Athearn HO scale Bombardier bi-level commuter passenger cars

Athearn has released ready-to-run HO scale models of Bombardier’s bi-level commuter passenger cars. The models include interiors, magnetic knuckle couplers, working diaphragms, and metal wheels. They’re sold in decorated three-car sets of two coaches and a cab car, which is another coach but with a control compartment for the engineer. These distinctive lozenge-shaped cars normally operate in a “push-pull” mode using a locomotive to push the train in one direction and then pull it on the return trip. Designed by Hawker-Siddeley for Toronto’s GO Transit in 1975, most of these cars have been built by Bombardier Ltd. Depending upon the interior configuration, each car carries between 130 and 162 passengers.

Commuter railroads all across North America use these cars. Our samples came decorated for Vancouver, British Columbia’s West Coast Express, but these cars also operate on California’s Altamont Commuter Express (San Francisco), Metrolink (Los Angeles), and Coaster (San Diego-Los Angeles); Seattle’s Sounder, the Texas Trinity Railway Express (Dallas-Fort Worth), Tri-Rail (Miami), and The Virginia Railway Express (south of Washington, D. C.).

Athearn’s models neatly capture the unusual shape and detailing of the prototypes. Our samples closely matched a dimensional diagram published in the Simmons-Boardman 1980 Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia.

The body shell is a detailed plastic casting that includes the roof, sides, and ends. It has well-done receptacles across the lower edge of the ends where cables are connected on the prototype for head-end power and remote control of the locomotive. Clear plastic glazing is cemented into the window openings so the outer surface is nearly flush. The grab irons are formed wire. A heavy zinc alloy floor provides a low center of gravity. The two-piece molded plastic interior is cemented to the floor and the entire assembly is a friction fit in the body shell. The coupler box cover plates lock the body and frame together and they’re secured with a pair of screws.

Acetal plastic magnetic couplers are mounted in coupler boxes designed to swing from side to side for operation on tight radius curves. Small plastic whiskers on each side return these boxes to their centered position. The trucks are inboard bearing types with one-piece acetal plastic frames, blackened nickel-plated brass wheels, and simulated outboard brake disks. The wheels have .088″ treads which are very close to the NMRA’s Recommended Practice for fine scale wheels. The wheelsets have .060″ steel stub axles which are pressed into proper gauge in acetal plastic axle tubes.

As with most model inboard-bearing trucks, their rolling qualities are only fair. It takes 1.6 ounces of pull to move the three-car train, so the Athearn F59PHI passenger locomotive should have little difficulty hauling up to six cars on level track. The car weighs nine ounces, so it’s two ounces over the NMRA’s recommendation. With their one-piece cast floors, it will be difficult to remove any weight from these models.

The West Coast Express samples are neatly painted and lettered in the prototype’s three-color paint scheme. Even the tiny no smoking symbols and emergency door opening instructions on the sides are clear and readable under magnification.

Thanks to Athearn, modelers of contemporary passenger trains now have a superb consist to run with the F59PHI locomotive I reviewed in the March 2001 Model Railroader.

HO Bombardier passenger cars

Price: single cars, $29.98;
three-car sets, $79.98

Manufacturer:
Athearn Inc.
19010 Laurel Park Rd.
Compton, CA 90222
www.athearn.com

Description:
Ready-to-run plastic passenger car

Road names:
Undecorated, Coaster, GO Transit,
Metrolink, Sounder, West Coast Express