably only retired once the modern Comet II push-pulls arrived in the 80s, though now being run with ex CNJ GP40Ps (the locomotive from my GOYD challenge). Bethlehem Car Works makes the coach kits, and sells a "car end" that can be made into the cab-car face. These kits are no longer than any other "shorty" suburban coach of that time period, such as the MP54.




In my neck of the woods, the PRR, and Penn Central for a short time, ran a push-pull set from Pavonia yard in Camden, NJ, to Pemberton, using a Baldwin switcher (either a PRR unit, or a borrowed PRSL unit), or sometimes even a GP7. There were two specialized P70 coaches with a Headlight, horn, and apparently, rudimentary controls. Actually, as I understood it, the initial "push" runs were non-revenue. There were two trains, each facing the other direction. They would run revenue trains with passengers while pulling, and would then make a non-revenue run pushing back to Pavonia.

Model wise, I think a P70 is still a little shorter than an 85' car (I though the 70 referred to passenger cabin space, minus vestibules and couplers and such). It wouldn't take much to modify a PRR P70 model into a Pemberton car.