Where can I find high quality passenger coaches as an alternative to Walthers because I hate their unreliable horrible roof removal joke. I believe Rapido makes good coaches but the’re hard to find. Does anybody know where to find them? Where can I get 85’ Pullman Standards, and Smoothside passenger coaches.
alloboard,
Go to the Walthers website for a complete list of Rapido passenger cars. A lot of them are in stock and many of them are on sale at the moment.
One of the nice features of the Walthers web site is the ability to select only those items in stock for viewing, if you prefer.
Another good source is Model Train Stuff (MB Klein). They, too, have a number of the Rapido passenger cars in stock right now, and all of their items usually carry a “sale” price.
Rich
Be aware of curve radius limitations with these longer passenger cars. If you have 18-inch curves on your layout, look for shorter cars. Full-sized cars may go around the curves, or may not, but they won’t look good doing it.
I’ve got some Rivarossi cars which are about 75 scale feet long. They work on my 18-inch curves, thanks to swing-mounted couplers. They were only about $30 each, too. I added lighting, and painted the interior while I was adding passengers to the cars.
Mister Beasley,
$30 each for swing-mounted couplers? Very expensive.
Painted the interiors while adding passengers to the cars? You are both ambidextrous and a risk taker.
Just kidding.
Good advice about the longer, prototypical cars versus the “shorties”. I have 30" and 32" radius curves on my double mainline, but I still stick with 60’ and 72’ passenger cars, they just look better on the curves and take up less room in the passenger station.
Rich
Actually the Athearn heavyweight cars are hard to beat. They have been selectively compressed (shortened) but they look good and will handle 18 inch radius. For every streamline car there were about 10 heavyweights still plying the rails as late as Amtrak time.
Heavyweights vs. streamline (IOW, lightweight):
I can’t speak for every RR in the country. But the New Haven RR was the No. 3 railroad in passengers carried, and during 1956 they rostered 1086 passenger cars. Of that total, 491 were Heavyweights, and 595 were lightweights (Osgood-Bradley “American Flyers”, P-S Stainless, Budd RDC’s, Stainless M.U.'s, and some experimental cars). Heavyweights on the NH were 45% of the total passenger hauling car roster for a major passenger railroad. By the time of Amtrak, I’m sure that percentage only dropped as the pre-WWII cars wore out.
So a 10 to 1 ratio of heavyweights to streamlined up until the time of Amtrak? Um, I highly doubt it.
For me, I strongly dislike shorty passenger cars. They look horrid. Long passenger cars look bad on sharp curves, but at least they look good on straight track. Shorty cars look bad all the time, from just about any angle. Imagine if we had shorty steam engines or shorty diesels? Ick. If you have to use them because of 18" curves, that’s one thing. But to choose them, on purpose, for a larger layout? That’s right up there with choosing X2F’s and pizza cutter flanges. Sure, they will operate more dependibly, but in the looks dept.? Sheesh…
Paul A. Cutler III
Joke? All you have to do to remove the roof is twist the body. Perhaps the joke is you didnt ask how to do it properly?
David B
Here is a good thread on Walthers passenger car roof removal.
I have to agree with David on this one. Once you learn the trick to getting the roof off, it’s surprisingly easy to do. The first Walthers car I bought, I couldn’t figure out how to get the roof off. Then I saw the secret on here, and tried it. And it works for every Walthers car that I now own.
I just picked up a set of concor MP54’s which are 64 scale feet long. They look great on 22 inch curves and will handle 18 inch with no problems. They also come with lighting installed.
If they fit your prototype and you can get a hold of them, the Rapido coaches are, as far as I’m concerned, the best you can get. Removing the roof in them is not at all difficult, although you need to be careful not to damage the details when doing so. There is also no question that their level of detail is far and away beyond anything Walthers has done, and for not much more price-wise.
Having said that, there are many cars Walthers has made that Rapido or others have not, so there isn’t a replacement there for everything you might be looking for. Still, especially for the price they run for, I’m always a bit disappointed by the Walthers coaches. Yes, they’re a lot better than the cheap Con-Cor or IHC, etc., but the unpainted interiors, blobby underbody detail, and generally coarse details leave them lacking. And yes, the roofs are a pain to remove until you finally figure out the technique, then it’s easy.
