If you are a fan of the Jersey Central Railroad, recent offerings from Lionel and MTH have certainly provided the opportunity to dramatically increase the variety of O gauge motive power and rolling stock. Possibly the most significant of these products is the MTH Premier Blue Comet steamer and passenger set.

Brief history:

The Jersey Central Blue Comet was considered one of the premier passenger trains that brought first class passenger, high-speed service to the New Jersey Coast. Inaugurated in February 1929, it was assigned a Class G-3 Pacific-type 4-6-2 locomotive trimmed in nickel and carried the train’s name on a bronze insignia under the water heater. The Blue Comet consist included rebuilt CNJ coaches and diners, plus an open ended-brass railed observation coach. The cars’ window bands were all finished in cream with the balance in royal blue.

The train ran from Jersey City down along the New Jersey coast to one of its few scheduled stops at Red Bank. After leaving Red Bank, the train headed inland to Winslow Junction and down to its final destination at Atlantic City, NJ. The schedule called for this trip to take 3 hours 13 minutes, more than 2 hours faster than CNJ’s local service over the same route.

During its existence, the Blue Comet was the pride of the Jersey Central Railroad. It began with two roundtrips daily in 1929. Due to the depression years, competition with buses, and the increased use of automobiles, this schedule was reduced to one daily roundtrip in September 1934. It eventually ceased operation in 1941. In its latter stages of operation, the G-3 Pacifics were replaced by other locomotives, including 4-4-2 Atlantics. The Pacifics were used to move heavier trains on other parts of the system.

MTH’S PREMIER BLUE COMET

MTH locomotive and tender:

Both the locomotive and tender are ¼ inch scale reproductions that are over 22 inches in length and together weigh over 10 pounds. The locomotive is a Pacific-type with a 4-6-2 wheel configuration, and is correctly numbered 833. Both the die-cast boiler and tender are very well finished, with loads of detail parts and piping added to the detailed body castings. Despite its scale size, the locomotive and tender have the capability of operating on 42-inch diameter curves. The locomotive uses its weight and Pittman motor with flywheel drive train; along with its rear drive traction wheels to get its trains moving. The locomotive had no trouble pulling the five matching MTH Madison cars. The MTH Blue Comet is offered in either a 2 or 3 rail version.

The drawbar between engine and tender has two holes. One hole provides close coupling on wider radius curves, and the second spaces the engine and tender farther apart to allow operation on smaller curves. I tried the close coupling on my layout, which has 54-inch diameter curves, and did not encounter any problems.

MTH provides an O gauge coupler, which replaces the scale coupler on the front pilot. I installed the O gauge one and used it to push and pull cars around my layout. I encountered no problems, but because of the limited tolerance between the coupler and the pilot housing, you may encounter problems on layouts with smaller radii. MTH does not mention anything in their operating instructions about double-heading it with another locomotive. But, before doing this, I would recommend that you contact MTH. If MTH went along with the double-heading operations, I believe they would recommend using only another engine of equal size, weight, and motor size – MTH Blue Comet. That would be a very impressive operation.

Additional details that appealed to me were the constant voltage headlight, operation marker lights, plated valve gear and side rods, spoked metal drives, real coal in the tender, detailed cab interior, operating firebox glow, ProtoSounds, and an excellent ProtoSmoking system. A nice feature of the smoking system is that it has a shut-off switch under the frame.

To make the locomotive model more prototypical, the hinges on the smoke box need to be smaller and the paint scheme on the drive wheels and trucks needs to be changed from light blue to dark blue. The die cast tender trucks are painted dark blue.

MTH passenger cars:

The MTH Madison passenger car bodies are made of ABS and are a good representation of the ones used by CNJ. Each car measures 18” in length and when converted from O scale feet compares favorably to the prototype’s 72’5”. Each care has the Blue Comet lettering in big bold gold letters across its entire length. This is the way the CNJ spelled out the Blue Comet on each of its cars. CNJ named each car after a comet. MTH cars are named correctly, but two of them are misspelled: Bernard (s/b Barnard), Winnecke, Holmes, Tuttle, and DeVico (s/b DiVico).

All the cars have 6-wheel die-cast trucks and knuckle couplers. However, the prototype Pullman and observation cars had 4-wheel bearing trucks, not the 6-wheel version that MTH installed. The baggage car appears to have the correct 6-wheel trucks. Another noticeable difference is the air conditioning on the roofs of the baggage, Pullman, and observation cars. The original Blue Comet cars did not have air conditioning. When Jersey Central did install air conditioning in these cars, they installed the units under the carriage of each car and not on the roof.

