The former Holgate & Reynolds kits have been on the market for a number of
years under the name Three Brothers.
Here is a posting that discusses the heritage of the kits:
By the way, we're talking about HO here....
-Charlie Vlk
These cars are ubiquitous to those living around Chicago.
The smooth-side bilevel cars were manufactured by Pullman to the same design
as some eariler cars built for the CNW. Their sides were painted red with a
yellow stripe and yellow speed lettering. They had a grey roof as well. The
car ends were painted yellow and the cab car had scare stripes running in two
vertical rows on either side of the end door diaphragm, behind the ladders. I
believe the trucks were grey when new, but were painted silver by the RTA
after the RI expired. The center doors used for loading and unloading of
passengers were at ground level and were painted silver.
The stainless steel bilevels were similar to cars designed by Budd for the
Milwaukee Road(basically an improved version of those built earlier for the
Burlington). They were all stainless steel with the addition of scare stripes
on the cab car end in similar fashion to the Pullman cars(later extended to
the entire cab car end by the RTA). The interior seating also differs with the
seats lacking footrests.
The cars were all equipped for HEP, which required the RI to rebuild some
passenger locomotives to power these trains. The F-7's (675-677), AB6's
(750-751), and EA-6 (630) were all rebuilt with separate HEP generators in
place of their steam generators for use with these cars. The later acquisition
of the UP E-8's and E-9's (660-665) resulted in "new" power for these commuter
trains. E-9 #665 was run through the Silvis shops very quickly in order to get
the unit in service(notice the UP snow shields still in place in photographs
of this unit in commuter service - the others had these appliances removed).
Interestingly, none of the RI's own E-8's were used to haul these cars in
service.
These cars were used in trains from 1 to 10+ cars long. I saw "The Bankers"
coming into Tinley Park many times with two E's (or one F and one E) up front.
The one car off-peak trains did not work due to a lack of braking effort
available from the one car and locomotive.
Metra sent the Pullman cars north to work up on the CNW lines. The cab cars
had their cab window plated over and the appliances removed(the cabs were not
removed, these cars just had less capacity than "normal" coaches). The
RTA/Metra ordered more Budd cars to supplant the fleet and these cars were
added to the RI line as well. A good spotting feature for the "old" Budd cars
was the plugged rivet line where there had once been the roadname panel, which
Metra removed, and walkover seats.
There are some new insurgents to the Metra ranks with the addition of the new
cars from Nippon-Sharyo/Morrison Knudsen/Amerail. They have walkover seats,
but no footrests, and windows which can only be described as HUGE compared
with all previous cars. They're also wheelchair lift equipped. At first I
didn't think the lift would work, but this spindly contraption actually can
safely lift a handicapped person from the ground up into the car. It's kinda
cool. Check 'em out while they're new!
As for the models, they were once made by Holgate & Reynolds, than later by
Keil-Line. The tooling has sat dormant for at least a decade before being
purchased by Three Brothers. The cars are craftsman kits not intended for
beginners. They can be made to look good with some detailing effort. It's
GREAT to have these models available again and I thank Three Brothers for
bringing them back, but we still need someone to produce a decent plastic
model of these cars for the casual modeler.
Still, I'll take a dozen (two cab cars)!!
Tom Klimczak
Tinley Park, IL
Arm getting better
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Swindell
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 7:26 AM
Subject: [CBQ] Re: CBQ Commuter Models
The commuter cars that I have are Holgate & Reynolds cars. They are
extruded aluminum. Unfortunately, they haven't been in business for a long time.
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