richhotrain LensCapOn Dude! It's 2015! Who's running passenger trains?* Now, here is a man who fails to understand the concept of model railroading. Rich
LensCapOn Dude! It's 2015! Who's running passenger trains?*
Dude! It's 2015! Who's running passenger trains?*
Now, here is a man who fails to understand the concept of model railroading.
Rich
Oh I understand the concept all right. :-) Just offering a different view.
A standing joke is I'm going to mount "YOU ARE NOW LEAVING REALITY" in the train room. (mostly for rivet-counters) Mine is contemporary, with 'bends", yours can be 1942 (with passenger trains).
Hey I even like passenger trains, and am not beyond having a steam engine or two. (need to blank out the Norfolk And Western)
Apropos of nothing, the July 2015 Walthers flyer arrived in the mail today. In the pages for the current Walthers Name train, the 1960s version of the Pennsylvania Broadway Limited, the 'Deluxe Edition' set includes "90+ Preiser passengers and crew figures installed throughout the train", so clearly Walthers thinks model passenger figures are a selling point.Speaking of figures, Walthers really has to dial back the spotty black wash weathering of their figures - the family figures in front of the Dairy Queen on the flyer cover look like they just came from filming an action sequence in a muddy swamp...
All my passenger cars have people in them. I even have a white coated waiter in the dining cars. I thought I had some pics, but can't find them right now.
I take care to match the colors of the clothing to the time modelled: the bright colors of the seventies look strange in 2000 or even more in 1920.
That is a problem with the chinese figures... no one ever clothed in those colors!
sebamat
De LuxeAll my passenger trains are filled with passengers (1:100) because all my passenger trains are lighted and I really like seeing passengers inside my passenger cars.
Hate the total price but the result is nice!
All my passenger trains are filled with passengers (1:100) because all my passenger trains are lighted and I really like seeing passengers inside my passenger cars. Especially nice to see in diners, domes and open observation ends. It´s the passengers and lighting (and in some cases the interiors) that make a passenger train a really expensive project sometimes. Hate the total price but the result is nice!
I have some, after I finally got the roofs off my passenger cars.
Who has people in their passenger trains?
I do.
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
Alton Junction
I'm lucky, since most of my passenger service is lightly patronized mixed trains... saves a lot of work and money.
In my mostly scratchbuilt CNR combine #7377:
Steve Hunter
wjstix It depends a little on era. If you're running heavyweight cars with clear windows, not having passengers (or an interior) is more noticeable than with later streamlined cars, which usually used tinted windows.
It depends a little on era. If you're running heavyweight cars with clear windows, not having passengers (or an interior) is more noticeable than with later streamlined cars, which usually used tinted windows.
OK, I will be a little more scientific. In HO three feet is 270 scale feet - at 270' you cannot generally see the people, even in a heavyweight car, during the day time.
Look at any window from a distance during the day, it is a black hole.
Sheldon
wjstixIt depends a little on era. If you're running heavyweight cars with clear windows, not having passengers (or an interior) is more noticeable than with later streamlined cars, which usually used tinted windows.
*Now gettaway from the tracks. The stack train passing just means a tank train's coming.
I don't want no stinkin passengers in my trains. All they do is mess them up, eat all the food, and drink all the adult beverages. And they never know when to leave.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
To me, passengers in HO scale trains look toy-like, an appearance that I wish to avoid at all costs.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL richhotrain No passengers in any of my passenger cars. Why bother? For the most part, you cannot see passengers on the prototype anyway. Rich The only passengers I have in passenger cars are in the domes of dome cars. But the rest of my passenger cars don't even have interiors, let alone people. As mentioned by Rich, 98% of the time you cannot see the passengers from the outside in real life. Sheldon
richhotrain No passengers in any of my passenger cars. Why bother? For the most part, you cannot see passengers on the prototype anyway. Rich
No passengers in any of my passenger cars.
Why bother? For the most part, you cannot see passengers on the prototype anyway.
The only passengers I have in passenger cars are in the domes of dome cars.
But the rest of my passenger cars don't even have interiors, let alone people.
As mentioned by Rich, 98% of the time you cannot see the passengers from the outside in real life.