Due to the size of the cars and for aesthetic purposes, I would recommend that they not be operated on layouts with curves less than 42 inches in diameter. Running the cars through switches with curve legs less than 21 inches radius could also present problems as each car’s overhang could hang up on the switch machine bodies or any other object close to the track.

Interior detail of the Pullman cars is exceptional. The overhead lighting is a nice touch. I am going to look into the possibility of putting passengers inside some of the cars. The CNJ observation cars had open seating arrangements, rather than fixed seats as done on the MTH version.

The end-of-car diaphragms, along with illuminated marker lights and drumhead on the observation car add realism. Opening doors on the Pullman and observation cars would have been a nice added touch.

Conclusion:

Summing up, if you are a CNJ fan, operate a high rail or scale layout with 42 inch or larger diameter curves, MTH has done an exceptional job in duplicating the CNJ Blue Comet locomotive and tender. The passenger cars are well made, but with a little more research, MTH could have made a better representative of the ones used by the CNJ.

LIONEL’S BLUE COMET

Being originally from New Jersey, I have a keen interest in the Jersey Central Blue Comet. The Blue Comet’s inaugural run was in February 1929 and it continued running until 1941. The unit was created by modifying and repainting some of the Central’s newest coaches and Class G-3 Pacifics of that time. The paint theme for the consist included Packard Blue, Royal Blue, and Jersey Cream, with gold lettering and striping. These colors were chosen to symbolize both the sand, sea, and sky of the Jersey Shore and a comet streaking through the sky. Normally, the Jersey Central lettered its cars “Central Railroad of New Jersey”, but in this case, the cars were lettered “The Blue Comet” and each car carried the name of a different comet.

When the Jersey Central created the Blue Comet cars, they installed roller bearings on the trucks (except on baggage cars). This gave The Blue Comet the distinction of being the first train East of the Mississippi to be equipped with such trucks. This innovative action by Jersey Central set a precedent for many other railroads to follow.

The original concept was to offer two express trains that would run from Jersey City to Atlantic City, NJ. In June 1929, a third consist was added to offer departures out of New York City. All three trains were pulled by Class G-3 Pacifics. The Blue Comet was successful for a number of years, but its use declined in later years due to effects of the depression, improvements to the highway system, and the increased number of people having automobiles.

Following is my review of Lionel’s latest version of The Blue Comet.

Locomotive and tender:

The first thing I noticed when unpacking the locomotive and tender was that both units rested upright on their wheels. This made it much easier to remove them from the Styrofoam packing.

After unwrapping the engine, I was slightly disappointed to see that Lionel used a Heavy Pacific steam engine for the set. This was apparent since the air pumps above the cylinder heads were missing. All the 4-6-2 G-3 Pacific Locomotives that were associated with the Jersey Central Blue Comet, of which there were only three (nos. 831, 832, and 833), had their air pumps visible rather than concealed.

The die-cast locomotive and tender are O-scale sized, and together measure over 22.5 inches with a combined weight of slightly over 10 lbs. The die-casting of both units surpassed my expectations. The locomotive and tender have a tremendous amount of detail, including: spoked drives that are accented with gold striping; scale coupler on the front pilot; numerous pipes and rods that appear to be individually machined and attached to the boiler; brass-plated bell, whistle, and steam valves on top of the boiler; marker lights on both the engine and tender that not only work but appear to be fairly scale-sized; and, “The Blue Comet” name board under the water feed heater that also appears to be scale in size.

Locomotive and tender bodies are painted in Packard Blue with the top of the cab painted a Royal Blue. Engine and tender trucks are painted a Royal Blue. Both units are accented with gold striping and lettering. The cylinder heads appear to be nickel-plated, just like the ones on the prototype engines.

Running Lionel’s version of the 831, in command mode, has been a real pleasure. The RailSounds is fantastic, especially the chuff rate which is determined by the speed you run your locomotive. But to get the true sound range, you need to install a 9-volt alkaline battery in the tender. This is a fairly easy procedure. Begin by removing 4 Phillips screws that attach the tender shell to the frame. Lift off the tender shell, install the battery, and reassemble the tender shell to the frame. Note of Caution: When replacing the shell, be careful that you do not pinch any of the wires connecting the boards. Once you have installed the battery, you will get the shutdown sequences that last approximately 12 seconds after you turn the rail power off.

