It’s a bit discouraging to spend a lot of time writing up a post for the forum only to see the whole thread disappear an hour later.
I would like to hear people’s thoughts about brass model trains. Unless this is against forum policies.
Jim
That’s a pretty broad topic. Since at least the 1950’s, there have been thousands of imported brass models with some degree of handwork. Some are true works of art; some aren’t worth the powder to blow them off the face of the earth. Some are fine representations of their ostensible prototype; others not so much. Some run like Swiss watches; others like Swiss cheese.
When I consider buying a brass model, I determine whether it’s an item that fits my needs and represents a prototype I want. Then I consider the reputation of the builder. I inspect it thoroughly and judge its operating quality. If it looks like it fits my criteria and is worth the money, I may buy it. An item that doesn’t fit, or which doesn’t operate properly (or can’t be made to operate properly), isn’t worth bothering with, whether made of brass or any other material.
Over the years I’ve owned fine brass engines and I’ve owned clunkers.
Now that I’ve said all that, we don’t know enough about your needs, wants, budget, etc. to give much of an answer. The answer will have to be tailored to you. What do you want to know, and what do you want to get out of the model in question?
Tom
I have had many brass engines thru the years and to be honest most were Not worth the price I paid for them. Most had good detail and most were lousy runners without allot of tweaking and even then they were still bad.
Todays brass is much better but not worth the money the mfgs. are asking.
There is just too many non-brass mfgs. Making and importing great products for me to consider brass ever again.
All the brass I ever had is now gone.
Brass has seen its day come and go. Good riddance.
Most of my motive power roster is brass - proving that brass is nice to work with if a manufacturer doesn’t have industrial plastic or pot metal molding capability. I know that many of my models were built as low production rate items by people operating out of storefronts or spare bedrooms. AFAIK, only one was ever shipped to the United States for commercial sale. Max Gray picked up on the Toby model of the Imperial Government Railways 4020 class 0-8-0T - Baldwin, class of 1897. His 1974 asking price was three times what I had paid in Yokohama, and nowhere did his ads mention that the model was a 3’ 6" gauge prototype built to 1:80 scale and fitted to run on HO track (aka HOj.) Tenshodo produced a Baldwin 0-6-0 in pot metal that had a remarkable visual resemblance to the 4020, also in HOj. (Tenshodo was and is a manufacturing jeweler with a fancy Ginza address, not the typical storefront operation.)
Since all of my brass models are Japanese prototype and of Japanese manufacture, they hardly form a representative sample. Also, I built most of them from kits, and did considerably more tweaking and minor modification than the assemblers who turned out the same models ready to run. Their performance reflects that. Of course, I dealt off my canines a long time ago.
I bought brass locomotives because the locomotives I wanted were only available as brass kits or RTR. I didn’t buy them as an investment in anything but future fun. Well, the future is now, and I’m having fun.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Jim,
Discussing brass trains is perfectly fine on the forum. The original post was deleted because the person posting the link to a certain brass show was also listed on the vendor’s page. (A roundabout way of advertising and promoting, which is a no-no according the forum policy.) The majority of the original post would have had to be deleted, which didn’t leave a whole lot left to discuss.
Sorry it affected your lengthy reply.
Tom
I think brass has it’s place. It’s usually a limited run of a specific model. If you want that particular model great, if not well then it’s too expensive for close.
I have a brass locomotive that’s for a very small limited market - Sn2, WWF Forney. It’s doubtful that market will ever support anything else in the way of locomotives or even a rerun of this model. For close enough, I have some MDC HOn3 kits which I plan to convert (also no longer available with no rerun in sight).
Enjoy
Paul
I have been tempted many times to bid on a brass engine, but each time I am stopped by my perceived negative aspects of such a purchase.
The cost itself is hard to justify when I can get excellent quality ‘plastic’ models for the same price or less. I would be much happier with an Intermountain F series locomotive which I can put on the track and run than a brass engine that will require hours of work to make it presentable and reliable.
