Con-Cor HO Scale GM Aerotrain 4-Car Set, GM Demonstrator (0001-008741)

Warehouse find: factory-new Con-Cor HO GM Aerotrain in the General Motors Demonstrator scheme, the way the train looked when it first toured America in 1955. Straight from the Con-Cor warehouse.

The box features Grif Teller's famous 1955 Aerotrain painting, showing the train sweeping around a curve beside a piggyback freight.

Yesterday's Train of the Future

In the mid-1950s, passenger traffic was sliding as highways and airlines grew. General Motors answered with the Aerotrain, an experimental lightweight train meant to cut operating costs and improve passenger comfort.

The streamlined LWT12 locomotive used Electro-Motive Division's 12-cylinder diesel and other components from the SW1200 switcher. GM's bus division adapted its intercity bus design to build the 40-passenger coaches.

GM unveiled the Aerotrain at its 1955 Powerama exhibition in Chicago. The two demonstrator trains then logged more than 600,000 miles touring the country, opening to the public in major cities from coast to coast. Railroads borrowed them for trial service, including Santa Fe's San Diegan, New York Central's Great Lakes Aerotrain, the Pennsylvania Railroad and Union Pacific's City of Las Vegas. EMD sold both trains to the Rock Island in 1958, where they ran until retirement in 1965. Both survive today in railroad museums.

The GM Demonstrator scheme is the original, the one the public saw first, and the natural choice if you want just one Aerotrain.

The Model

This basic set includes the locomotive, two coaches and an observation car. Add two 3-coach add-on sets to build the prototype's full locomotive-plus-nine-car consist.

• Detailed plastic bodies with applied detail parts and a cab interior with painted crew
• Die-cast metal chassis; locomotive weighs about 16 oz
• 5-pole skewed-armature can motor with dual brass flywheels
• Three-axle drive with traction tires; strong enough to pull the full nine-car train
• LED headlights that recreate the prototype's unique nose lights and number boxes
• Reversing headlights and observation-car backup lights
• Lighted coach interiors with painted seats and headrest covers
• Fully enclosed underbodies with "possum belly" baggage doors
• Working full-width diaphragms with magnetic striker plates
• Electrical pickup on all cars; RP-25 nickel-silver wheels
• DC operation with an 8-pin DCC socket (decoder not included)
• With a decoder installed, the center headlights flash alternately when the horn function is used

Note: The cars connect through electrical connectors built into the diaphragms, which also act as the couplers. Cars must run vestibule-forward like the prototype. There is no provision for standard knuckle couplers.

Specs

• Scale: HO (1:87)
• Manufacturer: Con-Cor International
• Item #: 0001-008741
• Road: General Motors Demonstrator (1955)
• Contents: LWT12 locomotive, 2 coaches, 1 observation car
• Condition: New old stock, original box

Quantities are limited to what was found in the warehouse. Once they're gone, they're gone.