[;)]
I was wondering is anyone knows if passenger cars come in “short” makes. Say, 40’ ish… If so, can you tell me a link to see what they look like?
Trevor
I have some 34" Overtons I use on steam. they are not prototypically coreect on anything, but they exist. There are also the 50" Overlands that are also 1800’s. I’ve seen some 60’ more modern cars, but I can’t remember who makes them. I think it was IHC.
Walthers announced a set of “shorty” passenger cars for use on small layouts, so check their Web site or catalog for details. I don’t know if they have been released yet, because I have not been looking for them.
MDC/Roundhouse makes 50’ open-platform wooden coaches and 60’ Harriman steel coaches in several versions (baggage, RPO, coach, etc). Don’t know if they’ve been re-released since Horizon bought up MDC, but you can always find a lot of old MDC kits on ebay.
If you’re looking for a bit more of a challenge, LaBelle (http://www.labellemodels.com/main.htm#top) makes 58’ open-platform wood coaches and 60’ vestibuled wooden coaches - in wood, so they’re a bit more work than an MDC model.
Trevor–The MDC Overtons are based on actual cars used by the Sierra Railway of California on their Angels Camp Branch back in the early 20th Century. The branch had very tight curves and a series of switchbacks on it, so the little ‘Overton’ cars were perfect for passengers. Later, of course, they became popular in western movies filmed on the Sierra. Rivarossi had a series of 60’ passenger cars released by Walthers a couple of years ago, they may still be available–I think Walthers has re-released modified versions of the cars in their “Trainline” series. MDC made 60’ ‘Harriman Standard’ passenger cars also, based on SP prototypes. Athearn makes 72’ Pullman-Standard cars. If you want to model 19th century, the “Overtons” and MDC’s 50-foot open platforms are perfect. For 20th century, the shorty Walthers or Athearns will fill the bill. They’ll all take an 18" radius with ease, and don’t have too bad an overhang.
Tom [:D]
Believe it or not those 34’ Overtons did exist. The Sierra RR in California has a couple of them which they built for the Angels Camp branch. They needed to traverse alot of tight turns and switchbacks.
There are short British and German prototypes and models, a number of 4 and 6 wheel cars without trucks. Hattons website probably has the best assortment of British models in OO and N. Reynaulds, or any number of other importers, has the German equipment.
Mo
I was overstating the point when i said they don’t fit a prototype. I should have said they come in many different real and imaginary road names, but only one actually used them.
Athearn makes Blue Box passenger cars that scale out at 60ft. These are models of Santa Fe cars.
Athearn’s
passenger cars are 72’ .version’s of AT&SF cars.
Close, but no Cigar.
I have found a 48’ old time wooden passenger coach manufactured by Model Power, It is R-T-R.
Happy MRRing
TrevorG: Passenger cars tend to be long because passengers don’t weigh very much, and so shorter cars are unnecessary–on the prototype, which doesn’t use 15" radius curves, longer cars are preferable. Longer cars means fewer total cars, fewer places to potentially uncouple, less overhead on a per-passenger basis, fewer inter-car connections to worry about, etcetera.
The only place where you find really short passenger cars is on trolley lines, which got as short as 24’ or so–but they DID have 15" radius (multiplied by 87) curves!
I don’t know if you can use this but Marklin makes an attractive set of white commuter cars that are about a scale 60ft. long.
Though they’re Europeon models, they resemble typical American subway cars. With some modifying, they can be made to look like U.S style equipment.
I don’t know if its on their website, but they should still be in the Marklin catalog. You can look through one at a reputable LHS.
Take care!
TrevorG - 20th century prototype passenger cars under 60 feet in length were extremely rare. As shorter models would be so unprototypical, they are generally not popular with modelers and so the manufacturers generally haven’t bothered with them. The only real exceptions in the prototype, as others have pointed out, are MDC’s 34’ Overton shorties, based on just a couple of specialty prototype cars that ran on a single railroad. Had not MR published detailed plans for these cars decades ago, it’s likely no manufacturer would ever have bothered to offered them.
One can justify standard passenger cars of 60 foot length (most were 80 feet or slightly more) but shorter than this looks very toy-like and highly unprototypical. It is also straying from the prototype to have 6-wheel trucks under heavyweight cars that are less than 80 feet long, a mistake long perpetuated by Athearn.
I’d say that in surveying the marketplace, Walthers’ recent issue of the ex-Rivarossi 60-footers are the best choice for short but realistic passenger equipment and they do correspond to some actual 60-footers from the steam era.
CNJ831
Just so you know, I have two Harriman 60-footers that my loco pulls occasionally. They didn’t seem very happy with my 22’ radii, so I had to…ah…‘modify’ them a tad under the side steps so that the couplers had a greater range of motion.
Cheers.
I took a saw to my 85 footers and made em about 65ft you ought to hear the comments when they come round the bend on the club layout ahhhhhhhh some are good some bad but it does the job for me
im looking for some atsf shortys also ,havent seen ,much ,my dad also has some illinios central passenger cars ,that are also real long ,if ya find something let me know also
These are my little coaches made by Fratichi in Brasil. The wheels are crap I’ve changed them for proto2000 36" wheels, now they run nice.
Ken.
The Athearn 72’ passenger cars actually run well on small radius curves. They were designed to work on 18" radius minimum I think.
I’ve got quite a few of them actually as they look fairly close to coaches that were used in commuter service along the east coast. They took a lot of detail work to look good next to the Athearn Bombardiers and Walthers cars but I’m happy with them.
While the main line on my current layout is designed with long sweeping curves, the urban switching portion has a minimum 18" radius curve and the Athearns cars can handle that when a longer Walthers or Kato would be pulled off the tracks.
~METRO
I have a set of these as well. They are nice cars and can be detailed very nicely as well.
Ray out.