Hi, I am looking to get back into the hobby after not having model trains since I was a kid. I am looking to get heavyweight passenger cars representing Pennsylvania Railroad/Reading Railroad (Late 1890’s-1945) and want to get the best bang for my buck. What companies should I buy from and which should I avoid?
[#welcome]
Hi, Royalgunner
It is a pretty subjective matter to decide what is “best” as, of course, best for me might not be best for you.
Not long ago I bought a few of the MTH heavyweights painted for Pennsylvania and I’m pretty impressed with them. Now, the downside is, there isn’t much to choose from as far as car types, a baggage, 12-1 Pullman and 10-1 open-end observation car.
But what they DO have are very nicely modeled, with nice interiors, underbody detail and good, flicker-free lighting already installed. I did a little look-see a few years ago here:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/245778/2747513.aspx
Walthers, Bachmann and Atlas/Branchline have some PRR heavyweights available too, and Broadway Limited offers two versions of the ubiquitous P70 coach.
The MTH cars are offered in a five-car set that runs around $350 to $400. Ouch, you say. But for five cars that’s about $70-$80 each and that represents the going price, if not more for some models.
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/MTH-HO-Heavyweight-Passenger-Set-PRR-p/mth-80-40001.htm
Maybe others will chime in with better recommendations,
Good Luck, Ed
The Walthers and Atlas one look pretty good, although certain lounge cars and sleepers have yet to be made in HO Scale.
While I don’t have any MTH heavyweight cars, I do have their 10-car set of the two-tone gray '40 20th Century Limited passenger cars and they are beautiful and well made. Wish they’d produce more.
If you like assembling kits, Branchline (now owned by Atlas) offers some nice heavyweight cars and at a fraction of the cost of the MTH cars.
Tom
Boy oh boy… Best is always such a hard to define word.
All my heavyweights are Rivarossi. They just offered the most variety of equipment. NERS air conditioning kits and a few odd details make them look good.
The Branchline kits are very good, but only three (maybe 4 depending on how you count them) styles are available. That is the big problem with heavyweight cars now. The current models are very good, but it is hard to put together a good consist of equipment.
Eventually, the heavyweight train I own will either be retired or replaced with brass cars, probably Lambert.
I really am not a big fan of passenger trains.
-Kevin
Welcome … A HO layout should have at least 30" radius curves for full length passenger cars. Walthers and Atlas make good ones. MTH i said to be good, but I have not tried them. … Con Cor makes shorter cars for smaller radius curves, and I hear their short heavyweight cars are good.
The Reading Modeler website has a nice Reading Company roster you can refer to. Reading didn’t own the elaborate fleet the PRR did, but had a unique design for rolling stock built in the late 1920s. You can get fairly easy to assemble kits from Bethlehem Car Works for basic coaches, combines and baggage cars.
Mid-1920’s and before, Reading had some steel cars, but also a lot of wood cars. No specific ready to run or simple kits are available for these.
The Keystone Crossings website has useful information on PRR passenger equipment.
PRR ready to run models for this era in the past include the steel P70 coach, PB70 combine, B60 baggage, D78 diner, R50 express car and Z74. Bachmann, Broadway Limited and Walthers have periodically offered these.
Walthers has also offered various pullman cars that would have been used by the PRR. I’m not sure that wood vintage cars from the turn of the century are available except in craftsman kits.
Good luck.
Everyone thanks you for the quick responses, this has been very, very helpful. I have much better idea on what companies to go to.
On another note, I am looking at getting an engine from BLI, who I have heard makes great trains.
Here’s a link to M.B. Klein’s Pennsy heavyweights. These are made by BLI and Con-Cor.
Keep in mind heavyweights were only built during the middle portion of your 1890 - 1945 period. Wood cars (like the old MDC/Roundhouse Pullman Palace cars) would have been the cars being produced in the 1890’s-1900’s. By the 1940’s, virtually all new passenger cars were lightweight streamlined cars.
