Brass is definitely not dead!

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hello–

Over on another forum where primarily diesel fans congregate, there is a recent poll discussion stating overwhelmingly that “HO brass is dead”. The usual reasons are given: today’s diesels…great value…“better than” brass. Also “collapse” of brass prices.

I must respectfully disagree for the following reasons:

First, it is true that a generation of steam fans has recently departed this hobby, if not this earth, thus leaving behind a bunch of older brass models which were built in large quantities back in the day. These models have 40, 50, or even 60 years of playing on them, have been handled and shown around, and occasionally dropped or in other accidents that have resulted in damage and parts loss, may have older decaled paint jobs that are sometimes more appropriately called “owner dipped” as opposed to “custom painted”, and maybe don’t even have can motors or good gearboxes. These models just aren’t going to bring a lot of money from anyone anymore. Some are even well used PFM Crowns that once commanded a lot of value/respect, but may have been superceded by much better running/more accurate later models. All the above can be true, depending upon one’s model preferences.

However, I just learned that not only did importers like W&R (who started circa 1986) require their builder(s) to use stainless steel valve gear and driver tires, the other builders subsequently switched as well. You can run these later models a lot before the wheels ever show any marking at all, and there’s no plating to wear off or impede electrical conductivity if chipped, etc. Division Point, later Challenger, and other importers’ brass models are well constructed and will offer superior durability to anything that one can purchase in plastic.

I just had the opportunity to really look at literally dozens of brass steamers, up close for

2

Hi, John,

I have followed a few of your recent posts that have been extolling the virtues of HO brass models. I didn’t notice any specifics about what happened to discourage you from buying the plastic variety but it must have been something of major consequence. Perhaps you could fill in the blanks?

My experience with brass is overall very positive. Presently, I probably have two-dozen locomotives and perhaps 3 dozen pieces of rolling stock. Most of them I bought at what I would consider bargain prices.

My primary reason for buying a brass model is that it fits my railroad/era and that it probably will not be produced in hybrid/plastic anytime soon.

Like yourself, I have studied many examples of brass locomotives and became aware of the build and detail quality of each. Some builders have several levels of detail so you can’t just say, “Sunset models are superior” Sunset had a budget line and a middle-of-the-road line and a “deluxe” line.

My current roster has examples from Overland, Precision Scale, W&R (Samhongsa), Westside, Sunset, NJI, Oriental, Railway Classics (Shoreham Shops) and a few others I can’t remember right now.

I started out with some Lambert passenger cars that were nothing more than a punched sheet of brass wrapped around a wood form and a floor soldered in. Would I trade in my Walthers, BLI, Rapido or MTH passenger cars for these? I don’t think so…

Brass will out live plastic locomotives, operationally? Again, that has to be viewed on a case-by-case history. I have some early run plastic engines that have been plugging away for years with little or no mechanical attention. Yes, I’ve probably changed over a hundred Life-Like axle gears. That was a major turn-off for many casual modelers.

But I have also had to m

3

An old and well discussed topic, but important for those entering the hobby in the last decade. The answer about brass is simple…it is top of the line and the finest the hobby has to offer. Model railroading has much to offer folks in any level or budget. Many modelers do eventually upgrade to brass and beyond like high tech operating systems, etc.

Personally I see brass models as a fine art…hand made, limited runs, excellent craftsmanship, and they often hold their value and sometimes are a decent investment. I do play with my brass models as besides being works of art, they are often mechancially quite good and are designed to operate…and for a long time. Years back in my train store (1973-1975), I ran a PFM PRR K4 over 8 hours per day on the store’s display pike. This went on for over a year and one half, and simple math equates to over 1000 hours of operating time. The plating wore off of the drivers after a few months, but did not create problems. It did require more cleaning with basic maintenance. I also experimented with several plastic offerings from the same era…dead after a short time!!! I still have the K4 ( I accidentally sold it to Dan Glasure, but being the great fellow that Dan is, he sent it back.) I also ran a Westside PRR K5 for about seven months until a customer insisted on purchasing it. It was just as good. Strange as it seems, both of these models today do not command commensurate prices…and although a bit sparse in some detailing, are still wonderful values. I suppose there are just too many K4’ and K5’s.

HZ

4

John,

Brass dead? Not in my book. I agree with Ed and Howard about their assessement of brass. I have assembled a fleet of C&O brass steam that fit the locale and time period I model (New River Subdivision, 1949). I love working on and building intricate things and absolutely appreciate the talent, time, and patience that goes into each brass locomotive.

As a 13-14 year old kid in the 1970’s, I was floored by a shiny B&O Q4b (Westside) on display in a local model railroad shop. I promised myself that when my salary was more than what a paperboy made, I would save up to get one of those. Well, it turned out not to be the B&O, but her competitor, the C&O. And that they say is history.

