Little Passengers?

1:75 People

 

You won't see the purple pants anyway. I painted some of mine just to add a variety of colors and get rid of the funky colors.

How small is "kinda' small?  What price and do you have a link to the auction?

 

From what I see, 1/43, 1/48, 1/50, are to large and overall heads are at the top of windows, or don't sit right without amputating some legs. Some cars, 1/75 look okay, but small. Have some 1/64 that look great, just can't find anymore.

There are plenty of Chinese vendors on ePay selling huge bags of painted seated figures for very good prices. I bought one group that I've used to fill the seats of 6 On30 coaches and have plenty left over. They're not Preiser quality but they work great to fill coach windows up with.

The size of passengers depends on what passenger cars you are using. The K-Line passengers are made to fit K-Line scale cars, which have large seats. Since most of my passenger fleet is K-Line, they work fine, as do the RMT remakes. I use silicone adhesive. The seats in MTH cars are smaller and so are their figures. I have a few sets of MTH cars and I bought a bag of RK passengers to fit them, but I haven't gotten around to painting them yet.

 

I sometimes touch up the paint on the K-Line figures to keep them from looking so much the same. Changing a blouse from green to red or a suit jacket from blue to tan is easy and creates a bit more variety. It really doesn't make that much difference, though - you don't see all that much through the windows. The Chinese purple pants are ghastly but you can't usually see them when they are in their seats. 

 

I also sometimes play with the hair and skin tones on Standard Gauge passengers, which are big enough that you can really see the difference. Some of my Standard Gauge passenger cars have hinged roofs to show off the interiors. 

RailKing unpainted passenger set - very simple painting is only needed.

 

Here are a few RailKing figures from the set.  I intend to add only one or two colors for clothing. Since once they are installed in a passenger car not a lot of detail is necessary.

 

Very basic paint schemes shown. Figures are mounted on toothpicks for painting purposes. Some standing poses also shown.

 

 

 

They all look like bald bench warmers at a nudist sporting event.

Most now have hair on their heads.

That's a problem I'm having with putting passengers in. The 1/74 look to small in there, 1/50 to big. With my eyesight, painting is out. So am stuck. Any help appreciated.

Also looking for RPO postal workers for interior.

It just depends on the car. This is an Atlas dome car with 1/75 people in the dome and they look normal. Anything bigger and they have to be chopped off because their heads are jammed into the upper window.

 

 

Even my Golden Gate Depot cars have GGD "Little People" (which they make) that don't fit properly, and they were chopped up by the manufacturer when they were installed. I used GGD Little People in my MTH dome car but had to sand their butts off up to their waist in order to get them to sit low enough in the chairs.

 

Putting people in your passenger cars just consumes time and money....no 2 ways about it, but well worth it in my opinion. Especially when your layout is eye level

This is a rather discomforting sight...

 

hence the phrase.... You got a stick up your ***

Looks like "break time" at the phone company pole-climbing school.

 

Now THAT'S funny !!!!!!!!!!!    

 

Best,

Dave

Gotta say, this is both informative and confusing!  I posted because I need people for my MTH NYC Premier heavyweight passenger cars.  Does anyone know what scale people will look right and fit properly?  Thanks.  Peter 

 

Painting courtesy of Vlad the Impaler.

 

If 1/75 people look right in a full-scale 21" Atlas O passenger car (which surprises me), then clearly anything approaching that will look way too large in a traditional-sized passenger car.

 

Whatever scale the unpainted MTH people are, they seem to look OK in many cars, particularly those more on the traditional side. I've even used them in Lionel Baby Madisons (bought some painted ones from a Forum member a number of years ago), although for the sitting ones I had to cut the legs off below the knees. They'll also look OK in somewhat larger cars, even 15-18" streamlined ones, although I've noticed that my 15" aluminum K-Line streamliners use figures that are somewhat larger than the MTH unpainted ones.

What about pre-painted options?   By the way, "on a stick" takes on a whole different meaning courtesy of prohobby!  

I use the 1:75 passengers in my MTH Premier cars, they seem to be the right size to me.

The 1/75 people look OK in the dome section of that car. Those seats are very small and the height is very short.

 

If you look below the dome you can see some 1/48 figures and their heads to go to the top of the windows, and are hidden by the window blinds. I've ridden in a dome car exactly like that, the Silver Splendor, and my head was no where near the top of the window.

 

It's all based on what you think looks good. You will have to experiment. get some of each, give them a try, and go with what you like best. I have bins full of different size people so I usually mix them up to have a combination of sizes, colors, and poses. 

And I wish I could buy a new BMW for $2,000. I have painted over 160 MTH figures for 2 of my passenger trains. They are in correct "steam era" clothing, the vast majority are sitting, and you can paint them in "non-garish" colors. The sitting men come in 3 styles, women 3 styles, plus a boy and girl. The cost comes out to 25 cents per figure. They are just the right size for even semi-scale seats. I painted them "production-line" method, 15 at a time. A good alternative to watching junk on TV.

