Con-Cor - 4311E - Passenger Car, Pullman, Semi-Corrugated, Sleeper 10-6 - Amtrak

Model Information: These cars were originally manufactured for MRC by Röwa (Germany) in the end 1960s-early 1970s. Röwa also sold them under its own brand. Post-MRC, Con-Cor distributed them for a while under its brand name and attempted to acquire the tooling in order to set up production of these cars at Rivarossi. However, said tooling was eventually lost (or confiscated) and these models subsequently vanished from the face of the earth. They have metal window frames, close-coupling, diaphragms and venetian blinds in the windows. Some come equipped with interior lighting.
This model was made after the Pullman 10-roomette/6-bedroom sleeper built for the C&O in 1950.

Prototype History: The Pullman built cars ordered by Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) after WWII were semi-corrugated, i.e. corrugated on the lower half, but smooth on the upper half and roof.
Some of these cars ended up on a few other railroads because C&O backed away from their plans for expanding their service putting the excess cars on the market. D&RGW took some of the sleepers and some of the blunt end observation cars ended up on the B&O. Two of the coaches wound up on the SP. But C&O had some or of all of them so that would be the road to decorate them in. Note that the Pere Marquette, Nickel Plate, and other road's semi-corrugated cars look like the C&O cars but actually have more corrugations under the windows and so are not an exact match.

Coach: The car is in two sections divided in the center. Fifty-nine coaches in the 1610-1668 series were delivered to the C&O by Pullman in 1950 for service on most C&O trains, including the George Washington. Eight of these cars were sold to the D&RGW. C&O removed the corrugations in 1967.
Sleeper: This is the Pullman 85' 10-roomette/6-bedroom sleeper built for the C&O in 1950 in the “City of…” series, and 56 were made. Some C&O cars were used on the Pere Marquette. Cars were also sold to ACL, B&O, D&RGW and IC. The Nickel Plate also bought 13 of these 10/6 cars new in 1950 from PS, also named “City of…”.
Observation: This is the Pullman 85’ 5 double bedroom, buffet, 26-seat lounge, blunt end observation car (floor plan 4165) built for the C&O in 1950. Eight cars were built in the “Club” series and used on several trains by the C&O. Some of the C&O cars were modified for mid-train operation. Some were later sold to the B&O, who used them on the Capitol Limited.

Road Name History: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a passenger railroad service that provides medium- and long-distance intercity service in the contiguous United States. Founded in 1971 through the government-sponsored consolidation of most of the remaining U.S. passenger rail companies, it is partially government-funded yet operated and managed as a for-profit corporation.

Amtrak operates more than 300 trains each day on 21,300 miles (34,000 km) of track with select segments having civil operating speeds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and connecting more than 500 destinations in 46 states in addition to three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2015, Amtrak served 30.8 million passengers and had $2.185 billion in revenue, while employing more than 20,000 people. Nearly two-thirds of passengers come from the 10 largest metropolitan areas; 83% of passengers travel on routes shorter than 400 miles. Its headquarters is at Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The name "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "trak", the latter itself a sensational spelling of "track".

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.

Manufacturer Information: Röwa was founded in 1961 by Willy Ade and Horst Röchling, the company name being an acronym of their combined names. For several years, much of Röwa’s energies were directed toward developing products for other model train manufacturers, notably Trix of Germany and, on occasion, Roco of Austria.

Production of model trains under the Röwa name began in the late 1960’s, ca. 1968. Much of the company’s products were in H0-Scale, but there was some interesting production in N-Scale.

The Röwa American-prototype N-Scale items were marketed in the United States by Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC) for a period of a few years. Both the locomotives and passenger cars were subsequently marketed by other companies in successive years. For example, Brawa and Con-Cor marketed the N&W Y-6b Mallet-type, and the Berkshire may have also been marketed in the same way. Con-Cor owned the passenger car tooling for a period of time, producing until the die-molds went out of production tolerances.

Röwa ended production around 1974 and the manufacturing tools and dies used to produce the trains were sold to other companies.

From this website.