Do you care what material your passengers cars are made of?

Just now, I have but two sets of aluminum passenger cars.  A set of MTH El Capitan and a set of Williams Streamlined.  Both sets absolutely gleam and far surpass the silver colored plastic versions.  In this instance, I say the aluminum cars are superior in looks, and, because of their additional weight, they seem more substantial in their construction.  All my remaining passenger trains have plastic cars, that look very nice and operate well.

I much prefer the Lionel, K-Line and 3rd Rail aluminum cars I have although on the rails I mix them with some ABS plastic cars made by MTH, almost all of which are in UP livery. The differences in terms of finish are not that easy to spot but I have generally found the aluminum cars to be better built.

 

The exception to this is the windows of certain Lionel cars. I do not mean the issue over whether the windows stick out from the sides of the cars, which must be the most frequent complaint voiced on this forum about Lionel's higher end passenger car offerings, but the tendency of the windows to develop a frosted or crackled surface over time. This has happened to what I would otherwise regard as the gold standard of my passenger cars, the Lionel 21" Texas Special cars. I think that the bodies of these were probably made from what was originally K-Line tooling.

Non-brass is good with me as long as its right!



Aluminum, brass, and abs



All brass body, resin interior parts

When I was a kid Lionel came out with the painted aluminum Illinois Central passenger set. I was at the show at DuPage County Fairgrounds and somebody **** near jumped out of their skin when I went to touch them. Ever since, ever ytime I see painted aluminum passenger cars, I come back to that.

 

I prefer plastic over painted aluminum, because if the car gets a ding, it isn't noticeable. I never really liked the look of the plastic inserts on even bare aluminum passenger cars, although it looks like Atlas did a great job with them.

Agreed. While I do have brass cars, I also have cars made from aluminum castings, resin, wood, and set made from laminated paper that I need to restore someday.

 

You are definitely right that plastic endures the dings and arrows of outrageous fortune better than any metal but I still prefer the paint finish on aluminum.

AL and brass, please!

Although I have two sets of K-Line aluminum Milw Rd passenger sets, one heavyweight and one streamlined, I would have no problem if they were both plastic. I do have the Polar Express set with plastic cars and they look and run great.

I tend to favor the ones made of real metal, but I have ones of plastic that are very well done in my opinion.  The MTH Metra cars are an example of plastic ones that I particularly like.

 

Art

Aluminum then plastic.  No brass.

 

Ditto...

Not really.

 

In the O3R realm, my K-Line AL cars (15") are my favorites....but not because of the body material.  The whole package is just superb. 

 

Then, Lionel's cars that reflect the K-Line benchmark features would be my second favorite.

 

The several ABS cars (18") of other manufacturers are fine, but in truth I don't run them much because they're just too long for my tastes even on the O72 curves of my layout.

 

HOWEVER.....

 

In another scale, as I mentioned in another thread several months ago on this topic, the latest Walthers HO cars featuring their improved stainless appearance plating are simply gorgeous.  I would hope that the O gauge mfrs. would replicate this finish on their ABS car bodies someday soon.  In that scale I have both the Challenger Imports plated brass version of the ATSF Super Chief and the latest Walthers version in the new plating.  I have to say that the Walthers cars have surpassed the plated brass in finish fidelity to my aging memory.  Just MHO, of course.  For me the 'heft'-thing of all metal is overblown.

 

Anyhow, I appreciate all of the O3R manufacturers efforts.  If there is a release of a never-done-before-and-probably-never-again set of cars...regardless of the body material...I'll be a buyer.

 

KD

 

 

I assume we are talking about Lightweight passenger cars. I much prefer aluminum cars. To me, there is no comparison.

