Surely I must have been asleep for a few years when I went to a “brass” site to ogle the locomotives, and the prices were right up there, although it seems they have dropped a bit in the last few years (true??) anyway, I looked around and never paid too much attention to the cars, I looked at a OMI ACL hopper, nice, the price? $425.00 is this possible? do cars actually cost as much as some brass locomotives? Am I to believe now that when I see a layout with a train of 40 cars they could ALL be brass along with all the other cars on the layout?? Do people have nothing but all brass cars? I assumed that the nice brass loco on some layouts was pulling a string of plastic cars, could I be mistaken? Can anyone out there verify that some large layouts are ALL brass? this seems highly unlikely, but maybe it is true.
Hard to say - there are some very well off guys who can afford to load up on brass like that. But with the price and improved accuracy of alot of the HO plastic stuff, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the great stuff coming out in the last several years. Truly the golden age is right now!
I just stick to locos and cabeese!!!
I’ve never heard of anyone modeling exclusively with brass on a layout of any size but I wouldn’t doubt that there might be an eccentric milliionaire out there somewhere who has done just that. I know there are modelers who have a substantial collection of brass engines but an entire fleet of brass rolling stock is probably beyond the means of all but the wealthiest of modelers. I’ve always looked at brass, whether motive power or rolling stock, as more of a collectible than actual working models. Frankly it has never had much appeal to me. I’m more into running trains than collecting them and a plastic model fills the bill as well as any brass model costing many times as much.
About 20 years ago, I picked up a small collection of brass at an estate sale which I turned around and sold for a modest profit. I still have a set of shorty Tenshado Pennsy coaches and an undecorated 2-6-6-2 logging engine with no box and no documentation and have no idea what they are worth although one of these days I may get ambitious enough to do some research and then offer them on e-bay if it turns out they have some real value. They don’t fit into my operating scheme so I can’t see them showing up on my own railroad.
Does anyone know what brass cars weigh? I could be completely off base here but I would imagine you’d need some serious power on the front end to pull an all brass train. If any one does know how brass cars compare in weight to the plastic ones (i.e. are they over the NMRA standard?) please chme in.
Tom
Brass rolling stock is built of thin, lightweight material, not the equivalent of armor plate. I’ve had to add weight to almost all of my metal rolling stock to bring it up to NMRA standard. Some of the cars are brass (passenger stock and a few unusual freight cars,) most (four wheel freight cars, and a few others) are galvanized steel.
Unit for unit, the unweighted metal cars are slightly heavier than equivalent unweighted plastic cars - but nowhere near heavy. Also, even 40 year old Japanese made cars have fine bearings and accurately turned and gauged wheels with RP25 contours. Comparatively small locomotives can handle trains of prototypical length. I don’t doubt that a US prototype Mallet with a traction tire could easily start my entire metal freight roster on straight, level track.
The kitbashed BB and other cars in my collection have a lot more rolling resistance - but that’s a completely different bucket of worms.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Thanks for the information, Chuck. I guess I was way off base.[B)]
Tom
Here’s a quick comparison. Two UP CA-3 cabooses, one Overland Brass, the other plastic from…well, darn it, I forget now, but one of the big guys. Same length, level of detail, etc. The brass model weighs 3.6 ounces on my none too accurate scale and the plastic one weighs 3.4 ounces. Both need about two ounces of weight since they are about 4.2 inches long. As Chuck wrote, the brass car sides are very thin and I think if I took them both apart, the plastic car sides might actually weigh more. The extra weight in the brass car is in the brass underframe compared to the plastic underframe.
As far as anyone running entire trains of brass, I did know one guy who had a a complete Tenshodo 20th Century Limited. This was back in about 1974 and, if you really wanted all the correct details, brass is what you bought. It was two E-8’s and about 15 cars including a boattail observation. I think he paid just under $700 for the complete train, an astronomical sum in those days. He always kept them brass and never painted them. I have no idea what happened to him or his train. You’re right that the price of brass has fallen a bit in the last several years but it would sure be interesting to see what that train would bring on e-bay today.