Plastic v. Brass

[Anonymous]

I used to do N scale, and the brass stuff was severely limited back then. Now, I have the bug again, and am doing mostly plastic, but I bought a box of assorted locos and cars at a garage sale, and hit the jackpot, there were three brass locos in the bottom of the box. One of them, an RS3, has been repowered, and runs great. One of the other two, an F9, runs ok, but the GP-35 is pretty bad, and I have a Kato motor in the box with it, and it will soon be changed out. The open frame motors were pretty pitiful, and I always wondered why they used such a pitiful motor to drive a very expensive model when a cheap plastic model ran great. My friend's dad had a huge brass collection, and very few of them ran very well out of the box. He spent a lot of time remotoring and regearing them. He was a watchmaker and actually made gears and and other parts for them. Sadly, he's gone now, he would have been a great source for help and parts with cranky brass locos. He could really do nice painting too..

That box of stuff I got had a brand new MRC "momentum" pack, the three brass locos, two Athearn GP-9's NIB, 2 P2K GP20's NIB, a P2K FA1 unopened, a couple of Proto 1K F3's unopened, a basket case Bachman GP-40, a pair of new Athearn PA-1s (NIB), about 50 pieces of brass track, about a hundred pieces of new Atlas code 100 NS track, on the cards. About 12 Athearn box car kits, and a half dozen P2K undecorated car kits.

All for $250 bucks. Almost all of it is NYC from the late 50's to the PC merger time period, just what I wanted! I sold the track to an old guy for 50 bucks. I just asked him to make an offer, and I didn't expect him to offer that much, so I took it right away.

Between that stuff and the stuff from Ebay, I have over 20 running locos, and a couple of buzzers, and a couple of totally dead ones, along with over 30 running cars, and another 20 or so waiting to be built..

Now I have to set up some track to run the stuff. No money right now though. And I have to fight off bidding on stuff on ebay. There's some good deals on flex track...hmmm.

[chessi3802]

If I could do it, I would have all of motive power be high quality, factory painted brass from OMI. I never thought that I would buy a brass piece but that ended when OMI brought out the Chessie System GP15Ts. I figured I would get one and be happy with it. Nope, I eventually got all five of them! I got bitten by the brass bug and eventually got OMI's unpainted versions of a B&O GP40, C&O SD18 and a C27A caboose. Problem is finding a good and reliable high quality painter to paint unfinished brass (anyone know of anyone?). It's only as good as the paint job that is on them. A bad paint job can seriously devalue a piece of brass. Even brass models have their flaws even when it's supposed to match the prototype. Brass is great for those oddball models that almost never will be mass produced in plastic. However, the quality of plastic models is astronomical today compared to what it was even just ten years ago. If I can get something that is very protypical with DCC and sound for 1/4 of price of a comparable brass unit, plastic wins hands down! I can't believe that someone can pay about $800+ for an OMI unit and it doesn't even come with DCC and sound stock but it'll have operating lights and ditch lights if applicable! Just amazing! Until someone puts out phase II and III GP40s and GP40-s in plastic, I may have to buy a couple of the OMIs. You can't model Chessie without a fleet of GP40s and GP40-2s! Hey, can someone spare a few thousand dollars??

[VAPEURCHAPELON]

chessi 3802

look at ebay. There is a user named hmaynard. This is Hal Maynard and in my eyes - from what I have seen - the best painter. I actually don't have a model painted by him, but in his auctions he always includes excellent photos of his models (he also sells factory painted models). He uses Scalecoat, and his results are breathtaking. If one wishes he also does some superdetailing prior to painting. HE IS TRULY A PRO!

[rkcartwright]

I got into trains/model railroading back in the early 70's after a couple of trips to Cajon and Tehachapi.
With a wife & 4 kids there wasnt much left for a new hobby,but then a friend sold me a N/scale Bachman a/b passenger set. It only had one speed,"balls to the wall" but it didnt matter, I was in hog heaven.  I joined a club, read the mags, and learned what to buy and what to stay away from. Most of the brands were above my budget and I had to stay with "used" and then Kato arrived, setting a standard that soon everybody was following, in all scales. Model Railroading progressed in leaps & bounds. Look where we are now. Can motors in just about every thing offered,DCC,sound systems, etc.  After the kids grew up and all the alimony was paid off, It got easier. But  2 things  happened in my personal life. My eyes and fingers went south, (goodby Nscale)  and I took a trip to Colorado  and discovered Narrow Guage.  What is it the kids are allways saying? Oh yeah, "Oh-My-God!". So now I've found a new meaning to life as I know it. "K" units and HOn3. I can see it and I can work in it. However,comma, Very little in plastic as far as power goes. Most of it in brass. Kinda feels like the early 70's again. So I toldja all that so I could tellya this: Brass or plastic? Not alot of choice here. There is one bright spot on the horizon, though, BlackHawk, if they ever get here. If it's a hit, maybe more big names will climb on board.  Micro-trains
is releasing HOn3 cars. C'mon Atlas! C'mon Athearn! ...We'll see.
   

[Ole Timer]

In response to the "guy who broke or .. I did'nt do it .. dropped my engine " who does'nt admit it .... he would be limping out my front door with my size 11 1/2 boot still embedded ! Everyone needs 1 brass engine ... I look at mine and am still amazed at the realistic detail . I still see no mention of metal diecast instead of plastic ! The plastic still has molded in piping and detail and I just can't see spending hundreds of dollars on plastic ! For one engine ! And when will these manufacturers stop putting chrome looking drivetrain components on engines ? Looks cheaper than heck ! If you're gonna buy plastic and spend bucu bucks on detail items ... don't do it ... get metal . If you just want something to run under your xmas tree get a $20.00 engine . Rivarossi is way overpriced ! Get on the internet brass is available low priced if you can wait for the good deals .

[Anonymous]

The only way I could justify the prcie of brass is for something that  will never be made in plastic or that is beyond my abilities to kitbash. Like the aforementioned carbon black cars or MT-4/MT-6 slugs that CR used.