It seems that many modelers buy rolling stock a few cars at a time and over the years they seem to end up with more than they can use. I however have a distinct lack of rolling stock, in particular hoppers for coal and ore.
So I’m looking for input on purchasing a large amount of rolling stock to fill my yards. What techniques have folks used? Has anyone bought by the case? Do you bid on everything on Ebay?
I know that with an unlimited budget I can get what I want tomorrow but who has that? Basically I’m looking for bang for the buck, therefore I’m ok with used and kits. I’m not terribly interested in detail at this time, maybe when I retire in 20yrs I can set down to add grab irons and weathering but it’s function over form for me.
I’ve done basically what you have said. I bought a stack of Athearn Blue box kits before the went out of fashion. I thought the quality was very good for the price. I’ve bought quite a few Proto 1000 kits of eBay, usually half a dozen at a time. Shipping is cheaper than buying one at a time. I also go to swap meets in my area and pick out the odd good deal. I stay away from early Bachmann, Tyco and Model Power stuff as it looks cheap and nasty.
I don’t know how many you want of one type, but several of the manufactures do custom runs of cars, or you could do a custom run with no road number, then all you would have to do is add a number. I have bought several twelve packs of different cars, and frequently when kits are released they are available in several numbers. Bowser at least to do such work, and they have many Pennsy prototypes, which can be good if you model Pennsy or PC or some such thing.
One other thing to consider, which I am just now learning, is that in twenty or thirty years you may not be able to see the details you want on the car let alone see well enough to install them. The plus side is that if you can’t see the details you wont need to put them on. I am only 58, but I find I must use an Optivisor to see what I could see twenty years ago, and that is with my vision corrected to 20/10.
I have my own personal NMRA regesterd pike called the Dayton and Mad River RR, but cars are easy to decoratem as my fictional RR is a sub of the NYC. All I have to do is add the D&MR reporting marks and a number to a NYC car, with engines you can usually add SYSTEM to the NYC road name, and reporting marks, just like the prototype did with P&LE, B&A CASO…
Paul
Don’t know if you are prototype or not but if freelance Accurail has great coal car kits and Walthers makes a 12 pack of ore cars
Ditto on the Accurail suggestion.
Tom
Bowser and Stewart also have relatively inexpensive kits. A very good source is Bessemer hobbies.
http://www.bessemerhobby.com/
Twelve packs are available and easy to assemble.
Pete
I usually buy 2-3 RTR cars at a time.As far as kits usually 3-4 since I hate having projects backed up for weeks.I can build and “trim” 3-4 kits in 4 hours and move on to another project.
If I am running 20 grain cars, the first 3 or 4 (and last 3 or 4) cars behind the locomotives are very detailed with etched running boards, scale grab irons, and detailed roof hatch hardware. They will be also be appropriately weathered. The middle of the train will be of the blue box variety with mainly an airbrushed wash of dirt and dust.
The locomotives are detailed and weathered as is the caboose. People notice the beginning and end of the train. So I put the car money where it is noticed.
let me relate to you about my experiences regarding the wholesale gathering of equipment. i have not necessarily gotten much smarter with age but, if you live this long, something has to rub off.
when i left the railroad decades ago, i went into business for myself and through good fortune and a small amount of personal merit, i had a rather affluent period in my life. i built a 24x24 HO scale layout and even at that time knew that someday i would have a larger home (basement) with room for an even bigger model railroad.
i started cabbaging on to stuff just because it was available and i could afford it. MRPO was always offering good deals on 12 car sets of freight cars with 12 different numbers and i helped keep them in business.
the end result of all this was i now have a bunch of cars that just don’t fit in with what i am modeling. sure a bunch of B&LE and PRR hoppers make an impressive train but do they really belong on the Illinois Central? i have over 3 dozen N&W cars and that outfit didn’t even connect with the IC back in the era that i model. sure, some foreign road cars are not out of place but why would a bunch of Burliington hoppers wind up in Memphis? actually, hoppers seldom strayed far from home rails anyway. i guess the N&W equipment could have come off the Southern but who in the hell ships West Virginia coal to the mid-south? western Kentucky and Southern Illinois are full of it. and as for all my GM&O cars, they were not a friendly connection and i think the IC only bought them out to eliminate a pest.
one can play mind games and justify running anything he wants. i have no quibble with modelers who do so but, my limited knowledge of prototype railroad traffic, interchange patterns and car service rules is just enough to bother me a little from time to time.
bottom line-a bargain on something you don’t need is not a bargain at all. besides a yard with a bunch of clear tr
Actually I am modeling the PC. Over the course of the 300 foot mainline there will be interchanges with:Erie, Chessie System (mostly B+O) and NW. These are planned to be live interchanges so cars will travel to and from staging.