I tend to judge a passenger car, next to detail level, by its finish.  To this date, my eyes, which are not perfect by any standard, still favor the shine of aluminum/metal cars.  So far the only plastic car finishes that approaches the prototype finish I remember are the MTH plated cars that they produced a couple or so years back.  They were not plated in the sense that it was a mirrored finish, but the plating looked just right and it was beautiful and as I understand, it was difficult to produce with a high rejection rate.  Bottom line...I like the glint and shine of real metal and I have not seen any painted surfaces on production passenger cars that gets it for me...

 

Alan

I have both but when it comes to passenger cars I have to go with the Aluminum ones. For some reason they just look and feel better.

"I tend to judge a passenger car, next to detail level, by its finish.  To this date, my eyes, which are not perfect by any standard, still favor the shine of aluminum/metal cars.  So far the only plastic car finishes that approaches the prototype finish I remember are the MTH plated cars that they produced a couple or so years back.  They were not plated in the sense that it was a mirrored finish, but the plating looked just right and it was beautiful and as I understand, it was difficult to produce with a high rejection rate.  Bottom line...I like the glint and shine of real metal and I have not seen any painted surfaces on production passenger cars that gets it for me...

 

Alan"

 

This sums it up very well. Thanks for giving us an excellent explanation of why aluminum works better for our Lightweight passenger cars.

Metal or wood.  My hobby is not plastic models, even though plastic injection can produce superior detail.  It is an irrational choice, but it is my choice.

 

I have one plastic GGD Pullman.  Detail is better than PSC Brass by a bunch.  Its used value is 1/3 that of the PSC, so others apparently agree with me.

I'm a bit surprised at some folks aversion to ABS (plastic?) rolling stock. Those SCALE California Zephyr passenger cars from Atlas O, are truly stunning and only about $150 per car.  The various SCALE streamlined passenger car sets from Golden Gate Depot, in extruded aluminum, are also outstanding and also are very reasonably priced.

 

Concerning the brass SCALE passenger cars, in my opinion, I just can NOT justify the the prices of $600 and up. 

For the price, I would prefer scale-length, plastic cars.  I've got an All-Nation Observation car with wooden floor/roof, sheet metal sides, and cast ends and other parts.  I've also got 3 OK Engines aluminum cars.  The detail on them doesn't come close to what's on even the couple of K-line Heavyweights I have, let alone the 3 MTH Premier cars I have in plastic.

 

I'm sure GGD and other cars are beautiful, but they do cost a bit more.

 

I'd like to see MTH or Lionel come out with some scale 21" cars with exquisite detail.

 

I have none of the aluminum made cars by Lionel or other manufacturers. I'm perfectly happy with the plastic construction of today's passenger cars. I prefer madison/heavyweight cars, either the short 9500 series or the scale length ones, and all of the ones I have are made of plastic.

 

I also have MTH's Aerotrain, also made of plastic. The plastic looks shiny enough and painted well that it makes no difference to me if the cars (or engine for that matter) were made of metal.

Which manufacturers offer "scale length" madison/heavyweight passenger cars? I am only aware of the Golden Gate Depot "scale length" heavyweight passenger cars.

Don't care about the material. Care more about the appearance. I even consider layered card stock as a suitable medium for passenger cars as I've seen a couple that were very well done.

In most cases, looks-wise, the difference between plastic and aluminum passenger cars is fairly evident to me, at least with the streamliners. I do prefer the aluminum. To me, paint even looks better on them, and they have superior weight and tracking characteristics. And they just feel better. With cars that model unpainted stainless cars like the Santa Fe, there's usually no question that the aluminum cars are superior. Just my opinion.

It depends.

 

If something like the SP DAYLIGHT, EMPIRE BUILDER, EAGLE....plastic id OK.

 

If some of the unpainted metal will show, like the TX SPECIAL, SUNSET LTD, or ATSF, metal.

This post I generated a few years back covers a lot of the heavyweights once offered in o scale.

http://www.modeltrainjournal.c...pic.php?f=10&t=11667


       

Generally I agree with you, but the few that I have are simply not available otherwise and so I sprung for some from SMR and another pair of cars that I believe are Beaver Creek imports.  There just are not very many accurate and road specific "old time" passenger cars available.

