I wonder if anyone could share tips regarding how to identify various HO passenger cars by brand, when the box is not available. I have several which have no name on the bottom, and I wonder if there are tell-tale details or lack thereof that can help identify the manufacturer. It seems like Rivarossi usually have their name on there, but I saw an ad in an old MR issue that said “Walthers, made by Rivarossi”. Would that have said Walthers, Rivarossi, or nothing? I sometimes come across unboxed passenger cars on auction sites, or at flea markets, and it would be great to have a way to tell them apart. For instances, if a unit has non-factory knuckle couplers, does that rule out…Walthers or Rapido? Do any car come factory equipped with Kadee couplers (that actually say Kadee?) Any tips or observations would be helpful! Pictures of relevent details would be great, too…
Couplers aren’t much of a clue. Too easy for theere to be anything on there.
If there’s no name present on the underside, does it look kit-built? would be my first question. If not obviously from a kit, then I’d suspect something older rather than newer; everyone wants to use their brand name now, where it was less universal in the past.
Ultimately, the value of a no name car sitting in front of you depends less on the brand than on how it fits your needs and what the asking price is. Only you can decide what fits for you.
I think you’re referring to the 60’ passenger cars (Utility Coach, Utility Combine, RPO and Baggage) that have been sold under several different brand names over the last decade or so, including Rivarossi and Walthers.
The regular Rivarossi cars from 20+ years ago will normally say “Rivarossi” on the bottom. They also will have molded-on grabirons rather than freestanding separate ones, and the roof and windows will be one piece, the floor, ends and sides a separate piece. They will also have couplers connected to the trucks; as produced, they’d have horn-hook couplers. (Walthers plastic cars will have body mounted couplers.)
I think when the Rivarossi-made cars were sold by AHM, they still said “Rivarossi” but I’m not sure.
When you think of all the passenger cars that have been offered over the years, even if you confine yourself to plastic cars, it would be quite a task to list the identifying characteristics of all of them. Even talking 60’ “standard” cars, quite apart from Rivarossi and Rivarossi/Walthers, there were the shorties that Penn Line, and perhaps later Varney, offered, and if a given modeler took the shell and crafted a new floor, or cut down an Athearn or MDC or Model Power or Bachmann floor – the possibilities become, well perhaps not endless in a literal sense, but daunting.
And each different factor: plastic full length standard, plastic shorty standard but longer than 60’, plastic shorty streamlined fluted, plastic shorty streamlined smooth side, plastic shorty but longer than 60’ streamlined fluted, or smooth side, and so on and so on.
A person curious about what they have might be advised to find an older Walthers catalog and look through the passenger car section, and if something seems close then use the HO Seeker website in an effort to nail things down.
If the OP told us what he was actually looking it we could be guessing better. Standard or streamlined? Shorty 60’, 73’, full length?
Thanks for the replies. I’m generally interested only in full length heavyweight and smooth-side cars (generally not the fluted ones). While I am interested in IDing a few B&O heavyweights, mostly I’m interested in finding out about some “car spotting” details, like whether the higher end units always have a name on the bottom (i.e. Bachmann Spectrum, Kato, Rapido, Walthers, Branchline, etc).
Along these lines, I was thinking the important variables would be metal/plastic wheels, with/without interiors, lighting, and as was pointed out, separate grab-irons. Are body-mounted vs. truck-mounted couplers generally significant (Thanks, Stix, for Walthers = body-mounted note. This is the sort of thing I want to learn about). While couplers are changable, I assume hook-horn couplers are exclusively on low-end cars, but exceptions would be good to know about.
I seem to recall that the windows tend to be different between lower-end and higher-end cars, but I’m not sure how…
The lines I’m interested in are specifically the Great Northern Empire Builder and the B&O, but I’m hoping a somewhat comprehensive list of differences would be helpful to others, as well…
…or you can do it the easy way: open a free photobucket account, then follow the instructions there on adding photos to it.
