Brief History:

The Union Pacific actually won the race to have a "modern streamlined high speed train" in service first when their M-10000 streamliner took to the rails in early 1934 months before the Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr. The Burlington won the public relations battle and got more publicity for the Pioneer Zephyr which is probably remembered better than the M-10000. The M-10000 also toured much of the USA and the interior was shown to over 1 million people, and each and every one of those million plus people got a fancy souvenir Aluminum coin made of the same material as the M-10000 body. We plan to include Replica of this souvenir coin with each set. Delivery is scheduled for the model of the M-10000 after the AeroTrain in later 2007.

CON-COR Requests Your Help!

Since the M-10000 was built in 1934 and scrapped in 1940 there is only limited information available from the old records. CON-COR has the information published in the Kratville "Union Pacific" streamliner book, as well as the Pullman Standard, Vol #13 book by Randall and Anderson. CON-COR needs more information on the roof details, angles and radius of the locomotive and car bodies, and more photos of the lettering schemes, and if possible paint chips. Any and all help is most welcome.  If you can provide any information please e-mail CON-COR directly at concor@con-cor.com

Brief History:

The AeroTrain name is recognized by most model railroaders, and yet finding good information about it has been a challenge. There were two AeroTrain consists (train #1000 and train #1001). Built in 1955 and debuted at the 1955 "GM Powerama" which was held at Soldier's Field just south of Downtown. The two AeroTrain demonstrator sets logged over 600,000 miles traveling coast to coast and were open to the public for viewing in many major cities. In addition to the roads listed below that used the AeroTrain in regular service, it also ran on many other railroads such as the Southern Pacific, New Haven, Canadian National, and even spent a couple of months in Mexico! Today you can find parts of one Train Set at the Museum in St. Louis, and parts of the other Train Set at the Museum in Green Bay. The one in St. Louis was cosmetically restored about 5 years ago using a $10,000 donation from the NMRA.

The Consist of the AeroTrain:

Each AeroTrain consisted of the locomotive unit, eight 40 seat coaches and the tail end observation car. A total of 10 units per train set. The Locomotive used the drive train off the SW-1200 switcher (re-geared so it could hit a top speed of 102 mph), and the car bodies were built using parts from an inter-city bus body that GM was building at the time. The GM Designer responsible for the AeroTrain project Charles "Chuck" Jordan who is now retired and living in Southern California. "Chuck" was the primary designer of the 1958 Corvette, and was named Cadillac’s Chief of Design in 1959. CON-COR would like to acknowledge "Chuck's" cooperation with the Aero-Train project.

The AeroTrain models:

Designed similar to the "N" Pioneer Zephyr models introduced recently, the AeroTrain will be DCC compatible, have full interiors, and interior lighting, reversing headlights and tail lights. The AeroTrain will be as faithfully reproduced as CON-COR can make it. It is designed so you can just buy the basic 4 car set and it will run just fine as a 4 car train with all the features. But it will be easy to add the extra "Add-on" car set(s) to make a longer train if you so choose either immediately, or at a later date. Con-Cor will offer the AeroTrain in a basic set of 4 units, the Locomotive 2 coaches and the Observation car. And "add-on" sets of 3 more coaches will be offered. So a modeler can buy the basic 4 unit set, plus one "add-on" coach set to make a 7 car "AeroTrain", or buy 2 of the "add-on" coach sets to reproduce the full 10 car prototype train.

The Pioneer Zephyr is a name that has become synonymous with the word "Streamliner" and needs no introduction. Almost all railfans the world over instantly recognize the name. While the Union Pacific was running their M-10000 "Streamliner" some months before the Zephyr was put into service in May of 1934, the Zephyr stole the public relations show and is better-known and more widely remembered than the UP's M-10000. The Zephyr's distinctive nose began making the newspapers and newsreels. As a symbol, the train had a distinctiveness, a sleekness, an "image" if you will, that made it easy for the public to identity. When it made its record breaking 1015 mile run on May 26th from Denver to Chicago, it gained even more PR. It traversed the 1015 miles non-stop in 13 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds to arrive at the Opening of the Century of Progress Exposition. It was one of the biggest attractions at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago during the summer of 1934. Before it went into regular service in the Fall of 1934, it was taken on tour. During 1934 it traveled to over 220 different American cities and was toured by over 2 million People. So even if you are not a CB&Q fan, it is quite possible that the Zephyr visited your city and you could run it on your layout as a white flagged special just like the real train did during its travels in 1934 over many different railroads in the East, Midwest and Western USA.