Brass locomotives lack details. OK ok, settle down, most brass has great detail but they don’t go the whole nine yards. I like lighting. Most brass lacks lighting. I like illuminated number boards. I don’t like holes where the number boards are supposed to be and I don’t like number boards that can’t be easily illuminated. Granted, all that stuff can be added but so far I’m not interested in the challenge. (I hate drilling into brass!).
When I spend $300+ I expect the cab windows will be glazed. I can’t recall any brass models with window glazing and I really suck at installing it myself.
According to what I have read, the running qualities of brass engines are all over the board. Again, if I’m going to spend the money I don’t want to have to spend a bunch more to get the thing to run reliably.
They rarely come painted, and if they do come painted the price is usually way too high for me to even think about.
Finally, the biggest obstacle to making the investment is my own ignorance. I am pretty much clueless when it comes to accurate detailing, particularly on steam locomotives. I can identify the basics but I have a hard time getting a locomotive on the tracks let alone knowing which pipes and widgets are in the right place, and quite frankly I don’t care. I do admire the dedication of those who do model accurately very much, but for me the hobby is a way to de-stress, not add to it if I am worrying about getting something wrong.
However, having said all of that, I love scratch
I purchase brass locomotives because i know of no realistic plastic versions of the locomotives I’m interested in (Reading camelbacks).
greg:
I admire your dedication to accuracy. Brass locomotives clearly fill a need for you which I don’t have.
Each to his own.
Dave
So Tom, why was my post/thread deleted???
Personally, while I have every respect for the quality and craftsmanship of brass, I only own a very few pieces.
Because I have been in the hobby a long time, and worked in this industry at one time, I thought I might share my views on why brass has never been a big part of my modeling.
First, I have never seen where a brass diesel, or piece of rolling stock was anymore detailed than what I could build or super detail myself in other materials.
Cost is one factor - look at it this way - I will explain using my personal choices.
I’m building a layout that fills a 900 sq ft room, designed for both good scenery and good operation. I combine my freelance ATLANTIC CENTRAL with modeling of the B&O, C&O and WM. I model 1956.
My operational plan calls for about 30 staged trains, typically powered by 3-4 diesels or two steamers - about 90 powered units. Add in some locos in the shop for power changes, switching, etc, and you need about 130 locos - that is about the size of my current roster.
Add to that 800 freight cars, 200 passenger cars, 1000 feet of track, turnouts, signaling & CTC, wireless throttles, etc.
Point? I have spent some money on model trains - I could have bought more brass - but brass, in and of itself would not have added much to my modeling goals.
DISCLAIMER - I’m not a collector. I don’t own a bunch of locos from railroads I don’t model or eras I don’t model. I really don’t have any interest in owning a bunch of shelf queens - brass or plastic.
So as a freelancer first, I have built my roster around the available mass produced offerings over the last 20 years or so. I have been in the hobby over 40 years, but I did retire most of my early loco fleet.
DICLAIMER #2 - I have never considered ANY model train an investment, and have never bought a train thinking I would sell it at some point in the future. In 40 ye
not accuracy. Nothing in plastic comes close. Mantua seems to have one camelback shell they put on all their models: consolidated or pacific. So brass is my only option and I assume true for others.
Tom, thanks, I appreciate the reply–but I had responded in Sheldon’s second thread, which was also deleted in addition to the first HZ thread. That’s what didn’t make any sense to me.
I will try it again here, and hopefully my reference to a certain brass show will be indirect enough to be okay this time around.
Hi,
This is a subject I am very much interested in, and I looked up your thread from a year ago. I would (respectfully) disagree with your claim that the 26 replies you received “were all very negative.” Perhaps some replies were, but most were simply pragmatic about the multiple values at stake for modelers who weigh pros and cons of brass versus whatever-else-competes-with-brass. So I think characterizing those replies in that thread as “all negative,” either toward brass itself or to the idea of a brass expo, is at best simply inaccurate and needlessly adversarial at worst.
Second, as your intent in “this thread is about brass models and where they can be seen and purchased…and mostly learn about,” I’d like to comment on places where people like me can “mostly learn about brass.” I’ve been a model railroader since I was ten years old (five years old if you count Lionel trains), and I’ve had a relatively small number of brass locos for the last 35 years.