SP&S modeler, 1960's give or take a decade or two for some equipment.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SGTDUPREY?feature=guide
Gary DuPrey
N scale model railroader
The only passenger equipment I have people in are those that are lighted. Unlit passenger cars I don't bother with. The passenger equipment that I have that have people installed are mostly self propelled, including "The Comet" (a NH trainset), a NH Brill 250 Doodlebug, and another (but older) NH Brill Doodlebug. All these are brass, and for the Doodlebugs I had to add seats, too (but just Rix ones).
I don't believe in using sub-scale figures. I will file, cut and re-glue every figure (if necessary) before I would ever consider using sub-scale figures.
The only problem with putting people in passenger cars is that they do look awfully silly in the coach yard.
Paul A. Cutler III
Here's the thread from a couple years ago on my detailing of my Amtrak cars.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/216497.aspx
And here's the video of the finished train. I also have two Spectrum F40PH's and an Athearn "SDP40F".
watch?v=B6GoacG2GrE
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
Real nice pictures and cars everyone. Keep them coming. I copied and pasted the boxcar link. Real cool. I have a FTRA hobo riding in one of my boxcars and several of my boxcars have loads inside.
My steam loco has two crews inside of it because they all worked on restoring it so they all want to ride up front. lol My other locos still need engineers and brakemen.
My automobiles and trucks all have drivers if they are on a street, not parked. Some cars also have passengers. There is also a school bus with a driver and a handful of children. Some passengers are amputees while others have had butt reductions. Most are unpainted seated figures from Preiser. I do like the look of some of the Walthers seated passengers so I'm going to get some of them. I might try the 1:100 figures also. If I don't like what they are wearing I can repaint them.
richhotrainWhy bother? For the most part, you cannot see passengers on the prototype anyway.
Because it's my hobby and that's what I do. It's the next level of detail. I've been at this since the 1970s. I probably have around a thousand people. They might be my favorite part of the hobby. I have people everywhere doing everything. I even have a woman sitting on the toilet in a restroom inside a restaurant that you can see if you look inside the window. Yes those are white panties by her knees. There is also a man washing hands in the right window.
When I look at my passenger trains I can see inside the windows and see empty seats. I want to see people instead. My Superliners have tinted windows so I am not going to bother with those until I get bored with nothing else to do. But like I said my steam excursion is going to be packed but my commuter trains are going to be almost empty because nobody rode Metrolink in the 1990s when gas was still close to $1.
One problem that I think holds people back from adding figures is they grossly overestimate how many they need. Let's take an HO 80-seat heavyweight coach. The seats are so close together you can only fit one person on each pair. Not every seat needs to be filled (unless you're modelling a commuter train) - people get up and walk around, not all seats get sold. I find maybe 15-20 people or so, maybe 8-10 on each side, turns out to look good.
. ,
I always put passengers in my passenger cars, and crewmen in my engines and cabooses. I generally use Preiser unpainted figures and paint them myself, they're great quality and it's a lot cheaper to paint your own compared to using pre-decorated figures.
Actually, some of my boxcars that have sliding doors have a worker inside with some crates or barrels, so when the car is spotted at an industry it looks like the car is being unloaded (sorry if link doesn't work):
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/m/mrr-layouts/2289595.aspx
Traveling in style...India.
Take Care!
Frank
I've added passengers and a crew to the Bee, my doodlebug, but still haven't crewed all of my steam locomotives.
The figures were an unpainted garage sale find, and may be OO scale, as they don't fit too well into the Pikestuff seats, but they look okay when the roof is in place:
The engineer/motorman is from the same set, while the brakeman is from a Bachmann steam loco. As you can see in the photo below, the Erie Northshore is a leader in employing the disabled:
None of the rest of my passenger equipment is populated, and it's a task not high on the list of things to do.I'm still working on the locomotive crews, though:
Vehicle drivers and passengers take a bit of a beating, too:
Wayne
I have several passenger cars with people in them. For the most part they are Walther's cars with interiors. However, the most recently populated cars are a pair of Athearn BB Santa Fe dome cars that I installed Palace Car Company upper level/dome kits in.
The interior installation.
How it looks from outside the car in close up. The windows were tinted as a part of the project.
The Palace Car Company has "universal" interior kits that can be adapted to most passenger cars as well as components like seats, stairways and dining room fittings. Worth a look if you are thinking about populating your passenger fleet.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/