GM & O passenger trains

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am german fan from GM & O trains, placed now in Spain building GM & O Layout. Buying passenger coches from the different manufaturers I observed taht nearly none of the coaches is closed to the original.

Anybody can help me to select the right ones?

My second observation, is that passenger coaches build by Walthers, IHC and others do not work well on tight radius like 18'', but no information is given in catalogues. Here in europe we have no place for such big layouts in private apartements, so "undernearths" and on helix we have to work on 18'', which is quit big in Europe. European manufacturers like ROCO or Fleischmann offers all rolling stock, somtimes which scale reduced lenghts, and they work very well on 15'' and smaller radius.

[orsonroy]

Patrick,

Your best bet is to stick to the older Rivarossi or AHM/IHC passenger cars. The couplers are truck mounted, and the underframes are designed to provide for the maximum amount of swing. They might not look the best, but they'll negociate tight curves better than other cars. And at least the above manufacturers didn't botch up the GM&O paint schemes too badly (the new Branchline cars, while being beautiful and accurate models of real prototypes, got the colors on GM&O cars COMPLETELY wrong on their first releases. Walthers hasn't released any GM&O equipment yet).

One thing to keep in mind: GM&O passenger trains were usually mixed consists: although all of the cars in the train were usually painted the same, the road mixed heavyweights and streamlined cars indiscriminantly. Most of the road's diners and coaches were heavies, and many of their baggage cars were as well.