We tru
Sheldon/Jim,
Your posts were fine in and of itself. What made it strange was that they addressed the previous post/poster and made it somewhat awkward as a stand alone thread because the original was deleted.
So, again, your post was fine. It was just a casualty of the original thread. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
Tom
I have two brass steam locos, converted to dcc with current keepers and add’l contacts, that run very well. Price of brass, plus painting and dcc conversion is not cheap. I also operate on a layout with just about every piece of Erie brass that has been produced. My experience with the ones that I have run has been good. Problems include mixing brass cars with plastic. Brass being much heavier can produce derailments and or shorts, an occasional but not frequent problem.
If you find a piece of brass that you are interested in do a search, you may be able to find a review. I was in some cases able to.
Good luck,
Mark
When I first got back into model railroading back in the late 1970s, brass locos were considered the Cadillacs of model railroading. Typical price for a steamer was $600 and would be about 3 times as much in today’s dollars. They just weren’t in my budget back then. Most of the brass I saw was unpainted and that just didn’t appeal to me. I was interested in accumulating equipment to put on my layout, not collectibles. If I was going to run it on my layout, I would have to go to the trouble of painting it which I had no interest in doing. Instead, I built my fleet with Athearn BB diesels and Rivarossi steamers.
Later on a I did pick up some brass as part of an estate sale, a 2-8-8-2 logger and three Tenshado shorty Pennsy passenger cars which are still in the box I bought them over 30 years ago. I have no idea what the passenger cars are worth. I did check with my LHS as to the value of the logger. It seems that a lot of them were built so they have limited value as collector’s items. Since mine isn’t even in a box, I doubt I could get $200 for it. It has no place on my layout even if I wanted to go to the trouble of painting and decorating it. I haven’t decided what I want to do with any of it.
In short, brass costs way more than it would be worth to me. You can get so much more for less money going with high end sound and DCC equipped locos than you get with traditional brass. I see them more as collectibles than working locos.
When I started in the “serious” side of the model train hobby, so let’s say early 1960s, it seemed to my perhaps immature mind that brass marked one of several dividing lines between what anybody (including me and my friends) could do and what the real “adult” modelers could or would want to do (the others being scratchbuilt or craftsman built rolling stock and structures, hand-laid track, airbrushing, and signal systems). Thus obtaining a brass engine seemed like one of the genuine rites of passage for the modeler, and while I never focused on this aspect at the time, it is the only one from my list that can be accomplished purely with money, not talent or dedication. I do not want to use the phrase “snob appeal” because that is not what I mean at all, but I can understand those who view the desire to acquire brass as snob appeal. Rather it was clear to me as a youth that the acquisition of brass was something that had to await being an adult with an adult’s income.
But even back then it seemed to my young eyes that brass diesels didn’t look nearly as good or as accurate as what I could see in plastic in terms of detail. The nose contours on brass F units for example made even the most marginal of the plastic HO lines (Marx) look good. But brass steam I could see far exceeded in detail and completeness just about anything the mass produced firms could create, or that even a super detailer could add to them.
Eventually I bought some brass steam locomotives, seemingly more to say that I finally had a brass engine than to fill a gap in my planned roster. It was then that I learned that all the skills that made them look so exquisite did not carry over into the motors and drive trains. True I was buying lower end brass, and my first ever was a genuine disaster that even the North West Short Line advertisement warned about: the Cotton Belt 4-4-2 (NWSL called it the "Rotten Belt&qu
I look at brass as a way to acquire models of locomotives, and rolling stock, especially passenger cars, that are not available otherwise, except for scratch building or heavily modifying other models out there.
I own only one brass loco, a Sunset Prestige Modern K4s just as a parts loco for my 1361 project. I’d like more brass models over time, especially if I don’t like the alternatives. As to whether or not brass is “worthwhile”, depends on the piece, and depends on the individual. For me, a brass model is worthwhile if the price does not seem out of line, and I want to neither scratch build, kitbash, or do without. Plus, the amount of work to get a model looking good and running well will determine whether I think the piece will be a worthwhile investment.
