Is there a Shortage of Passenger Cars on the Market

[mlehman]

I was actually surprised at the realtively few offerings of CN passenger cars on ebay. If you're looking for RTR, things are scarce. But even a search for those old Branchline kits shows very little even if you are willing to roll up those sleeves.

Walthers does show lots of Pullmans in stock under various roadnames and configuations. Might look for the correct type, catch it on sale, then strip and paint it for a economical solution.

[ndbprr]

So why not buy one and repaint it? That is what many of us have done over the years. This doesn't have to be a ready to run hobby
.

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

Like Andre' pointed out, it depends a lot on what you want and what you are willing to pay.

The thing with passenger cars is many were nearly one of a kind. Sure, coaches and some types of sleepers were made on standard plans for lots of roads, over spans of a decade ot so.

But if you really examine the passenger roster of even the largest railroads, you will be amazed at how many cars are unique, or only exist in quanities of two or three or six.

Given the number of different railroads in the history of North America, and nearly 160 years of rail travel, at least 110 of those years in the 80' steel car era, how could the manufacturers even begin to offer all those products? If they could even find correct info on them? Especially to offer them in the current "high quality", high detail RTR versions common today?

Considering how small the market is for any given car - or even whole consist, what has been offered in the last 15 years is actually very impressive.

Yet it still has not put a dent in the list - it is like ripping two pages out of the NYC phone book.

Freight more fun than passenger? Like Patirick Swayze said in Road House "opinions vary". I love passenger cars and trains, and they don't even have to be dead on perfect models of a specific prototype - the real railroads rebuilt, repurposed, redesigned, and reused them endlessly anyway. 

The only way a passenger train model is accurate is if you happen to have dated photos and other the detailed info - too intense for me.

Anyway, they may not meet some peoples "high quality" standards, but there are about 200 passenger cars at my house - not rare at all.

And about this radius of curve issue - you all do what you like, but I don'y get settling for 24" or 30" radius curves but "having" to have high detail 85" passenger cars, that then have to be modified and coupled at passenger killing distances like some LIONEL toy?

Sheldon 

[don7]

I have collected a number of the Con-Cor Suburban Coaches in both the CP and CN HW sets.

http://www.con-cor.com/HO-1920-1950-Heavyweight-Passenger-Cars.html

These coaches are rated to handle 18" radius curves. The coaches come with interiors and have a 12Volt lighting system.

 

[MisterBeasley]

While many of us may have a few passenger cars, freight is more fun to operate for most.  So, the market for each specific road's passenger cars is somewhat limited.

What I've noticed about the recent passenger car offerings in HO is that I can't run them on my layout.  The minimum radius for many of these cars just won't fit on the tight curves many of us HO modelers must use to get much of a layout into our small rooms.

So, many of us aren't in the market for these cars, even if we'd like to be.

[andrechapelon]

Fergmiester

Is it me or is there a shortage of high quality HO passenger cars on the market? I searched high and low this morning for a CN Heavy Weight Passenger car. checked Walthers, checked Branchline, checked Ebay and called a couple of LHS' and Nada. What I found was there seems to be a shortage right across the board. Is Walthers, Branchline and Rapido the only high quality affordable manufacturer of cars?

 

So just how do you get from an inability to find a single CN heavyweight passenger car of indeterminate type to a generalized shortage of heavyweight passenger cars of all types and presumably all road names.? Just checking eBay for Branchline cars revealed quite a few of them. Amazingly, one of them was a CN 12-1 sleeper http://www.ebay.com/itm/Branchline-Canadian-National-12-1-Pullman-Sleeper-Red-Hook-/151196025237?hash=item2333fc4195 . Lemme see. Heavyweight. Check. Passenger car. Check. Canadian National. Check.  In kit form no less. For under $30 CDN and it's for sale from a Canadian seller. Of course, if you're looking for a CN coach, and all you can find is a CN sleeper, that's kinda disappointing, but hardly indicative of an across the board shortage of heavyweight passenger cars.

I can find all kinds of passenger cars on eBay alone.

Of course, I never have been able to find a model of the "Oliver Millet", the parlor car used on SP's "Del Monte" until sometime in the very early 60's, so I guess there really is a shortage of high quaility passenger cars.

Andre

[binder001]

Unfortunately, we are caught up in the same situation in passenger cars as in freight cars and motive power.  On the good news - we are getting MUCH more accurate prototype cars for each railroad.  On the bad news - they are all made in limited runs in overseas factories (basically China).  For decades we had to deal with some cars that were generic and modified for prototype to fit model curves (Athearn "standards" and MDC "Harrimans") or were cars based on one prototype and painted for every railroad under the sun (Rivarossi/AHM).  With the generic cars the manufacturers could keep them in production as long as the public would buy them.  With the prototype-based cars the sales are made to the fans of one, or just a few, railroads so the other guys go hungry.    So, with tooling costs versus sales, there is a dearth of passenger cars for many railroads or eras.  Every modeler wants HIS railroads' cars done ASAP, so there will remain a lot of unsatisfied modelers out there.  I am very grateful that my primary road (Union Pacific) had a nice run of cars from Walthers just a couple years ago, but even then there are cars that are desired that weren't produced, so back to kitbashing and converting :-)

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Fergie ... Good to see you.

The Rapido cars are CNR prototype, and you should be good for the post WWII era. 

If you care to assemble a craftsman kit, go to the NKP Car Company website. Under Canadian National, they list a 12-1 heayweight sleeper with modernized windows. They also offer 2 streamlined cars I did not know were owned CNR (PS fluted sides cars). There are 2 head end cars that may interest you. 

That is just 5 cars under CNR. 

 

[BRAKIE]

The line of Branchline freight and passenger cars are now Atlas so,roll your dice on a release date.

[richhotrain]

It seems that it is always feast or famine when it comes to full size passenger cars.  And, right now, it appears to be famine.  Hopefully, for your sake, one or more of our Canadian friends will chime in with some suggestions for finding the CN cars at their LHS.

Rich

[Fergmiester]

Is it me or is there a shortage of high quality HO passenger cars on the market? I searched high and low this morning for a CN Heavy Weight Passenger car. checked Walthers, checked Branchline, checked Ebay and called a couple of LHS' and Nada. What I found was there seems to be a shortage right across the board. Is Walthers, Branchline and Rapido the only high quality affordable manufacturer of cars?