Lima - 383 - Passenger Car, CIWL, Pullman - Santa Fe - 3425

Specific Item Information: Introduced in the 1968 catalog - disappeared a couple of years after.
Non prototypical, based on a European coach car.

Model Information: Introduced in 1968. Available up until the early 1980's.
Like most of Lima passenger cars, this one of length 138 mm is too short; it should be 146 mm long to be prototypically correct at scale N (1/160).

Prototype History: The CIWL (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits) Pullman cars are luxury lounge and restaurant cars built in the 1920's by a variety of manufacturers. They have been in service until the early 1970's.

A total of 211 cars were built in 4 series (1st class, otherwise mentioned):

Type « Sud-Express »
- 10 lounge cars (n° 2737 to 2748)
- 3 lounge cars w. kitchen (n° 2839 to 2841)

Type « Flèche d'Or » (Paris-London)
- 15 lounge cars (24 seats) w. kitchen n° 4001 to 4015
- 15 lounge cars (32 seats) n° 4016 to 4030
- 15 other cars (n° 4051 to 4080 w. or w/o kitchen)
- 30 additional cars (n° 4031 to 4050, n° 4081 to 4090)

Type « Étoile du Nord » (Paris - Amsterdam)
- 20 coach cars (38 seats) w. kitchen (n° 4091 à 4110) - 2nd Cl.
- 20 coach cars (51 seats) (n° 4111 à 4130) - 2nd Cl.

Type « Côte d'Azur » (Paris - Vintimille « Train bleu »)
- 34 cars n° 4131 to 4164, of the following 2 types, the most luxurious of the series:
++ lounge cars (20 seats) w. kitchen
++ lounge cars (28 seats)

From Wikipedia (in French)
Full roster of CIWL Pullman cars on this page (in French)

Road Name History: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (reporting mark ATSF), often abbreviated as Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. Chartered in February 1859, the railroad reached the Kansas-Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farm land from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress. Despite the name, its main line never served Santa Fe, New Mexico, as the terrain was too difficult; the town ultimately was reached by a branch line from Lamy.

The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport, an enterprise that (at one time or another) included a tugboat fleet and an airline (the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway). Its bus line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The ATSF was the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren & Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film, The Harvey Girls (1946).

The railroad officially ceased operations on December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Lima N scale European models were numbered with 3 digits until 1978. They were renumbered after 1978 by adding "320" before the previous number. e.g. "306" became "320306".

Manufacturer Information: Lima S.p.A (Lima Models) was a brand of railway models made in Vicenza, Italy, for almost 50 years, from the early 1950s until the company ceased trading in 2004. Lima was a popular, affordable brand of 00 gauge and N gauge model railway material in the UK, more detailed H0 and N gauge models in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States as well as South Africa, Scandinavia and Australia. Lima also produced a small range of 0 gauge models. Lima partnered with various distributors and manufacturers, selling under brands such as A.H.M., Model Power, Minitrain and PMI (Precision Models of Italy). Market pressures from superior Far Eastern produce in the mid-1990s led to Lima merging with Rivarossi, Arnold, and Jouef. Ultimately, these consolidations failed and operations ceased in 2004.

Hornby Railways offered €8 million to acquire Lima's assets (including tooling, inventory, and the various brand names) in March of the same year, the Italian bankruptcy court of Brescia (town near Milan, last headquarters of Lima) approving the offer later that year. In December 2004, Hornby Railways formally announced the acquisition along with the Rivarossi (H0 North American and Italian prototypes), Arnold (N scale European prototypes), Jouef (H0 scale French prototypes), and Pocher (die-cast metal automobile kits) ranges. As of mid-2006, a range of these products has been made available under the Hornby International brand, refitted with NEM couplings and sprung buffers and sockets for DCC (Digital Command Control) decoders.

From Wikipedia