Shortly before returning home to Germany at the end of a year as an exchange student to the US, I had the chance to ride the narrow gauge steam train from Durango to Silverton. That moment, the narrow gauge bug had infested me and I never gor rid of it since. A year after my return, I ordered a Westside Model Company D & RGW T-12, a brass model, made in Japan, which sold for a little over $ 100 in those days - a fortune with the exchange rate to Deutschmark being close to 4 to 1! You yould buy two Marklin Swiss Crocodiles for that money!
About half a year after I had ordered it, the loco arrived, but what a disappointment! While the detail was fine (a lot less detailed than those Blackstone HOn3 beauties of today), the loco had a hitch in the git-along and hardly pulled its weight. I painted it, lettered it, put it back in its box and forget about it - for over 38 years! It´s my only brass loco and one of these days I will have some sort of a layout for it to run - never mind the hitch.
Looking at the quality and detail of today´s Blackstone loco, I am inclined to say that brass locos are beyond their prime these days!
The price of brass models on the second-hand market has been coming down. Some very good items are available at very reasonable prices today.
Many comments here reaffirm my original contention that there was a broad spectrum as far as the quality, accuracy, reliability, and general value of brass items vs. those made of other materials. It’s true that some brass importers sold items that never were much good, even when new. Most of my brass models came from reputable importers such as PFM, Max Gray, Akane, Westside, Overland, and Key. I’m also fortunate to have a couple real prizes from W&R and Challenger Imports. Some — especially the early ones — have details that can be improved, but the mechanisms are generally solid and square, even if they might be improved with more up-to-date gearboxes and/or motors.
Running quality of some engines — especially small ones — was sometimes very poor. Some of those could be turned into fine runners with some tinkering. I suspect Ulrich’s narrow gauge Ten Wheeler could have been improved with the addition of a tender drive and as much added weight as possible over the drivers. I have a friend who did that to a Westside PRR D16sb 4-4-0 (a notoriously poor runner) and turned it into a little jewel.
It’s possible to form brass into complex shapes, but many early brass diesels were inaccurate in comparison with much less expensive plastic products. This was evident in the noses of a lot of early models of EMD E and F units. Dave Nelson’s comments in this regard are spot on.
Current models frequently use a lot of engineering plastic, which is fine as long as it doesn’t fail. Once it does fail, repair of the part is just about impossible, and replacements are often unavailable. Sometimes it’s possible to fabricate a replacement from plastic or — guess what — BRASS!
A lot of early brass freight and passenger cars had trucks that were absolutely horrible. I’ve turned som
One has to remember that the golden age of brass was when the modeler was expected to have to do some “tuning” to get the best running from a model, where as today we have come to expect near perfect running right out of the box. I got into brass steam in my teens, because it was much easier to work on, and geared engines ran so much better. I have stuck with mostly PFM/United, Tenshodo and Akane models. Pretty bullet proof drive trains, easily remotored or sometimes just replacing the magnet with ones from Micromark takes care of the issue. Most of the PFM motors ran really smooth and quiet, as long as the magnet is strong. Isolation of the two brushes is all that is required to isolate a open frame motor for DCC. I have large Pittman motors that draw under 1 amp under anything but a full stall and I have to manualy stall the drivers, on the rails they will slip before a full stall happens. Also remember that these models are very old now, a full tear down, cleaning dried up and congelled grease out of gearboxs and gear teeth is required to get a model running correctly. The old magnet at the rear of the motor will not be up to full strength after all these years, I usualy try a stacking some of the new Neo-magnets from Micromark or whoever has them at the shows before I go the more expensive route of a can motor, also more labor intensive than just stacking magnets in the motor frame. To me reworking a brass model to where it will run as smooth and quiet as a Kato diesel is very rewarding and enjoyable. I do this for several members of the local club and have had gentlemen send me models to rework. Right now I am dealing with an abandoned project of putting NWSL gear boxes in a NJ Custom Brass by GOM, N&W Y3 mallet. I almost have it done, motor is a nice little Sagami that came in the box of parts I got with the model. This one is for my good friend Steve. For idea on how good prices can be. I scored a late run PFM/Un