I have gone to quite an expense to put figures into HO scale passenger cars with very mixed results. The first problem is that most HO scale passenger car interiors don’t leave room for the figures without cutting their legs off or making other modifications; however, the biggest problem is that you can barely see them even after they are properly seated, so I don’t bother with them any more. At club open houses very few visitors ever notice whether there are people in the passenger cars, and having lighting in the cars makes little difference.
All of my passenger trains are ‘run-throughs’, which means that none of them ‘originate’ on the layout, so that I don’t have to worry about empty cars at the stations. I’ve ‘populated’ two of them, so far, my 1950 ROYAL GORGE, and my Con-Cor Pioneer Zephyr (which has been transformed into a 4-car PROSPECTOR), and I have to admit that they look pretty neat with seated passengers. Let me tell you, it isn’t cheap, though I’ve found that the 36-passenger Prieser set is probably a better deal at $30 than paying $14 for a 9-passenger WS set (I’ve got several of both). But one thing I’ve found, is that you really don’t need a lot of passengers glued to the seats to give the impression of a relatively well-filled train. Pullman compartments can be made to look full with 4 or 5 passengers, and 10 to a coach gives the impression that a lot of people have boarded the train for a shorter haul. The main thing I do is populate the dining car, giving the impression that the train is either serving breakfast, lunch or dinner depending on the time of day or night I run it through the layout.
Unfortunately, I just acquired the BLI CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR, so that means that I’ve got to hit up Preiser again just to populate those dome cars! Now, THAT will be an experience on both my wallet and my patience, LOL!
Tom
Yeah, this is a good topic to bring back to life. (No grafitti on the passenger cars, please, and the passengers are discussing the weather or railroads, nothing else.)
How about arranging the coach yard so that the front track (as viewed from the aisle) is used for baggage cars and other “front-end” equipment? The coaches and diners would be behind this first line, and much less visible. If the siding spacing is tight enough, it will be difficult to see in the windows of any but that front line of cars.
And on a different subject - what happens to old decoders? The ones you pull out to upgrade to sound, the ones where you burn out a function or two, or the motor stops working. Most of these still have at least one function still working, and could be used to control one set of lights in a passenger car. I wouldn’t be surprised if your LHS just tosses these things as he does an upgrade for a customer, or maybe he’s like most of use, and he has a box full of them, too good to throw out, but otherwise useless. Offer him a few bucks a piece for them, and you’ll have a supply of decoders for your passenger fleet.
Actually, MisterBeasley, this is pretty much the arrangement of the passenger yard. I have a 5 track stub yard, with the middle track being the longest. The front end cars are on the track nearest the aisle which is the shortest track in the yard so even if that track is full, which it usually isn’t, it won’t hide all the coaches. The diners and lounge cars need to go on the back track because this is where they are serviced by the commisary building. There’s just no getting around it. For most of the operating session, the commuter coaches need to be empty and sitting in the coach yard. I can live with empty cars that should have passengers because it isn’t that noticeable that they are empty. You really have to be looking for it to notice. At some point, imag
I have to disagree there. For the point of this thread that is true, but not for passenger cars in general. The only passenger cars I have seen that can flip the seats are commuter coaches like on NJT. Most long haul passenger cars have fixed seating. Take the California Zephyr dome coaches for example. They always ran short end first because that is the way the seats in the dome were situated. The dorm/lounge had to be turned for the same reason, and the diner so the kitchen would be toward the lounge. The sleeping cars adjacent to them need to be turned just to keep the vestibules lined up properly, so it ends up being easier to turn the whole train.