O SCALE 2-Rail, yes. However, I'm not aware of any manufacturer offering SCALE length heavyweight passenger cars in 3-Rail SCALE, besides Golden Gate Depot.

Personally, I don't care what it's made of. As long as I like it and it's at a good price.

Ahh-sorry.

Yes- your right GGD is about it.

Aluminum

I own both aluminum and ABS cars, yet prefer the look and finish of aluminum. Brass models are arguably the gold standard, but those Porterhouse steaks are too rich for my hotdog wallet.

I have a train friend that purchased the various issues of the Atlas 21" CZ cars and when he noticed the obvious difference in the finish between releases, they went away quickly. This has an impact for me in terms of how I feel about them.

No - metal, plastic, even wood.  If it looks good and weighs enough to run smoothly, etc., its fine with me. 

Silver colored plastic looks like silver painted plastic....silver metal looks like silver

metal.  As noted above, if they are all painted cars, I might be challenged to tell the

difference...but as soon as a large area of "silver, aluminum, or metallic color ?" shows on the car, plastic looks like plastic.  Although, since they have done "chrome"

(anodized) bumpers and trim on model cars forever, one might think they could get

a metallic finish on a plastic car (that looked like something besides bright chrome, for that won't look right, either)

While I have both ABS and aluminum passenger sets, I do prefer the aluminum cars.

 

George

mwb said:

I also have cars made from aluminum castings, resin, wood, and set made from laminated paper that I need to restore someday.

I fancy laminated cars made from the Dead Sea Scrolls

 

The GGD cars are paired-window cars and PRR design. Other roads used paired window cars, but there were also many single window cars; none of the R-T-R from the various mfgrs are right, as well as being short.

 

From time to time you can pick up Walthers cars, but be sure to inspect them carefully; many roofs are botched. Or, heaven forbid, you can pick up a kit and build it. But, you say, I run 3- rail. So do I. My scale wheels run fine on flat-topped track and  through Ross switches.

If you must have 3-raill trucks, check with Scott Mann at GGD. He has, or had, proper 3-axle trucks with coarse flanges.

Greetings friends,

 

I have to agree with the aluminum and especially K Line 15 inch crowd.  The K Line

Great Northern, New Haven, and Rio Grande coaches are WOW cars (stealing from one of the other O Gauge Forum threads).  One exception is MTH's ABS 15 inch Wabash

cars.  They are in a class by themselves.  Here's a photo I hope the K Line crowd will

enjoy.

 

Lew Schneider

That's certainly one of the tremendous risks when spreading the development and production of a passenger train over the course of 5+ years.  Yes indeed, ladies and gents... Hard to believe Atlas-O first announced their CZ way back on July 2, 2009.    

 

We've heard a switch in manufacturer/subcontractor was the primary cause for the difference in finish.  Doesn't make it acceptable though.  Nonetheless, some of us will just be glad to finally see the domed observation come to fruition -- hopefully in another month or two (since it's already delayed from the earlier estimate of March/April 2014).

 

David

 

P.S.  Whoa!!!  I just double-checked the Atlas-O website shipping schedule, and the domed observation cars have a new ETA of 4Q2014.    In all likelihood, that really implies an actual 2015 delivery to consumers if we're being realistic... which puts us a WHOPPING 6 years after initial announcement to create a reasonably complete passenger train.  (And technically, that's still not the full CZ, as we've yet to even see a baggage car announced -- much less delivered.)  Only two words to say:  TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

 

I can say without question that the Atlas-O CZ is the last purchase arrangement I will ever enter where passenger cars are issued piecemeal like this.  I've already walked away from GGD/Sunset for taking forever to produce finish sets for select road-names.  So if importers can't get the message, they're in for a tough future:  either produce complete passenger trains for delivery within a "reasonable" time-frame, (i.e. 12-18 months from product announcement).  Or don't bother.