I have been looking at passenger cars (Heavy Weight Pullman) for the D&RGW on EBAY. Having a set of Walthers Amtrak Superliner cars I am curious as to whether the Athearn passenger cars look as nice as the Walthers in the D&RGW scheme. Are either one capable of lighting?
Thanks -
cadman11
Athearn made/makes un streamlined passenger cars with monitor roofs,and 6 wheel trucks, painted for many roads. Back when railroads (as opposed to Amtrak) offered passenger service, it was in cars of which the Athearn cars are very good models. Rivet counters may decry the Athearn cars as short, but I prefer to think of them as selectively compressed. I have a few and plan to get more to offer typical 1950’s passenger service on my modest layout.
You can add lighting to any car. You need metal wheels to pick up juice, and axle wipers to transfer the juice to the lighting system. I made axle wipers from phosphor bronze weather stripping. You can just affix a pair of 12V bulbs to the ceiling of the car, or Walthers offers a nice constant brightness light bar which will fit anything out there. I put them into IHC streamliners, so you can put them into anything.
If you are interested Rivarossi made a set of DRGW coaches in their 60’ line. These sets come with metal wheels and interiors as well as Kadee type couplers. Walthers made lighting kits for these as well. Another source of lighting kits would be Rapido with their excellent battery powered kits.
Another source of DRGW coaches would be the Roundhouse (Athearn) Overland sets. These coaches do not have interiors but the level of finish on the coach sets is quite good.
I picked up my sets of these DRGW coaches off e-bay for about $60.00 a set, Have yet to find a steam engine for them though. I will most likely obtain a Spectrum 4-6-0 low boiler engine for them. Would just need to find the decal/dry transfer set to letter the engine.