Here are 2 ladies of my fleet that I painted (baked on), lettered and added sound decoders to, resting and waiting for their next trip up the hollers. They perform the same type of work their 1:1 counterparts did back in Thurmond, W. Va in the summer of 1949.

They are G-9 class 2-8-0s imported by OMI (Rok-AM builder) I believe back in the early '80s.

So, Brass is definitely not dead in my book, but kicking and thriving… [:D]

Joel

5

I was on lunch break, got interrupted by IT, and wasn’t able to complete my post above (will try later).

The question was asked regarding failures I’ve seen in plastic models.

I’ll ignore some of the personal QA/QC issues with appearance that I experienced with some plastic diesels, and I’ll ignore, for the purpose of this discussion, my numerous complaints with plastic diesel handrails being too delicate and failing way too easily.

Outright failures that I experienced:

Recently I was moving toward all brass anyway, and a new BLI (first run) H10s experienced failure of a plastic gear at maybe 10 hours run time…for the new owner, who is not covered by warranty (and yes, I have sent models back, and they required proof of purchase to do any warranty repairs at all, so don’t assume you can just send them in as others have stated on these forums). It may be worth noting that owners of second run H10s engines report all gears to be metal. So maybe there was a problem?

I did have a Walthers/P2K USRA heavy 2-10-2 where a screw backed out at 45 minutes of run time and bent a valve rod. Selling dealers’ repair tech fixed the model, but the engine would not run right, and was ultimately replaced under warranty by Walthers. Beautiful looking model, but I don’t like stamped rods that bend that easily (which most brass models, excluding a few low-cost ones, simply do not have).

I have had brand new plastic steamers like the beautiful Genesis SP 4-8-2 arrive with the cab roof severely broken and other items loose…that won’t happen with brass.

Then we can talk about BLI’s smoke units and/or smoke unit fans that, in some models like the last run Santa Fe 4-8-4, are reputed by folks not just me to not last very long. Mine did not, for sure, and was replaced under warranty. Replacement doesn’t smoke that well (not that I really care, but the competition’s smoke units are better).

6

I think that brass used to be split between a collector’s market and a modeler’s market. I resented the fact that collectors ran up the prices and made them unaffordable for someone building a layout and needing a few pieces to complete a roster.

I believe that what is dead is the collector side of the market. It’s like they all died off and their children are selling off the collections. Why else would the vast majority of 20-30 year old models on the market still be unpainted?

The market now looks good for the modelers. I don’t follow it closely but it looks to me like brass prices are pretty close to where they were 25 years ago. It almost makes me want to back date the layout a few decades.

7

We hear the phrase “you get what you pay for” quite often in these circles but as you pointed out the example of the LGB 2-8-2, well, the owner DID pay dearly for these.

Let’s agree that anything mechanical from a simple wind-up bunny rabbit to the most sophisticated aircraft NASA can build… well—we all know what can happen there—is prone to failure.

I brought home a never-run, LMB, New York Central streamlined Hudson and maybe ten minutes into her maiden voyage the main crank pin unscrewed and, similar to your P2K 2-10-2, the rods bent and it took out some of the air piping.

Shipping damage? Won’t happen with brass? Not too sure on that count. I’ve had a few models arrive with broken solder joints, bent piping, a B&O Q-4d with the whole air compressor pump shield mashed in…

So there’s really no “one-size-fits-all” description that can apply to the qualities of one over the other. I recently had to replace all the split “horned balls” on the drive shafts of several of my Overland locomotives. Overland, of course, does not supply parts anymore and NWSL offered parts with different shaft diameters so it was an expensive challenge to make the repairs.

Howard mentions running his brass K4 over a thousand hours and the plastic ones failed early on. This was in 1973? I have a few AHM steam engines from the mid '70s and, although they still run, I wouldn’t compare them to what’s ou

8

Yes, the older brass did have it’s foibles.

I was talking about the newer stuff–which can be amazing. You can take them out of the box, put them on the track (ok, pull two screws and lube the gearbox first, that takes even a mechanical simpleton like me about 5 minutes), and they do run. I also have had to lubricate a brand new BLI hybrid, too, but I digress.

My point is that the later brass, especially, is designed to last quite well, much better than earlier efforts. Of course the price is more, and I resent that aspect being “higher than I can readily afford” myself. I’m told it’s because collectors in other countries like to scarf up the (best quality) US prototype models…

Enjoy your trains!

John

9

Brass is definitely not dead. Heck … even the Mantua die cast line is not dead, some 65 or so years after the original tooling was completed, even as the somewhat similar Bowser/Penn Line, Varney, and English die cast lines have fallen away. And I suspect not a few of those original circa 1951 Mantuas (that is, with metal tenders and metal cabs) are likely still running just fine, which is somethng both brass and plastic might find hard to equal.

