Hi!
The Riverossi, IHC, and AHM (don’t forget Athearn) were the best buys for the money when they came out decades ago. Yes, you could get brass or the special “car sides” that came in kit forms - both of which could be better representations as compared the the less expensive ready built ones. These cars were with us for decades, and served us well.
Today, Walthers, BLI, Branchline, and others are putting out some very detailed representations and look really good on our layouts. They are certainly more expensive, but - for the most part - you get what you pay for. Which is better? Well that’s like asking that question about Ford vs. Chevy, or more appropriately Digitrax vs. NCE. In my case, whichever company produces the car I want is the one I will buy.
All that being said, I’ve had Athearn passenger cars since the late '50s. About 5 years ago I put together a 13 car ATSF heavyweight set that I detailed with diagphrams, KDs, decals, wheelsets, etc. The end result, pulled behind a BLI Northern, is my favorite passenger train and gets the most layout time. Yes, I have consists of Walthers ATSF and IC cars that are prototypical lengths and have more details, but those relatively inexpensive Athearn cars are my favorites (perhaps because I “built” them).
In any case, my point is don’t discount those less expensive passenger cars, for they do have a lot to offer and certainly have the potential to “be all they can be”.
I prefer todays passenger cars from Rapido, Athearn and Walthers. They are by far a better detailed and better performing car out of the box.
My ranking:
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Rapido. By far the best passenger car maker that builds Canadian prototypes. Just look at one and you will be convinced.
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Athearn. I’m a big fan of Athearn’s Bombardier cars. They are the only one’s out there that produce them and come nicely detailed but some do require a little work to get them to run great.
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Walthers. Their Budd cars for the most part are great looking and performing right out of the box.
Hi Mobilman,
Although I like today’s cars from Walthers and Rapido, I do have a small collection of 1970s AHM units and and 1990s Rivorossi Budds.
You might remember this car below from my thread 2 years back. It’s a 1970s AHM Pullman Standard Amtrak Blunt-ended Observation car that I stripped down, added fluting, and metalized. I’m going to use it as a “Foobie” observation car for my version of SCL’s Champion. (Foobie being that it’s my “Wannabe” Budd since no one makes a decent plastic 85ft. Budd Blunt end obs-car) 
Originally I was going to sell my older cars but with today’s prices for new cars, I’ve decided to keep and upgrade them; especially since I have a lot of spare parts on hand. I’m taking DCFixer’s suggestion and will upgrade the windows on the AHM units.
Check out this thread: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/182165.aspx?PageIndex=1
Nice conversion!
I’ve got a fairly large collection of HO cars, all kits with the exception of perhaps 15 (out of 500+) ready to run cars that I just had to have. The Walther’s passenger cars, while deemed RTR, really need some prep work to get them running properly, particularly on less than 28 inch radius curves. So in some ways, these are kits too (esp. in regards to the grabirons).
My point - which you seem to support - is that some of us get a much bigger thrill out of cars we made or improved, as compared to cars we bought RTR. That kind of goes along with the whole process of building a layout - its something “we did”.
Forgot to mention…
As far as ranking; I don’t think I realistically could as I purchase passenger cars based on what I’m looking for.
In comparing pre-1995 models, I think that the Rivorossi streamlined corrugated Budds are better in overall appearance and quality than the 1970s AHM 85ft smoothsiders, YET, several of those older smoothsiders have window arrangments that some us modeling the eastern roads are looking for, particularly sleeping cars.
Yes, I could order the window strip kits from USP, but I currently don’t have the time or patience to cut, file, and splice them in; so I compromise and adapt those older cars. I’m not a prototypical purist.[;)]
Re: Athearns. I had a collection of Athearn “shorties”. I enjoyed them back in the day, but sold/traded them off in the early 80s once a friend of mine encouraged me to started paying much closer attention to the detailing on passenger trains.
I also sold off a batch of HO 85ft. Con Cor corrugated Santa Fe streamliners (came in blue colored boxes). I vaguely remember but think that they were Pullman Standard but am not sure. Though a bit crude, compared to the Rivarossi units, I wish now I had kept them.
I’ll offer this: As far as ranking among those older groups, Rivarossi for me is #1.
In reading the responses it’s nice to see others who like the older stuff as well. I have about 100 riverossi, IHC and AHM passenger cars from the 70’ and 80’s that I have upgraded with KD’s, diaphrams, interior kits and people in the seats. I have also detailed the underside of the cars too with gen sets, holding tanks, piping, drain tubes. I have some Athearn’s cars as well as Con-Cor too, plus I have about 12 brass cars I picked up in the late 80’s when I was stationed in Korea, so they were very cheap to buy and bring home, they are in the GN livery. For me I would have to say that the older Riverossi is top of my list because of the amount of super detailing I had to do to them and the way they came especially undecorated it made them easy to modify to any road real or fantasy. I have several of them that are custom painted with road names from a shortline I came up with for my layout.
