Let's talk brass train cars!

Robbie

 

score on the drake.    I dropped out on that and the reefer.     Pricing is very inconsistent -- I watched a carworks hh go for $780 two weeks later, one bid at $404...

 

yoderer smack series is going to be very keen.    The Kennedy doors have never been done and guys will kick themselves for not ordering.    Only 20 made.

The Mather cars will also fill a void--- we still need more O/B boxcars....

I almost bid on that Deep Rock! What a sweetie!

Trouble is I'm blowing the wad on early Piggyback equipment. Custom built cast early Fruehauf and Trailmobile trailers. Need to fill that gap on my merchandise train. ;-)

I would like to see (and purchase) the Erie/Susquehanna horizontal ribbed hoppers but Rich won't even put out a signup sheet to determine interest.  Is there any interest in this car in brass?

Ed

Brad, you're right.  The prices for brass are all over the map.  I control myself and stick to things in my price range as not to jack up the prices and force domestic buyers out of the market. 

 

Erik, Would be nice to have some steam era highway trailers in real 1:48 I have to agree...

 

 

And yes Ed, I love the horizontal rib hopper car.  I have the Overland one in HO.  According to Rich the problem with hopper cars is that you need to have both the outside and inside of the car detailed which runs up the cost real quick... and the trend is to cars that have many different versions to increase the "play value" thus the limited interest in the Erie/Susie Q hopper.   Sadly when Rich did the fishbelly hoppers years ago no one suggested the uber-neat Reading WWII era composite versions.  These cars were the nutz and stood out well into the diesel era.

 

The fact that Rich and Norm (and to an extent George Kohs) is keeping the brass car market going means there is still some life left in sales of upper end cars.

 

As for me I'd love to see some common but never done cars like FGEX wood reefers, USRA hoppers and UTLX X3 tank cars... AND some 36 foot box cars like Fowlers and Southern SU cars.

 

On that line, anyone up for Canadian NSC end versions of the 1937 box car?  These things really stand out!

 

Brass is definitely a wild-card. I picked up two brass hoppers for about $250 shipped a couple of years ago. Saw one of them going for $275 on eBay -- more than I want to pay, but it was a really nice car. Got a brass ATSF drover car for $175, but have seen it as high as $350 (seller didn't sell it and hasn't re-listed it). Go figure.

 

I do like the detail and weight of brass cars and will grab them if they match what I'm looking for and are in the budget -- pretty much what I do with the other stuff I buy.

Paging through so many categories on the auction site, I gave up looking at brass cars,

but have been lucky in finding Bobbye Hall's few O scale brass cabooses in estate

sales, O scale shows(not lately!), etc.  Too bad she didn't make all the HO versions

she did, in O.  With an occasional look at O brass, all over the map seems to pretty well describe its pricing.  Cabooses is about all I look at there, as plastic for them seems to demand repetition of the very few. 

It's hard to look at brass cabooses with Brother Love making such nice ones in plastic!!!

 

It does make me pine for the olden days when PSC was cranking out brass cars and cabooses on a regular basis. 

 

Just think if Pat O'Boyle was still alive how the O brass car market would be with Pat, Rich, Norm and George Kohs !   

 

Hmmm maybe we can get GPM to take some interest in a freight car project.  WFEX/FGEX 6xxxx series truss rod reefers anyone?  (we need the bigears emoticon here)

I pickup brass freight cars from time to time.  So far all have been for the home road.  Some of the things I want, don't show up that often and when they do, they can easily go past my comfort zone.

 

Tank cars are an area of interest for me, not road names but types.

 

The best thing I've come across in the past few years are the Rich Yoder Santa Fe box and stock cars.  Nicely priced and excellent models.  

 

I rather not have to bid on an item, it's always frustrating when you're barely outbid.

Marker,

 

rich made great models with his atsf project.    You should contact him on the acl cars as a few are left.   Gary Schroeder weathered his atsf and did a masterful job.   I will ask him if I can re post his images

I should rattle Jimmy Booth's cage about doing O scale again. He is a O scale guru.



       

Jack and I have every intention of building a project with either Boo Rim or Ajin if you guys can get enough orders. The deal these days is the minimum build of units. They can be 12 different versions on the same model. W&R HO cars were amazing and he pulled it off this way in HO getting the guys to all throw in a order a few cars each. We will build them!

Erik,

 

what are you and jack going to make?    I would participate in the fgex, erie horizontal hopper and the utlx tank cars...    I don't really need more engines.

 

 You should contact him on the acl cars as a few are left.   Gary Schroeder weathered his atsf and did a masterful job.   I will ask him if I can re post his images.

 

Brad - I would be grateful if to see Gary's weathering.  I lost touch a couple of years ago when he was having internet problems.  Love his work.

 

Rich picks some very interesting cars to produce, and a nice guy.  The ACL ventilated cars are a good example of something I am curious about.  It's a nice, unique car, but would it have been found on a freight train in the Colorado/New Mexico area?  That's always a question I ask when I buy a brass freight car.  

We have to think of things in O scale that have never been done but are neat and unique. 

Problem is that most people funding the projects are hesitant to do in brass what's already done in plastic even when the plastic versions are mediocre. 

 

Or things that are all boring black like the common UTLX X3 tank cars.

 

George Kohs mentioned PFE reefers for a future project.  PRB did SFRD cars.  Would be nice if we could get some FGEX cars next. 

 

Maybe you could put a bug in Jimmy's ear that the WFEX/FGEX truss rod reefers were some of the last truss rod cars running and there's pictures of them with  AB brakes.

 

Marker,

 

shoot me an email. I will send you the mail from Gary .    I believe many of the boxcars could have traveled west.    I believe  rich has a shot of an acl in la.

 

I don't know of any western roads with "watermelon" cars so I would suspect by this that when these cars were in vogue most of the melons grown in the US were grown in the south. 

 

Once again I'm not an expert but I would suspect that ventiator service for melons would happen if shipped to the midwest or southwest during the warm fall and summer seasons when the ambient temps in the car could rise. 

 

 

Jack wants to do a project you guys want. We just need the orders. 100 cars; they will be more if smaller run.

You don't produce brass and sit on it with hopes to sell it. That was 1985.