And the ConCor MP54s are protypically accurate. So are the BCW Reading and CNJ Prototype coaches, combines, and head end cars that scale out to 72’, the approximate length of the Athearn heavyweights.
The worst issue I have with the old BB Athearn heavyweights, is that the window placement of the coach doesn’t match any prototype, and looks it. The doors on the RPO and Bag are too wide. Of course the sleeping car has few redeeming features, but the rest fit right in with the BCW stuff.
Many of the Eastern and New England railroads used shorter head end cars and coaches in the heavyweight era, and many of these cars lasted post Amtrak.
of course, if you relish HW Pullmans and modern LW cars, then you have to go with the longer cars. The Con-Cor 72’ LWs and the BB Streamliners just don’t look right
Joe
My two cents[2c] .
Having been in the hobby since the 1970s (I’m in my mid 40s) I greatly like the Walthers Budd and Pullman Standard streamlined cars. Like the Rapido varnish, the modern Walthers passenger cars are a huge leap ahead of the Rivorossi, IHC, Concor, AHM, and Athearn cars that my generation was accustomed to.
You have to remember that when we demand greater detail, dimensional accuracy, body mounted coupling, and lighting capability, things are going to be a big more fragile and tedious to work with. But regarding the twist method, it does work but it takes patience and gentle hands.
Painted interiors? Think about this. You know how fussy some modelers (including yahoos like me) are about passenger items. Imagine “Modeler Moe” having just bought a Walthers CB&Q observation car that, reportedly, has the prototype colored tangerine red seats. Excited, our friend Moe pulls the new car out of its box, looks inside the windows and yells “Hey! These seats are the wrong shade! They’re tomato red! Too bright! What was Walthers thinking! They’re going to hear about this[|(]!” Looks like Walthers chose to keep costs down and play it safe. [;)]
Rapido’s models are based on smaller number of prototypes with a more limited selection of interior colors. The Walthers Budds and Pullman standards represent a virtual rainbow of U.S railroads as inteior schemes go with colors ranging from gray shading to pale tans to pronounced reds to aqua blues. Do you guys remember my old passenger car interior thread?
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, when I traveled by train, I surely remember riding in a helova lot more dingy old heavy weights than shiny new streamliners. Watching trains go by down at the end of the street I saw plenty of heavyweights and only the occasional streamliner. For that matter, the Boston and Maine commuter fleet in the early 1950’s was “lightweight” made of wood. Pre heavy weight.
A comment on “heavyweight” vs “lightweight” cars in the 1970s.
Modernized heavyweights lasted until Amtrak on some railroads. Louisville & Nashville heavyweight diner 2726 (currently at IRM) was in service until April 30, 1971. GM&O heavyweight cars were in service on Chicago - St. Louis trains until Amtrak got around to reassigning equipment in late 1971. The heavyweights remained on the Chicago-Joliet commuter train until the RTA replaced them with F40s and bilevels.
I have to agree with two of the previous posters. If you like/need “shorties”, the Con-Cor mP54 cars are excellent, and cannot be compared with the old Con-Cor stuff. Best of all, Con-Cor has just announced that they will also produce a new set of 65’ cars. Going by the pics, the coach and combine look very similar to the 60’ Rivarossi/Walthers cars; the baggage car is a 4-axle. The price is steep, as for the mP54s, list price about $ 60. However, this includes the lighting, which looks (in the mP54s) very authentic and is flicker-free.
PS: I should add that I have no connection to and no financial interest in Con-Cor.
Do not overlook the new Hornby/Rivarossi 60’ passenger cars that have been re-released.
At present the only railroads available are the Pennsylvania and the Chicago North Western and an unlettered painted in Pullman green.
Yeah, I’ve removed maybe a dozen roofs from Walthers passenger cars by the twist method, to put in lights and passengers. And every single one has broken at least one tab in the process.
Thats funny, because I have yet to break a tab with this method. But then again…this is a joke, right?
David B
Are there interiors available for the 50’ Overlands?