IMO, the cheap painted figures look like cheap painted figures.

 

Looks like the figures in that auction are very English and very repetitive. Bobbies in high helmets, that sort of thing. No clue as to size. 

They're unpainted for about $1/ea, I think I'll pass.  Of course, they don't even specify shipping to the US either...

 

Has anyone tried using HO people figures?  I wonder if they'd look ok as the train was rolling by at speed?  I was thinking of trying HO figures for the crowd in my baseball stadium I plan to build.

I am painting some of my standing passengers in all blue or tan "uniforms" to look like railroad workers.

Honestly, I don't get it. So much discrepancy.  If the cars are supposedly made to 1:48 scale and the passengers are too, then why on earth aren't the 1:48 people the right height and size???  

Based on the ones I've seen, they're going to be quite a bit too small to put in any O gauge cars.

+1 Seems like there's a market for, now if someone will pick up and produce at reasonable price. I bought a bag of the 1/50s. Seems the seated figures are different heights, and not 1/50 scale.

Its like a movie theatre, keep tickets low, get em at the popcorn counter. Same for "O" scale. Make scale accessories, and they will sell. If its 1/48, we shouldn't settle for items betweem 1/32 and 1/70 to fill our needs. Spend 2000.00 on a scale engine, then settle for something close to scale to supplement it. Why are we the only scale to tolerate so much variance?

 

Because the chairs are not the same size, and are different angles than the people.

I keep several different brands in stock, so I can test fit. No matter what I find fits best, they still need a snip or trim here and there. But hey I live in CA, doesn't everyone?

 

There's GGD, RMT, MTH, some Chinese brand, and the ones on the right are the 1/75 that fit good in the domes. I usually just repaint some of the funky colors. 

One of life's great mysteries.  When you find out, please let us all know.

 

As a follow-up, I got the Golden Gate Depot passengers and the Railking bag of 120 passengers. The GGD passengers are a lot less work given they come pre-painted. But not a lot of detail and some were left incomplete, and they are probably 7 feet or more in scale height.  I used them on interior seats as they would otherwise look ridiculous Sitting at windows. The Railking people are perfect - size-wise.  Was dreading painting them. But then came up with a relatively efficient way to do this. I took a 2 foot long 1x2 and put duct tape on edge, which held the figures in-place nicely. I sat approx. 25 passengers far enough apart to put my fingers in between to maneuver them slightly to paint sides and hind quarters.  In a paper plate I put a dab of blue, green, red, yellow, white and black.  Then mixed a light blue and green, brown and flesh tone.  Painted them in broad strokes (from neck -down) in one of the clothing colors, trying to avoid skin areas. Let dry for a few minutes and then painted all skin. Let dry and then did all hair (either blonde, brown or black). Probably took no more than one hour to paint around 55 passengers. I even did some sleeves different color than the vest, put some nice crisp white shirts on guys wearing suits.  And a couple mistakes turned out to make nice brooches and pins on women's lapels.  So my pre-passenger Premier NYC cars now have around 18-25 passengers per car, which makes them look a lot more lively and bustling.  Wouldn't want to do this too often but definitely satisfying overall.  Peter

Would you like to contract out your painting services?

 

Yeah, wish I had that kind of time.  Here are some photos. Obviously these are extreme close-ups with a flash so the flaws are much more obvious than when train is actually operating. I added a photo of a Railking person standing up next to GGD person for comparison. The Railking person is a full grown man but next to the GGD person he looks like a child.

They look great, better than the Chinese figures I've been using in some cars!

I've had great difficulty finding figures that fit O gage scenery and trains. I just go with scale proportions so a 6' tall man should be 1 1/2" high and a 5' tall woman should be 1 1/4" high. The eBay figures that I buy direct from China seems to fit although I've seen some that when put on a layout look like giants or midgets!

Although I have little desire to paint figures, I must say that I also like the Railking figures for three other reasons: (a) they have well molded faces so even without paint, the overhead light shadows make them seem like they have eyes, etc.; (b) the gray color is such that leaving hair unpainted provides a realistic gray hair look; and (c) I've always had a pet peeve with the people you always see in "realistic" layouts as the pre-painted figures are shiny. People and their clothes in real life are not shiny. I can use flat acrylic paint for a more realistic look.

I find MTH's RailKing unpainted seated figures to be the best fit for the majority of passenger cars with interiors! Wish they came painted as they're ideal. Wish MTH would post the scale of them. BTW, has anyonbe measured them and approximated their scale?

These are NOT O scale. The standing male passenger is about 5 feet tall. I am in the process of painting an entire RK set.