One thing brass always has going for it is that, as basically hand-crafted merchandise, it does not take a huge critical mass of interested buyers to make it viable. The other thing is that as some nice lines of after-market steam locomotive detail parts have seemingly fallen by the wayside (Kemtron for example), the desire will be even stronger to pay extra for the importer and manufacturer to get it right rather than accept the release of “a version” and expect the fussier buyers to redetail it to match a particular example of the prototype.

Dave Nelson

10

If Brass is “not dead”, then I’m still waiting to see if any of the Importers release a streamliner from one of the eastern roads, Examples: Seaboard, Louisville & Nashville, or Maybe Flordia East Coast.

I’m more of a western road buff, but would like to see a FEC streamliner released in HO scale even if it’s in Brass.

11

I am always a little bothered by any absolute statement:

“brass lasts longer”

“brass is better”

“plastic locos are junk”

“Bachmann is junk”

“KATO is the best”

Some brass, old and new, is without question very high quality and exceptionally detailed. Most of it, looking at the whole history of the hobby, requires some skills to tweak and maintain it. Many plastic/die cast steam locos require the same.

Interestingly, the needing to be tweaked is the very thing many new people in the hobby complain about regarding steam locos - brass or plastic/die cast - they expect “out of the box perfection”.

Well, at the price of new brass (and some of the new plastic), maybe they are right.

Personally, I have few pieces of brass. They are just locos to me. Not particularly more special than any of my other locos - better in some ways, not so in other ways. Most have been kit bashed in ways that have destroyed their “collector value”.

But generally speaking, brass does not fit into my “modeling” needs except for a few specific pieces.

I am a freelance modeler, and a prototype modeler, building a large layout with a very specific theme. I like the idea of capturing that sense of the large railroad and having that fleet feeling to my roster.

For that reason I have multiples of most locos, not easy to do in brass even if your budget is unlimited.

Example, I have nine Spectrum USRA 4-8-2’s lettered for my ATLANTIC CENTRAL - I actually like the idea that it was easy to aquire 9 of the same loco. I have no interest in a wide and varied “collection” of model trains.

In fact, be it brass or plastic, I have never cared for the idea of the “limited run” marketing concept. Sure, I understand some prototypes are not popular enough to support large production runs, but I am not attracted to owning something just because

12

Sheldon, [Y] Well said! (Not just the quote, but your whole post.)

Regards, Ed

13

This is one of the rare occasion I have to agree with Sheldon [swg]

Returning from my year as an exchange student in the US and after having had the chance to ride the D&RGW narrow gauge train from Durango to Silverton. I wanted to have one of those locos. A brass K-27 was out of reach and even the T-12 was very expensive for a student, but somehow I was able to cash out the vast sum of $120 for it. When it arrived, I was disappointed by the low quality of the model - not very much detail and a poor performer (which it still is) due to its poorly designed drive.

Lesson learned - not all brass is tops!

I have owned a lot of plastic locos, some of which were just great models of high quality, some of which were rather expensive junk. My current Bemo Swiss narrow gauge locos are of the latter kind - highly detailed once you were able to install all those extra detail parts (a big nuisance), but bad plastic gearboxes, brittle plastic bodies and a bad paint job and decals, that rub off easily don´t earn my fancy.

Lesson learned - expensive locos are not all good, some are really a bad value for money.

My old Marklin class E 94 is a different story - a die-cast zinc alloy body, metal gears and a sufficient amount of detail make this loco indestructible. The loco was designed in the late 1950´s and is still being sold, with a different motor and lots of electronic gadges, though.

Les

14

To the OP, following up what Ulrich just said,

I have had more problems with 9 BLI locos, all of which cost $250 to $400, than I have with 35 Bachmann locos with an average cost of $150…

Disclaimer - no decoders, DCC, sound or smoke here…

Sheldon

15

Hi Sheldon–

I would prefer not to be too hard on any given manufacturer, but there were indeed other BLI engines I owned but did not keep, because some of them seemed to not do very well on my layout. Particularly as plating began to wear, I found it hard to keep the wheels clean enough on some to maintain acceptable operation. No, they weren’t outright “failures”, but I had some that were just disappointing in the real world performance, and that’s one reason they are no longer around here.

Now, one could argue: “voltage drop?”, and for that reason I ran additional feeder wires and eliminated all unnecessary turnouts on the mainline, which helped for some engines but not others.

Disclaimer: I’m running on Kato jointed track. The joints are not soldered. Grades are 0.4% or less.

Your mileage may vary.

John

16

Hi all

Bachmann was junk but not any more so was some of the early brass.

so blanket statements don’t really work.

How long a loco lasts is purely down to two things the quality of product to begin with and how well the owner looks after it the end.

