More Interesting Tinplate

I've been looking around lately for some larger standard gauge passenger cars for a project. I want to repaint the cars to go with one of my locomotives for which I have no consist. Often I see shells or rusty cars in need of restoration, and that was one option. However, the amount of work necessary on such cars is much more than would be necessary on complete cars that have already been repainted once.

I found a set of Williams Reproduction Limited 418 series cars this week. The cars are complete and will not require much work to get them ready to be repainted. The cars are quite interesting. Take a look at the tables and chairs and the restroom in the 431 diner car. To me the table and chairs strips look like original Lionel tinplate that has been installed in the reproduction car. Other cars also appear to have original Lionel chairs in them. I read somewhere recently that Jerry Williams acquired Lionel tooling for standard gauge items back in the 70s, which he later sold to Mike Wolf. I suppose this explains how Williams, and later MTH are able to make so many of the ex-Lionel design standard gauge tinplate locos and cars.

Jim