I was thumbing throught the most recent walthers sale catolauge, and I noticed a few rivarossi passenger cars that look some what like the WSOR cars. SO i was thinking about getting a few of them. These are cheaper than some of there cars, a $27.00 origional price. It looks like they have truck mounted couplers, which I’d have to change. I few of them I was considering cutting and kitbashing/scratchbuilding parts to make them look more like Wisconsin and Southern cars. On the Walthers website they say the cars are good for kitbashign too. To get to the point, I’m curious to know if the rivarossi cars are good runners. I mean do they run fairly well out of the box without many modifacations? They look like they’d be good for me as there fairly cheap, $20.00 on sale, instead of the usual 30 or 40. So please share the good or bad you’ve had with rivarossi passenger cars, as I need some input.
Although Rivarossi cars look great, I have seen a couple of problems with them, both can be easily corrected. 1. they are too light out of the box.They need to have more weight added.2. The flanges on the trucks are way too large.The trucks,or at least the axles,should be changed out.With these changes you will have a great fleet of passenger cars.
The “old” cars (originally sold by AHM in the 1960’s) are as described in the previous post.
The “new” cars are like the Walther’s streamliners - the couplers are 0.01" too high. And they’re also missing steps - but the design of the car end makes it very difficult to add steps.
hmmmmm, I agree that from the pictures I have there aren’t any steps, and that is a problem. The 1920’s styles seem to have them, but there not what I’m looking for. I’ll ahve to give it some though if I really want them now.
Noah, the cars you need are the new Rivarossi cars. the cars the Wisconson Southern owns are former UP 5400/5450 series 44 seat coaches. The couplers are body mounted. You would also need the Rivarossi Dome Lounge obs (also a former UP 9000 series dome lounge obs).
Ch
I’ve had to modify my HO Rivarossi passenger cars that I bought in the mid '90s by body mounting the couplers and glue/cement weights in them. The same treatment was done to my IHC passenger cars so both could be ran in the same train. They run great.
Nice body’s
Poor trucks and 31"plastic wheels. (Newest Walthers’ versions may be improved)
Talgo couplers
Weight too low.
BEST: Replace trucks and wheels.
D&G trucks the best for 4 wheel Pullman made cars. Jay Bee sells coupler pads for Kadee and metal wheels ; MDC makes passenger sideframes for 6
wheel heavyweights. D&G are THE best rolling trucks out there.
Add A line weight’s, Kadee’s, and new trucks and you have a neat car. If the paint job and body style isn’t exactly correct for your particular road, welcome to the club.
IHC’s are cheaply made imitations of the Rivarossi and require even more modification
For the difference in price on the old stuff vs. the IHC is a bargain. $8 vs. $25. Both need work. The IHC trucks are really bad. Over all the old Rivarossi’s are very disappointing. Compare them to a Bachman Spectrum heavyweight being a much better car at $17.
I think the new Rivarossi cars are a big improvement over the older cars. D&G trucks are excellent trucks, however, their trucks are only appropriate for SP lightweight Pullman Standard cars, Lightweight Prewar Pullman Sleepers on the ATSF and Pullman Pool cars. For postwar cars, your best bet is with Train Station Products trucks with Intermountain Roller Bearing wheelsets. The trucks currently on the NEW Rivarossi cars are correct.
Ch
Up until the introduction of the Walther’s passenger cars, Rivorossi had the best looking RTR streamlined passenger cars. Much work needed, yes, but a good starting foundation. Above suggestions regarding weight options and trucks are good! In addtion add an IHC interior kit with painted seats and you have a very nice looking car!
I own a batch of Rivorossi cars that I will be running with the Walther’s cars. I will also be adding lighting kits to some of them.
Don’t forget that in the past two decades, there have been articles in Model Railroader magazine of modelers performing tweaking and detailing of these cars, making them look as good as today’s Walther’s cars.
As I’ve said before, inspite of today’s higher prices American passenger train modelers that don’t have a lot of spare time on their hands have got it made! Just have to “budget” and build a good looking fleet “one car at a time” if need be.
I think the Rivarossi and Walthers interiors are Junk, especially in regards to the dining cars. You’d be better off making a new interior from partial scratch and using Red Cap Lines Haywood Wakefield Sleepy Hollow coach seats and their partition kit and for dining and lounge cars I would use Precision Scales interior seats and partitions and for Parlor cars I would use Palace Cars Parlor seates. For sleepers use Red Cap Lines sofa and Partition kit and lounge seats use Precision Scales singe lounge seat
Ch
Rivarossi, IHC, Walthers,…if you modify it to your liking to where it looks and operates the way it should, you succeeded! Your cheap passenger car(s) would operate just as good as the more expensive ones.
I think that its a combination of interior details and underbody details. On a freight car, you don’t have to worry about the interior and with the under body you only need brake gear and the piping for the break gear. On passenger cars, you have the interior and not just break gear, but battery boxes, air conditioning units, water tanks, diaphrams, air compressors (where prototyplically correct) relay boxes, battery recepticles, generators APSW air resevior APS air tanks.
Ch
The Rivarossi cars are OK if you add weight to bring them up to NMRA standard, metal wheels, diaphragms, and KD couplers. I personally prefer the Walthers cars but you really want to know if your railroad/ in your time frame/ ran some of the sleeper combinations they have decorated for various roads. Not always accurate, but they sure look nice, eh? One thing if you use the short stem couplers and large curves they are a thing of graceful beauty. They will run with standard couplers on 24"radius, but with the short couplers on 48"-72" curves they flow!
By the late 1950s, railroads were removing skirts off of many Budd & Pullman Standard passenger cars.
If you’re interested in this look, you can cut the skirts off of the Rivorossi’s by CAREFULLY and SLOWLY passing a sharp exacto knife over & over inside the corrugated line groove that would be the top of the skirt. Eventually, you will be able to bend it back and forth and gently snap it off. The underbody details should now be exposed. Sand the bottom of the line with 320 or 400 grit sandpaper and you’re done. Paint touch up the bottom if needed. Be patient, it does work. [;)]
I wouldn’t recommend using the Dremel Rotory tool for this as it will curl up the plastic when it heats up and it’s easy to bounce off the thin corrugated line groove and make unwanted cuts and scratches above your line. (Been there-Done that!!!) [:0][:p]
I’m cutting the skirts off of all of my Rivorossi cars as my modeling period is from the 60s right on up to the making of Amtrak in 71. [:D][8D]
Not a bad thread! I find it very useful when I have 6 AHM smoothside cars awaiting entry into service. I will get two more AHM’s as soon as I find em to fini***he 8 car set.
My biggest problem is planning adequate space to run these long trains. 8 of these with a engine and some express cars are LONG trains! I may as well get 5 overton cars and a 4.6.0 to run lol