In all seriousness I figure I’ll need 100-150 hoppers, mostly PRR, NYC or B+O based. I don’t intend to clog my yards but I do have one LDE where 40-60 hoppers sitting around would be the norm. Capacity in that area would be maybe 120 hoppers. A like number of boxcars would also be handy and while being of PC heritage would be better, I can live with lots of foreign road cars.
I think Bowser has made over 100 different numbers on their H21/H22 hoppers in both CK and SK paint.
They are easy to assemble, good to very good (but not Great) detail, and PRR prototype specific to boot.
I see them on ebay and at shows all the time,and every now and then see a # I don’t have (working on 60 at this time).
Sometimes buying bulk gets you a discount, as I’ve seen 6 or 12 packs of different #s go on ebay for $10 or less per car. $10 is usually the going rate a shows, but I have also regularly paid $5-$7, sometimes including KD’s.
Also don’t forget the GLa, also available in many #'s, just not as easy to find or find cheap.
My N&W cars are Stewarts (from 12 pack plus a few singles) and Accurail USRA (from 6 pack), plus a couple oddbals.
I believe Athern’s 40" hopper is a B&O prototype, which is somewhat harder to find in more than just a few #'s, but they also had USRA style.
I also have a 6 pack of L&N USRA, (difficult to find in pre “Dixie-Line” scheme) direct from Accurail, as well as several that will need renumbered and a set of renumbereing decals (also direct from Accurail), plus 2 #s of “war emergency” P2K’s in the same “Old Reliable” scheme Also an Atlas “offset” side.
I plan on modeling some of the through coal trains from L&N and N&W that got handed off to PRR in Columbus OH, for the trip to Sandusky.
If there are old Blue Box kits for what you want, then I recommend swap meets. Be prepared to do your own work to change the car numbers.
All you really need to do is to just keep your eyes open for “good deals” no matter where you’re looking, Ebay, Train Shows, LHS.
I could go to my LHS right now and probably buy 50-100 freight cars for his cost just because they aren’t selling. Same thing applies at Train Shows, especially the smaller ones where individuals are prone to get tables to dispose of their or someone else’s equipment.
One of the biggest things to remember is you probably aren’t going to get any “super” deals trying to buy them 1 or 2 at a time.
Case in point, I was at the Oklahoma City train show several years ago with a dealer friend of mine, I went along as his “unpaid” helper and he let me sell some things I wanted to get rid of at the same time. Anyhow, I ran across a dealer there who for whatever reason had about 150 Accurail kits and was selling them at $5 each. I saw that most of them were transition era cars so I asked him if he would make a better price if I bought a bunch of them to which he replied “yes”. So as I started looking through them I didn’t see too many that I didn’t like so I ask him “how much for all of them”?
We haggled a bit and I ended up with them all at $3 per car. I immediately went through them and pulled the ones I wasn’t interested in and set them on my friend’s table at $4 per car and sold them out. I have done this several times since although not usually in this large an amount with Proto, Red Caboose, Intermountain, Kadee and Branchline cars and have aquired a nice grouping of freight cars in a relatively short time, about 6-8 years, and all at prices that today seem like “bargain basement” deals.
You just have to “look” and “act” when the opportunity presents itself. The guy who stands there and says "let me think about it
Bessemer hobbies are $9.95 for a single kit he may do quantity discounts also. Bowser does 12 packs of the H21/22 and also the 100 ton 3 door hoppers. You can’t forget the GLa hoppers in many private owners paint.
Pete
earlier i remarked that hoppers tended to stay on home rails. i just remembered an exception to that which i personally observed years ago. PC once received solid trains of pelletized iron ore from the MoPac at E St Louis in MP 100 ton hoppers. the cars were not loaded very deep since it was an extremely heavy commodity. it came out of Pea Ridge Mo going to Armco Steel at Middletown Ohio and moved in a solid train. the empty cars were returned via reverse route.
grizlump