[#welcome] to the MR Forums, Royalgunner.
I have to agree with Ed on this one. In my opinion, the best bang for your buck will be the old Rivarossi cars. None, other than perhaps their duplex sleeper, are specifically Pennsy models, but some appropriate paint and lettering can go a long way to making them more suitable. They can be had, at train shows, for under $10.00, and even cheaper at garage sales or on-line.
Adding more bang (at the expense of more money) will get you detail parts to upgrade these fairly basic cars. As I see it, adding your personal input in this manner is a more affordable (and more enjoyable) option than shelling out big bucks for models that anybody can buy, right off the shelf.
Your particular expectations and abilities will, of course, determine if this is a viable option for you.
I don’t model the Pennsy, but do have some Pennsy head-end cars, and a lot of Pennsy freight equipment, all of which could have been seen at one time in my part of southern Ontario.
Here are a couple of Rivarossi passenger cars, with some added details and paint and lettering for my freelanced railroads…
The Rivarossi lightweight observation car looks, at least to my untrained eye, somewhat similar to some which Pennsy had. Mine, shown below, is little-altered other than the paint, and had I kept it, I might have been able to improve it with more un
Cheapest: Athearn, RR, Concor, and IHC
Most bang for your buck: Branchline Blueprint series (Kit form)
Most detailed: Branchline blueprint series
Easiest to run: Bachmann. You can run these day and night on R18
Most availability of styles: Walthers. But they take a lot of tweaking to get the trucks to run right. And I wouldn’t run them on < R28. They are also the most pricey which makes me scratch me head given the competition.
The worst runners are the branchline blueprint series. I swapped out the trucks for walthers heavyweight trucks. The kit ones were nothing short of maddening.
If you were going to go more modern era, I would tell you to look into Rapido too.
Nice balance between detail, ease of operation, cost for Pennsy: BLI
I have 70 passenger cars and going. Most of them heavyweights. My favorites are the rapidos and bachmann because they just run. I use my atlas branchline cars on shorter trains. If I push over 5 heavyweights, the likelyhood of them derailing increases even with my tweeking and new trucks. I don’t own BLI cars, but I seen them run at a friends layout and he highly praised them. They were also a thing of beauty.
For heavy weight steel cars, the Athearn models are hard to beat. They look right. Every train in the US, except some crack name trains, used this style of passenger car, tight up until Amtrak. They handle 18 inch radius curves with ease. They turn up at train shows for under $10.
I agree with you. I collected a full set of Walthers Empire Builder cars, the sky blue scheme, and you would cringe to see what I had to do the the bottom of these cars so I could run them on a 22"r. No problem with Rapido cars.
Mike.
Mike,
I’ve had issues with the trucks on a Walthers caboose binding on the backside of the side steps on R22" curves so I can only imagine what the passenger cars are like. Needless to say, I don’t purchase Walthers rolling stock.
Tom
A few years ago one of my LHS had a supply of Branchline RTR heavyweights at what seemed to be a closeout price (under $25). They had them in Pullman Green and Pennsy Tuscan. I scooped up most of what they had. They are far superior to the Walthers line IMHO as far as reliability. I don’t know if they are still available in RTR through Atlas. I have one Branchline heavyweight kit which I’ve found to be quite challenging to assemble. It remains unfinished and I wouldn’t buy another.
I built six of the Branchline kits. The trucks, of course are worthless so you need another $15 or 20 to get decent trucks. I have maybe another half dozen Atlas/Branchline RTR cars and they track much better (one piece molded trucks with a better bolster) Atlas recently released the paired-window coach and single window coach in several roadnames. Unfortunately, not New York Central which was the primary user of the single window coach.
I have close to 200 Walthers passenger cars and the only ones that needed any king of “tweeking” were the Budd Super-Domes. By nature, they are huge cars and require six wheel trucks and have very little clearance. Still after a little lube and loosening of the bolster pad they run fine.
