dome_lounge Fergie, Two points of caution mixing cars from Branchline & Athearn; 1. The Athearn cars are 72 scale feet - considerably shorter than the Branchline. You could change the trucks to four wheel ones, then claim the Observation is a Business Car, like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HO-BRASS-W-R-CANADIAN-NATIONAL-CN-BUSINESS-CAR-BONAVENTURE-/121244237483?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item1c3ab83eab 2. The shades of green used by the two manufacturers may be substantially different; if that is the case, and it bothers you, but the 72 foot length does not, you could get a complete set of Athearn cars. Jerry
Fergie,
2. The shades of green used by the two manufacturers may be substantially different; if that is the case, and it bothers you, but the 72 foot length does not, you could get a complete set of Athearn cars.
Jerry
Jerry,
If you do some research on the subject, you will find that in the heavyweight era passenger cars came in lots of different lengths.
Yes, the Athearn cars are 72' - Yes they are "freelanced" and compressed. But in fact there were many coaches in the 70-75' "range", and even a few diners, business cars, parlor cars, etc, that were less than 80'.
YES, all Pullman sleepers were longer, but not all of them were exactly the same length - most measured 82'-5" buffer to buffer, making the car itself only about 80', but some were longer, some were a foot or two shorter.
Other Pullman built diners, observations, etc were typically 83-6 - but not always.
Most all head end equipment - baggage cars, baggage/RPO combines, etc, were around 70'.
"Harriman" cars were 60' and 65' and ran intermixed with longer cars on all the roads that owned them.
So there is no reason to be concerned with exact car lengths if the car is freelanced in the first place?
Sheldon
In my opinion, the best "shorty" paasenger cars out there are the Rivarossi 60' heavyweights and the Athearn BB 71' heavyweight and streamlined cars.
While I have steadily moved to convert all of my passenger car equipment in recent years to the 80' to 85' models offfered by Walthers and Rapido, the old shorties still run best on track with less than 28" radius curves.
Rich
Alton Junction
Sheldon,
I can attest to what you are saying. In the late 50's early 60's I had quite a few Athearn BB HW's in the 80ft range, six wheel coupler mounted trucks, that would track very well on 18'' and 22'' radius curves, they would run even better, if you filed down the flange on the center wheels, quite easy to do,they were plastic. The Rivarossi HW's were just a little longer with metal wheel sets. That was rolling on Brass hand laid code 100 rail, not flex track, soft rubber diaphrams with metal ends, it elludes me to remember who made those then, didn't look all that bad, that was also with Horn-Hook coupler's, they all had added weight of course.
''Happy New Year,All''
Frank
zstripe...soft rubber diaphrams with metal ends, it elludes me to remember who made those then...
Frank, those diaphragms were made by MHP, in Rochester, New York. My first diesels, an A-B-B-A set of Globe F-units, in Santa Fe Warbonnet paint, were equipped with them. They looked good and worked well, too. I still have at least one pair of them.
Wayne
Wayne,
Thanks for that info. My memory banks are just a little too worn, to remember who made them.
Did your Globe F's look like this:
http://hoseeker.net/Globe/globeaf7adummydiagram.jpg
How about, dese one's?:
http://hoseeker.net/lindsay/lindsayathearndiagrampg1.jpg
Yep, those are the ones. One of the B-units had a Lindsay power truck, while the other and the two A-units were dummies. With brass rail (on fibre ties) and brass wheels on the power truck, everything had to be well-cleaned for reliable operation. Besides the diaphragms, all were equipped with Kadee K-type couplers.I eventually re-painted the locos in CPR maroon and grey, then again later for my free-lanced road, as seen here:
ManOWar ......in the real world, there were hundreds if not thousands of railroad specific passenger cars, wooden to steel heavyweight right up to stainless steel.....
ManOWar .......My idea was to give the modeler some latitude in creating a specific car for their particular railroad they were modeling or to allow some very creative freelancing. The sections could be combined like the modular building walls offered by Walther’s and DPM. With a variety of lengths, windows, doors, and blanks, anything from 50’ right up the 85’ full size what ever could be constructed. Got a lot of polite platitudes and innovative idea, but not interested at the time.
I'm not surprised that there was little interest from the manufacturers. With the cars which they currently do offer and after-market parts from New England Rail Services, Bethlehem Car Works, Cal-Scale, PSC, and others, a modeller can create his own modular car - an X-Acto knife and a razor saw and you're on your way.The other issue is that there are fewer and fewer of us out there willing to do this kind of work, and of those who do, how many cars are they going to build? Not likely a market big enough to justify the investment needed.
There are, I think, the materials available to build a model of most road-specific passenger cars, but few willing to invest the time, effort, and money needed. I've done a few myself, mostly for others, as mine are mostly free-lanced, but if I want a model of a real car, I build it. Athearn and Rivarossi usually provide the roofs, and I add whatever's needed to make it into a car. My road runs more head-end stuff than coaches, but I do enjoy building a few cars to match prototype ones found in photos:
BLI released a 4-6-2 Pacific lettered for MKT, Some heavyweights should also be released under that name to go with it.