For my list:
#1 Riverossi/IHC/AHM
#2 Walther’s
#3 BLI
#4 Con-Cor
#5 Brass Imports
Guys, can you post photos of older varnish that you’ve modified?
I agree that some lines of older cars have good potential and with some detailing and weathering can look realistically compatible coupled with today’s Walthers and Rapido cars.
Which do I like better. BLI wins with their Zephyr cars hands down (they were only $54 at the time). The only thing I have found I do not like about them is an almost trivial thing. The interior “shades” all have the same configuration. That is the shade in the 3rd window from the front is 1/4 the way down on every single car…
When the Walther’s cars first came out I did an unscientific study. I took an AHM car ($8 street price at the time) and brought it up to the equivalent of the Walther’s car ($25 street price at the time). The final analysis was that the cost was the same. The difference was the 5-20 hours it took to modify the AHM car. Of course that was also before Walthers started installing the hand rails, and before their price went to outrageous.
A huge advantage of the newer runs of the Walther’s cars is that they have exact window arrangements for certain prototypes. If one is modeling that prototype they no longer have to do the window fill window cut routing. A huge one for me was the Empire Builder full dome. I can’t describe how long it took to model a GN full dome from a Bachmann car that was a Santa Fe prototype.
The majority of my fleet accumulated over the last 30 years is now Walther’s. I am guessing Walther’s outnumbered the older AHM - Rivarossi about 4 years ago. Despite adding 34 BLI Zephyr cars I am guessin
You know, the Rivarossi/AHM cars were eye openers when they were new in the 1960s that is for sure – reasonably priced, full length, nicely detailed for the time, and most if not all actually followed a prototype. Your choices for full length standard or streamlined cars were severely limited in the early to mid 1960s. It took a few years for AHM to bring out the simple interior castings.
One challenge was that you could not simply replace the undersized 31" wheels (which rolled reasonably well) with 36" replacements because the trucks had molded on brake shoes which rubbed on the larger wheel size - they needed to be shaved away. And 36" wheels made the cars just so slightly high, at least some of them, so the truck mounted coupler height needed to be adjusted, or the couplers converted to body mount.
When the “standard” cars were new they were $3.98 each. And AHM would offer them in what they called a “Funeral Sale” at three for the price of one, so three cars for $3.98. Sometimes the steps would be broken off, or the trucks or couplers, so they were in a sense defective. One car came with a small chip of plastic missing from the roof which I was able to replicate with some body putty. With very little work (AHM sold the spare parts) you could have perfect cars at a bargain price. I know everything seems cheaper back in the day but even at the time those were low low prices.
Dave Nelson
I know when I updated my Riverossi cars to the 36" wheels I had to shave the brakes off, I body mounted the couplers and shaved off the cast on diaphragms and install new onesI also added window shades as well as renumbering coach cars and adding names to some if I was trying to copy a certain car on a road. Also on some of the Pennsy cars I added antennas on the top of the car. For the brass cars I found if you covered the undercarriage with a thin layer of latex paint it insulates from a lot of the shorting issues and sound deading too.
Back in the 60s and 70s when the Rivarossi cars were about the only thing available short of “some” brass cars I too had issues with those funny looking little 31" diameter wheels as well as the big flanges, the layout was “all” code 70 rail at the time.
I solved the problem by installing 33" wheelsets instead of modifying the truck frames for 36" wheels. It was simply a “pop in/pop out” thing to install them, didn’t change the coupler height that much, (body mounted Kadees), and were close enough to a 36" wheel that it was virtually impossible to tell the difference once they were on the track. So if you want to get closer to a correct size wheel “without” modifying the truck frames try installing 33" wheel sets instead. I still have most of the Rivarossi cars today and plan to send them to the shops for a complete overhaul because to me they are still a fine looking passenger car, just need upgrading.
P.S. All of the Rivarossi cars I have are the “de luxe” versions with the interiors and lighted and are what was called the “standard heavyweights”. I don’t recall that the streamline cars were ever offered with lights and interiors until much later.
Mark
RMR
You are correct Mark, the streamline cars didn’t get those options until later. I did custom interiors on some of the cars to match the road’s floorplan more closely. I still like my Rivarossi’s the most. I have over 150 Rivarossi/IHC/AHM passenger cars in both heavyweight and streamline under 6 road names and 2 custom shortlines I made up.