When I turned off the sound system and ran the engine and tender by itself, it was totally silent except for the whir of the fan in the smoke generator and the sound of wheels on the track. After a break-in period of approximately one hour, the engine’s performance with its Odyssey speed control system ran flawlessly - no jerky starts. I ran the locomotive with its consist at an incredibly slow speed of 4 mph without encountering any problems. The unit also ran smoothly and consistently through all the other speed ranges. All my tests were done using a Lionel ZW, with voltage setting of 12v, 17v and 24v. I also ran the unit in conventional mode, and encountered no problems, but for those of you who may want to run your consist in one direction, you can do so in the conventional mode by locking your locomotive into a chosen direction.

The operating headlight has a nice soft glow to it - not too bright as some others that I have seen. The use of halogen-type lights on steam engines and early diesels just doesn’t do it for me. Another nice touch is the front boiler, which opens to reveal the light, but is held shut by a magnetized frame.

In addition to the above features, there is a wireless tether between the locomotive and tender, an ElectroCoupler on the rear of the tender, a Pittman motor that supplies pulling power to the 6 drive wheels of which 2 have traction tires, glass in the cab windows, red firebox glow, builders and trust plates that appear separately attached, and a lighted cab with an engineer and fireman. A unique feature is the whistle, which has a distinctive deep steamboat sound, which I understand the prototypes had. Also, every time I activated the whistle, it was different.

Passenger cars:

The cars are Lionel’s new heavyweight style cars. The set includes a baggage car, two coaches and an observation car, with their respective comet names of Barnard, Faye, Westphal and Temel. Lionel spelled all the names correctly. Each car has a metal frame that is attached to a detailed molded body. The body of each car measures 18” in length, excluding couplers, and when converted to O-scale feet it compares favorably to the prototypes, which measured 72’ 5”. The cars’ color scheme appears to be authentic with the bodies and vestibules of the cars painted in a Packard Blue, the window bands in Jersey Cream, and the roofs, under frames, trucks, and steps in Royal Blue. A nice touch is that each step has “Watch Your Step” stenciled on the second header. Each car has the name “THE BLUE COMET” in bold gold letters along the length of the car just above the windows. The comet names are also painted in gold and centered just beneath the belt rail.

The roofs of the cars appear to be prototypical in that there is no air conditioning system built into the mold. When the prototypical cars were first put into service, they were not air-conditioned. When Jersey Central did decide to install air conditioning, they did so by installing the units under the carriages of the cars. Several nice features that Lionel added to the cars caught my attention, including: 1) the ability to turn off the lights on each car with an on/off switch located in the rear toolbox on the underside of each car; 2) side doors of the coaches and observation car are spring loaded so that they can be opened, with separately applied hand rails alongside each door; 3) the baggage car doors are sprung shut so that they do not vibrate open when the train is moving. Nice touch. When you do open the door(s), it would have been nice to see some luggage and/or freight about to be unloaded.

The floor plans for the coaches and the observation car appear very close to prototypical, plus each car has several people seated in it. One nice touch is that the observation car has an awning with a drumhead. I did notice, however, that the observation platform does not have an enlarged platform with sides to accommodate chairs, as did the prototypical cars.

A nice feature is that each car comes with end-of-car diaphragms. Lionel advertises in its 2001, Volume 2, catalog that the cars can operate on 0-31 inch curves, but with the diaphragms installed, I believe the cars should be limited to curves with a diameter of 0-54 inches or larger. Operating the cars on the larger size curves should not present any problems with switch machines or any other structures near the track.

Each car is attached to 6 wheel die-cast metal trucks with flanges on all wheels, in contrast to the prototype coaches and observation cars, which had 4 wheel roller bearing trucks. The 6 wheel trucks on the baggage car appear correct. The operating knuckle couplers are attached to the trucks, and are operated by a hidden mechanism under the truck - no thumb tack-type uncoupling mechanism here.

Summation:

Lionel has done an excellent job in making the ¼ inch scale locomotive and tender, but they should have used a Class G-3 Pacific rather than a Heavy Pacific. For a mass-produced item, the passenger cars are exceptionally close to the prototypes (Nice Job). For best results, you need to run it on track with 54-inch diameter curves or larger.

Since Lionel stated that the set had a limited run, I question what that number is. The set has been offered in both their 2001, Volume 2, and 2002, Volume 1, Catalogs. Each advertisement indicated that they were going to have a limited production of 1,000 of these sets. Does this mean that they produced 1,000 or 2,000?