Any product that really is junk never lasts long in the market place word tends to get around and it improves or Dies.

Brass will never die as long as there is a market for it and the product is good quality.

I won’t be buying any time soon it is far to expencive for me.

Not only that havn’t seen any HOn30 about lately and a lot of the early stuff had it’s share of problems.

regards John

17

When I saw the title of this topic, it seemed like a rebuttal to the notion that brass manufacureres were not dead or were still pumping put brass products new year after year. The reason I had that assumption is because I’ve seen an awful lot of discussion that brass manufacturing had slowed down a lot and seemed to be on life support.

For me and probably many others, brass has simply been out of my price range and a hobby for mostly the financially well-to-do. What little brass I’ve been able to acquire was only a means to fill holes for rolling stock that I could not find in plastic. It’s kind of like the “yacht club” of the model railroading hobby.

In my case, I’ve been primarily a 1970’s and 1980’s D&RGW standard gauge modeler so the major holes I’ve needed to fill are yes, cabooses and a few passenger cars. To date, I’ve never owned a brass engine in my life - but during some periods when I had a little more funds, I managed to pick up a couple of PCC D&RGW Prospector P-S combines as regularly seen on the Rio Grande Zephyr. I only recently got one of them painted and the other later this year. I also have 6 brass 014xx series cabooses (3 rivited and 3 welded). That will probably be all the brass I’ll own for the forseeable future.

Anyhow, as I read the discussion thus far, it does appear that the topic isn’t just about brass in general, but specifically brass steam engines. Sometimes titles of topics can be misleading because the meat of the discussion is really focused on something other than what the reader is lead to believe when they see the title. Certainly I’ve read discussions about brass dying because a number of brass buyers have noted some prominent importers have either stopped importing or are on life support. So in that sense, I don’t think I"ve seen much discussion relating to the title of this topic. Just saying. More, i

18

Rio Grande–

Yes, absolutely, the topic is a reaction against that poll over on the other forum. I didn’t care for some of the statements people were making, and thought this forum probably reaches a wider audience, anyway, as that other forum has become mostly diesel fans, so the topic might get slightly more balanced responses over here. (So far I think it has).

Some of the folks trashing brass apparently never personally ran a good one, and simply don’t know what they don’t know when they are saying that today’s plastic has passed brass by. I believed the same for a number of years, myself, so I shouldn’t be too hard on them.

But then I’ve seen and bought some engines that just simply blow away anything offered in plastic, in the detailing offered on them, and also in their performance. Details–not everyone cares or wants to pay the extra cash for–but performance on a real world layout??? I would personally have expected plastic to “win” as that argument has been well used.

On my layout, with easy 0.4% grades (but sometimes longer trains), I was shocked: the good brass steamers are running better than my (not cheap) brass hybrid, and much much better than the plastic steamers.

That’s my personal experience within the last year, and with a relatively small number of engines, but it caused me to rethink everything I was doing regarding motive power.

Regarding brass diesels, I had very good results with Overland Models engines, but apparently as they age some of the plastic universals became loose, so people replace them, which would be easy to do. Otherwise, diesels in general dropped off my radar, and I can’t comment on Union Terminal Imports or other recent ones, because was not looking at them.

Respectfully–

John

19

Regarding the brass market: I think I would have to be crazy to not believe that MTH, BLI, Athearn Genesis, Walthers P2K, and others have not made a big dent into the prospective sales of brass models by offering dramatically improved diesels relative to what was offered in the past. Also, I think we’re seeing prototype diesels get to a point where they are very nearly the same with only minor detail differences between the Class 1 Railroads.

Brass is and for some years had been about modeling many different variations. They don’t just do one steam engine of a class, but do 3, 4, 5 or sometimes even 6 different versions, each one of which may differ in multiple details (beyond just the horn or bell placement) from the other versions. With today’s diesels already being pretty standardized, it’s easy to see why most modelers would opt for the less expensive plastic models. The differences in details just aren’t worth the money for them.

So does brass lend itself more toward the steamers and passenger cars? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Some people think we are between generations, that when the next generation sees the artistry inherent in the brass models, that some of what we have seen in the market will turn around, and brass may at that time “rebound” from the ultra-limited new model release state we are in now. Also, most of the recent importers just got old and reached retirement age, so that dynamic has played itself out, too. Few remain. Will there be more in the future?

20

I’d be curious to find out what % of brass purchases stay in their box or up in a display vs. actually operate on a layout?

I have two brass cabooses and just purchased my first brass locomotive; a 0-6-0 switcher. Unless the switcher turns out to be an absolute dog (and I have no reason to believe that will be the case), I plan on operating it on my layout; NOT as a static display or a box filler.

Seems to me that plastic locomotives are less likely to be purchased for those reasons…

Tom