All my Walthers heavyweights run just fine. There may have been a few that required loosening of the bolster screw.
Union_Sta_departure9 by Edmund, on Flickr
If you aren’t too picky, you can find Walthers passenger cars listed in their Bargain Basement or Monthly Flyer at very big discounts. About a month ago there were dozens of cars offered in the $30-$40 range.
The Broadway P70s have a truck mounting arrangement whereby they snap into the car bolster. Poor arrangement that allows no axial motion. After a bit of filing and sanding I finally got those to track OK.
IMG_7041_fix by Edmund, on Flickr
The constant intensity li
If it’s Pennsy you are after, I would look at the Bachmann Spectrum cars, as I understnd the coaches are based on Pennsy prototypes. I have acquired a few, both NYC (which I model) and PRR (which I don’t) for between $5 and $20 apiece, and I am very happy with them. (I’m not a rivet-counter.) I need to body-mount the couplers, though I have run them on a train with Wathers HWs and the existing funky couplers, and they did just fine.
The Branchline cars are great models, though very time-intensive to build and rather delicate, and the older kits can have problems. I have built two, one had dodgy trucks that won’t roll, one has a slightly warped roof, but I still love the kits, they are beautiful and good fun to put together. (I’ll replace the trucks on one, trying to figure out the roof.) I haven’t run the cars yet. (Our club has 40"-plus curves.) I am worried about the delicate detail getting damaged.
I have a Walthers B60B baggage car that I love.
A fellow club member has a train of Walthers heavyweights. I like them, though I have to lube the wheels a lot. We have had problems with losing couplers (screws get stripped out) on his Walthers streamline cars. We run long trains (15-plus cars) over steep grades, so we are rough on equipment.
Hope this helps!
Welcome to the forum! This a great place to get and share ideas and information.
My 2 cents; I have had Atlas, BLI, Rapido and MTH. Rapido and MTH were the most reliable and functional fo me. I could not keep the atlas or BLI on the track if there were more than 3 cars. The BLI tandem cars came off on 26“ R curves, I sent them back.
The only issue I had with one MTH car in a 5 car set was that one truck pick-up was not making contact with the lighting pickup. EASY fix and MTH details what needs to be done.
Let us know what you decide.
The advice you’ve gotten re: Pennsy cars in particular is good: Pennsy made the decision to convert its fleet from wood to steel earlier than any other major railroad, in large part because it didn’t want to take the risks associated with running wooden coaches through the tunnels under the Hudson River, by which Pennsy trains accessed New York Penn Station from 1910 onwards.
But even on the mighty Pennsy, there was another operator, and at the risk of highjacking your thread, it’s worth mentioning. That other operator was the Pullman Company, which owned and operated sleeping and parlor cars on Pennsy trains. Pullman decided to convert to steel prior to 1910, and built its first steel sleeper, the “Jamestown,” in 1907. Steel heavyweight sleepers and parlors went into production in 1910, and formed the backbone of the national sleeping car fleet until after WWII. They didn’t run on every Pennsy train, but the majority of the name trains offered sleeper and/or parlor service, from the “Broadway” on down, and so Pullman cars were as big a part of the fleet in Pennsy service as B-60 bags or P-70 coaches.
But for the earliest years of your period (say, 1910-1920), there are no commercial models that represent the heavyweight cars as they were produced and run between 1910 and 1920.
The first steel Pullmans (and I am referring here to those built between 1910 and 1916) closely resembled wood cars. They did not have the wide fascia boards of later heavyweights, or the riveted side plates; instead, they had the narrow fascia boards and upper transom sashes that are characteristic of late-model wood equipment. The sides were covered with an interlocking steel sheathing system that was clearly designed to resemble the sheathing of wood cars; the principal external aspect of these cars that distinguishes them from earlier wood cars is the fishbelly underframe: otherwise, it is hard to tell them apart from wood cars, particula