The photos will show as thumbnails, and when you want to post one here, simply click on the appropriate thumbnail. It will re-appear in enlarged form and to the right of the image will be several lines of data. Click on the one that begins with “img” and the line of data will briefly turn yellow, indicating that the data has been copied.
Return here to your composition window, and simply place the cursor where you want the picture to appear and then right-click and hit “PASTE”. A long line of data will appear, but when you click “Submit Your Reply”, that data will appear in your post as the picture.
You may, before submitting, of course, add multiple pictures, captions, and/or more text. Very easy.
As an example, here’s a line of such data, with one character omitted so that it won’t appear as a photo:
Couplers aren’t going to tell you too much. Until Kadee’s patent expired a while back(causing a rash of knock-off Kadee couplers to be produced), pretty much every HO freight and passenger car kit or RTR model came with horn-hook couplers.
Just a shot in the dark, but you might try doing a Google search on what you have…putting in “Baltimore and Ohio 45755 Diner” (or whatever) might come up with a link to something, like someone selling one on Ebay or an on-line hobby shop, or something in the online Walthers catalog. Might give you the information on maker etc.
If you’re thinking of doing a heavyweight Empire Builder, the hardest car would probably be the Solarium Observation car. I believe the only non-brass car that’s even close would be the Walthers car, which has been out of production for several years. (The streamlined Builder would be easy of course, since Walthers has produced the entire train.)
Yep, post pictures. Heck, when I’m scanning Ebay, sometimes I see items posted with a brand name and know just from seeing that the brand listed is wrong, and that Wathers or whatever didn’t make that car but so and so did. There are likely lots of people on this form that will look and immediately know. A picture can be worth a thousand words.
I’m not familiar with that particular car, but New England Rail Service offers windows for a solarium car which might be appropriate. They’re made to fit Rivarossi heavyweight Pullmans, but can be adapted for other cars…
For me, I’d probably go with a ‘pretty close’ car like this, rather than doing a lot of cutting to add window sections etc. for a more exact model, but I tend to take the easiest route.
I think Rapido come with Kadee. The couplers do not have a maker printed on them.
It really gets down to vintage. Athearn cars do not have a name.
bachmann and Spectrum almost always do. European maker of US cars usually do. Con Cor models sometimes do.
It is difficult to identify the car that way. I have had good luck with Google. Say you have a Santa Fe car #21573. Do a Google search:“Santa Fe HO 21573”. Usually the car will come up in several hits. Usually that will identify the maker of the model. Obviously, if it is very old or the number was changed, then it won’t work.
Thanks for all the replies. I have taken some pics of my mystery cars, which I will post a bit later (Christmas dinner, and all that…).
Just the exercise of taking the pictures has been edifying, as it made me take a closer look at all of them. It looks like the couplers might be telling, whether or not they are original, and whether they are knuckle couplers or not. I see the one Walthers I am sure of has an “unmarked” coupler (like a Kadee, but un-named), while one of the unknown cars has a knuckle-coupler with a rather wide “case”, much wider than the Kadee…
Anyway, I’ll post some pictures later to show what I mean.
Mystery 87 may be the Hornby version of the Rivarossi RPO, but it’s definitely not the older Rivarossi version: note the separately-applied axle-powered generator and the truck and coupler mounting shown in the second photo.
Mystery 516, however, is an older Rivarossi car, likely with replacement wheels from either Kadee or Proto.
This is Rivarossi re-done with parts from PSC and New England Rail Services, along with some scratchbuilt stuff:
…and this is Athearn, mostly scratchbuilt, with some brake detail from PSC:
The origin of some re-detailed or kitbashed cars, passenger or freight, can be difficult to determine.
Yes, the RPO is Walthers Trainline. Originally that series included a coach, combine, baggage, and RPO car in several different road names. The prototypes were supposed to be C&NW but I don’t know whether all the models were quite accurate. I recall an item in the B&O Historical Society’s magazine, the Sentinel, that said the B&O version is very close to an actual B&O car.
I think the coach and combine were reissued a few years ago, but the other cars haven’t been made in some time and are in some demand.
As for the other car, I’m sure Dr. Wayne has the proper diagnosis, as usual.
