Let's talk brass train cars!

Well we have the $600 a pop bethgon on the horizon from MMW, and a Pacific Fruit Express and 50 ton flat car coming up from Kohs. Anything else out there?

Simon

@Simon Winter posted:

Well we have the $600 a pop bethgon on the horizon from MMW, and a Pacific Fruit Express and 50 ton flat car coming up from Kohs. Anything else out there?

Simon

I sort of stumbled across this one, and note that nothing mentioned above has made it to real life yet. Looks like it might be a long dry spell!

ECI

It seems the high end brass market is mostly vaporware.  I'd love to be proven wrong though!

@Rule292 posted:

Almost forgot Pecos River Brass (PRB).  Great Santa Fe reefers, stock cars and gons and some of the very few modern era (along with Overland) modern brass cars.   Pricey stuff when you can find it but nice quality.

Also nice are The Car Works PRR flat cars and container cars, cabins and trolleys.  Also niccely detailed quality stuff.

Anything else we forgot?

How about Dick Breglar's X-42?  Rich Yoder may have had a hand in it.  One was on a table at The March Meet for about three hundred fifty.   John

What a fun thread. Thanks for bringing it back. Enjoyed

Brad, post some more of your projects I love seeing what you are up to. Call you the brass freight car man!

There was some pretty Kool stuff out there: Pacific Limited, RY Models, Precision Scale, P-Company, Kohs, Keystone, Hobbyhill, OMI....did I forget any?

Erik, Maybe you should revive your brass scrapbook!

ECI

3rd Rail six compartment tank car

3rd Rail six compartment tank car

3rd Rail twenty inch Pullman pool dining car.

John

Would really like to get ahold of this Rich Yoder tank car, in particular in this paint scheme.

I have a lot of surplus brass models.  If you are seeking something, pop me an email off list.    I may still have the Mobil tank car as well as others.

You can't get much cheaper then an brass International Model Company gon. International imported cars, and even a few locomotives, in the late 50s through the early 60s. The cars were iffy at best. No one seems to really want them and those that have them, well, they just sit. I saw at least four of these at this year's March Meet at $20.00 with a make offer sign!

The Erie had these high sided drop bottom gons so with a little work this make a nice looking and unusual car.

@railroad-guy posted:

You can't get much cheaper then an brass International Model Company gon. International imported cars, and even a few locomotives, in the late 50s through the early 60s. The cars were iffy at best. No one seems to really want them and those that have them, well, they just sit. I saw at least four of these at this year's March Meet at $20.00 with a make offer sign!

If they were the tank cars, those can be dressed up quite a bit to be rather respectable models for use on a layout; just closing in on taking one into the paint shop.  The IMP hoppers are also good fun to rebuild and re-detail.  I've been looking for some of both, not the gons, but then also the Rail Craft hoppers (look in the Vintage Kits thread, ).  These all have good fun and play value in the work shop with a torch!

My small contribution to this thread.  I have been adding brass cars to my collection on occasion and I have enjoyed my finds.

The first one is certainly a budget item in a Williams N5b cabin.  I replaced the trucks with the correct scale trucks, but as you can see it rides a little low and needs either a shim or a bolster to get it to the right height.  Now that I have the PRRT&HS book on PRR cabins, I think I can get the correct dimension.

This is an older Custom Brass PB54.  Really an oddball in my fleet as it earlier than I typically model.  I'm not sure what my plans are for it.  Maybe MOW service?

An Alco Models P70fbR sold to me by Ed Rappe.  This is is just a hair late for the era I model, but this is how I remember P70s in their final years of service with the porthole restroom windows and GSC trucks.

Two Precision Scale models.  The top two images were a model of the P70C, which had a small broiler kitchen in the front of the car.  As I recall the PRR only rostered two of these.  Ed Rappe also sold me this one.  It was custom painted by a friend of his, and I am ashamed to say I don't remember the name now but the info is in the box.

This is straight factory painted PSC P70R

Another budget caboose is this NE style caboose by International Model Imports.  I plan on painting it for the CNJ.

I also have 4 Sunset P70R brass coaches lettered for Long Island in two rail.  They were bargains at $100 each.  I don't have photos to share, but they are good models.

My other brass cars are all HO models and the majority of them are cabooses. 

Fun thread to read through!

ECI - re did I forget - ProtoCraft; quite a few very cool items one can buy today

I saw the other week Rich Y canceled the Mather Project, too bad, I would have liked some of those cars

How do you guys feel about this KTM / US Hobbies tank car? I'm assuming it is brass, but maybe less details than some other brass manufacturers?

Jay, It is brass. Just a little less under body detail than the later stuff from importers like Precision Scale! It's all personal preference!

@bob3 posted:

ECI - re did I forget - ProtoCraft; quite a few very cool items one can buy today

I saw the other week Rich Y canceled the Mather Project, too bad, I would have liked some of those cars

Bob, Protocraft has some GREAT stuff! Norm Buckhart is a good guy to deal with.

The Mather cars probably fell victim to the pandemic and politics with China. As I recall, Rich had his stuff made at the "Brass Works" located in China.

@lionel1946 posted:

How do you guys feel about this KTM / US Hobbies tank car? I'm assuming it is brass, but maybe less details than some other brass manufacturers?

Good solid brass cars - maybe a bit dated and lacking in high detail, but can be made to look very attractive and excellent on layouts. May or not require modifications to couplers depending on the individual's needs and desires.

