MTH - Premier Heavyweight Passenger Cars - 5-Car 70 ft. Madison - O Scale 3 Rail

The steel passenger car was in large part a byproduct of the building of New York's Pennsylvania Station. In 1901 the Pennsylvania Railroad, under President A.J. Cassatt, began the construction of its gateway into Manhattan. Until then, Pennsy passengers bound for New York de-trained in Jersey City and crossed the Hudson River by ferry to their final destination - while travelers on rival New York Central went straight to Grand Central Station. A key element of the Penn Station project was long tunnels under the Hudson, and another set of tunnels under the East River to link up with Pennsy subsidiary Long Island Rail Road. Cassatt was adamant that the cars going through his tunnels be fireproof, a requirement that the wooden cars of the era could not satisfy. The search for a steel car design was on.