Con-Cor’s HO Zephyr streamliner captures the prototype’s good looks and smooth performance

An all new HO scale model of the historic Burlington Zephyr has been introduced by Con-Cor International. This three-car articulated streamliner neatly captures the appearance and proportions of its famous prototype. It includes an eight-wheel drive, interior details and lighting, an operating headlight, and marker lights.

The Zephyr was the brainchild of Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR president Ralph Budd, who was searching for ways to reduce costs and attract more passengers. The Burlington developed this new lightweight train as a joint project with the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co. and General Motors’ Electro-Motive Corp. It went into regular service in 1934.

The original three-car Zephyr included everything found in a daytime passenger train. Its lead car contained the cab up front (talk about a brave engineer), followed by the diesel-electric power plant, a Railway Post Office apartment and a small baggage room. The second car was fitted with an express compartment, a buffet for meal preparation, and seats for 20 passengers. The last car had coach seats for 40 passengers, two rest rooms, and an observation-lounge. All of this was packed into a train 197 feet long.

Prototype drawings of the Zephyr were published in the January 1999 Model Railroader magazine. Fortunately, the original Zephyr has been preserved, restored to its original appearance, and is now on permanent display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. A virtual tour of the train’s interior is available on the museum’s Web site www.msichicago.org.

The model. Con-Cor’s HO model closely follows MR’s drawings of the original 1934 train, although the CB&Q added a fourth car a year after the Zephyr went into service. The three-car model comes assembled and ready-to-run, except for the addition of the mail hooks and six stirrup steps which must be cemented into place.

The model Zephyr is made of well-detailed plastic body parts, with a heavy die-cast metal floor in the power car. Both of the passenger cars have plastic underframes with sheet metal weights sandwiched beneath the interiors. Flush-mounted clear plastic glazing fits tightly into the window openings, and each strip has loops along the bottom edge that engage latches to retain the floors.

Smooth mechanism. Our sample Zephyr has a smooth-running mechanism similar to that in most HO diesel locomotives. A can motor, fitted with a pair of turned brass flywheels, is nestled into a recess in the floor casting. It’s covered by a plastic housing so these parts aren’t visible through the windows. Floor-mounted bearings support a pair of long steel shafts and plastic universals that drive both geared trucks.

All four trucks are fitted with electrical pickups concealed behind the sideframes, and these pickups are hard-wired into the electrical system. With split axles, all 16 wheels pick up electrical current for smooth operation.

A set of printed-circuit boards ride on top of the interior bulkheads. All three boards have light-emitting diodes mounted on their undersides to illuminate the seats with a bluish light that simulates fluorescent lamps. Eight-pin plugs between the cars connect the PC boards to operate the directional lighting circuits.

The power car’s PC board has an NMRA-recommended Digital Command Control (DCC) 8-pin socket and two extra (unused) pins that are mounted underneath the board. There’s plenty of room within the carbody for a decoder. A speaker opening is cast into the power car’s underframe to help any purchaser who decides to install a DCC diesel sound system.

Rigid plastic diaphragms snap onto the tops of both shared trucks to cover the spaces and hide the electrical connections between cars.

All of the trucks have realistic skirting attached to the sideframes, except for the lead truck which has a set of clever pivoted skirts. These skirts are attached to the floor and swing with the truck. The model can negotiate 18″-radius curves, though its sleek styling looks much better gliding around wider-radius curves (24″ and up).

Performance. The Zephyr performed smoothly, starting and running steadily on 1.4 volts at 2.6 scale mph. Its 90 mph top speed is a bit under the prototype’s 112 mph, but it’s well within the range of normal passenger trains of that era. The power car has plenty of drawbar pull to handle this three-car consist.

Overall, Con-Cor has certainly captured the pioneering spirit of the prototype with this nicely detailed, smooth-performing model.

HO Burlington Zephyr

Price: $379

Manufacturer
Con-Cor International
8101 East Research Ct.
Tucson, AZ 85710
www.all-railroads.com

Description
Plastic-and-metal ready-to-run three-car streamliner

Road names
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and painted without lettering

Features
Drawbar pull: 3 ounces
Dual flywheel drive
8-wheel drive with hard-wired 16-wheel electrical pick-up
Flush-mounted window glazing
Interior details and lights
Minimum radius: 18″
NMRA-recommended Digital Command Control (DCC)
8-pin decoder socket
NMRA RP-25 wheels (in gauge)
No couplers
Overall length, 197 scale feet (27½”)
Train weight: Power car, 10.5 ounces; coach, 3 ounces; observation car, 3.5 ounces; 17 ounces overall
White light-emitting-diode constant directional headlights with red marker lights