Lima - 353 - Passenger Car, CIWL, Pullman - Pennsylvania - 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 Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR) was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy," the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The PRR was the largest railroad by traffic and revenue in the U.S. for the first half of the twentieth century. Over the years, it acquired, merged with or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies. At the end of 1925, it operated 10,515 miles of rail line; in the 1920s, it carried nearly three times the traffic as other railroads of comparable length, such as the Union Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Its only formidable rival was the New York Central (NYC), which carried around three-quarters of PRR's ton-miles.

At one time, the PRR was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world, with a budget larger than that of the U.S. government and a workforce of about 250,000 people. The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history: it paid out annual dividends to shareholders for more than 100 years in a row.

In 1968, PRR merged with rival NYC to form the Penn Central Transportation Company, which filed for bankruptcy within two years. The viable parts were transferred in 1976 to Conrail, which was itself broken up in 1999, with 58 percent of the system going to the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), including nearly all of the former PRR. Amtrak received the electrified segment east of Harrisburg.

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