My favorite brass car. Only because my daughter hates pickles.  So it's my duty to tease her with it

The hoppers on this train are all US Hobbies brass. I added cut levers and new couplers and painted them for my home road. Makes an impressive train from a foot away and I don't think I paid over $40 for any of the hoppers at shows.

Some of my favorites:

Greg P

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...6#163602343744835746

Good stuff Dan, but what about that cool H20-44? Baldwin models that you can-motor/carded or is this a newer product?

This is an Overland Models  Hawker-Siddeley covered Hopper with custom decals. I had this same car when I had ''HO'' scale trains and really liked it. I decided to replicate it in ''O'' scale.

Another Overland Models covered hopper car with custom decals.

Here's an OMI HS hopper custom painted by the great Lee Turner for me. Wish he was still active. About the only thing that gives this away as not being the real thing is the non scale steel tyres on the Protocraft 100t trucks. Even has the bird sh*t on it and grain.

@Bob Anson posted:

I just read this thread for the first time, very interesting. Anyway, the IGA car really caught my eye as I shop in my local IGA store for about forty percent of my groceries.

@rattler21 posted:

3rd Rail six compartment tank car

John

I "lucked" into two of those recently, now to finish two-railing them. Oddly, one has different truck-mounting bolts than the other.

I picked up an Oriental Ltd GN caboose that was in poor condition. Stripped it, did some repairs and finished the painting and decaling today. Just need to add glass windows and reassemble the floor and trucks. Might add Kadee couplers instead of the "lobster claw" couplers.

@Ray of sunshine posted:

I picked up an Oriental Ltd GN caboose that was in poor condition. Stripped it, did some repairs and finished the painting and decaling today. Just need to add glass windows and reassemble the floor and trucks. Might add Kadee couplers instead of the "lobster claw" couplers.

It’s a beautiful model with a beautiful paint job, I’d say it deserves a scale coupler. Thanks for sharing!

Santiago, thanks for the nice comments. Anything new on your Burlington models? Still would like to see an article or 2 about what you have done in an upcoming BRHS Zephyr.

Ray

Thanks, Ray.I’m working on a Oriental Limited NE-1 CB&Q waycar right now. I’ll post some images down the road.

SANTIAGOP23,    
Would you like to see a  
Burlington “Aeolus” ?  Do you think there would be enough people to reserve in numbers large enough for it to “fly” with a reasonable price (thinking 3rd Rail). Steam is tough to get done these days but Burlington is pretty popular. And it’s a Beauty. I’d Love to see it done !!!! 😜
Just thinking out loud ………..

Cheers !!! 🙂

I seriously think so. Streamlined steamers have a great appeal. And the Aeolus was only done right by PSC in just one of three possible configurations. The C&O Hudson didn’t have a hard time getting reservations, it seemed to me.

Lots of tinkering on this one before paint…

A recent one from Protocraft…

@SANTIAGOP23 posted:

I seriously think so. Streamlined steamers have a great appeal. And the Aeolus was only done right by PSC in just one of three possible configurations. The C&O Hudson didn’t have a hard time getting reservations, it seemed to me.

Thanks for this feedback Santiago. I agree with your observations. I believe that the C&O was done gives us Some indication of what might “fly”. The variations could be plus for some added reservations too.
Let’s give Scott a note on this.  Anyone else out there that would like to see the CB&Q “Aeolus” please send Scott at 3rd Rail an email that you’d also like to see this model done.
Cheers 🙂

There was, and l have one somewhere, a now long outdated listing booklet of brass model rolling stock.  I think it was mostly or maybe all HO.  I have seen above some Yoder and other cars not seen before.  Yoder did some interesting watermelon cars.  This is wishful thinking, but I would sure like to see a list of all the O scale brass cars ever done, and especially, of all the cabooses.   An annual list, for sale, offered by a magazine publisher would be nice, sorta like Consumer Reports offers an annual new car supplement., Except, of the brass offerings of the year past.

@colorado hirailer posted:

There was, and l have one somewhere, a now long outdated listing booklet of brass model rolling stock.  I think it was mostly or maybe all HO.  I have seen above some Yoder and other cars not seen before.  Yoder did some interesting watermelon cars.  This is wishful thinking, but I would sure like to see a list of all the O scale brass cars ever done, and especially, of all the cabooses.   An annual list, for sale, offered by a magazine publisher would be nice, sorta like Consumer Reports offers an annual new car supplement., Except, of the brass offerings of the year past.

Probably the Brown book (Gent who wrote/compiled it was named Brown) Last edition (as best I recall) was redone/edited by John Glaab, who recently passed.

You will never see an accurate brass listing. Knowing it might be out there doesn't aid in buying it anyhow. The best strategy (opinion) is if you see it and like it and can afford it , buy it. Unless you have a pile of money, years from now you'll probably look back and be glad you couldn't find half of what you wanted!

ECI

@EastCoastIron posted:

...The best strategy (opinion) is if you see it and like it and can afford it , buy it. Unless you have a pile of money, years from now you'll probably look back and be glad you couldn't find half of what you wanted!

ECI

...😁😁😁...true dat!

Mark in Oregon

@Erik C Lindgren posted:

What a fun thread. Thanks for bringing it back. Enjoyed

I know!  Where did everybody go????