are williams 3 rail brass freight cars scale ?

I have seen it posted by a Bachmann administrator that the Williams brass train items were made before Bachmann purchased Williams Corp. from Jerry Williams who was the owner and founder of Williams Trains. So any brass items in Williams are very difficult to find.

The Williams brass items should be scale, but I am not 100% positive.

 

Lee F.

I have the caboose and tank car. The underframes and trucks are not scale, but with a little work they can be altered.  The top part of both ar identical to the Lionel 700- series cars in general proportions and appearance.

 

The caboose is peculiar to NYC, so you need Sunset or 3rd Rail for a realistic ATSF caboose.

I'm not aware that Williams made a scale brass Santa Fe caboose, but I'm not familiar with every brass item they produced. They did make a NYC 19000 wood caboose lettered for NYC and other roads including Southern Pacific. Not correct for the latter of course. I think they also made a PRR N5c in brass. The cars are scale size but like most all of the Williams brass they lack detail. That can be corrected if you have the skill and patience.

 

 

Pete

Norton,

I had forgotten they did make a PRR N5c. I have 2 of them. They were reasonably good models and included train phone antennae and receivers. Williams also did the caboose in many other roads w/o the antennae.

Norton,

 

That is actually the NYC 19000 series caboose, and NOT an SP caboose. I have one of those old Williams NYC 19000 series cabooses, and it really does look quite nice on the rear end of a freight. The absolute BEST model of the NYC 19000 series caboose, in O Scale, is of course, the Mullet River wood kit. I have one, built by Ray Grosser, and it truly is a museum piece, and tracks beautifully too.

 

There are usually a number of Pacos River Brass AT&SF cabooses for sale on eBay. Those models are excellent representations of Santa Fe cabooses.

There are some plastic cabeese that come close - I have a K-Line that is very close to the wood ATSF.  Also, Lobaugh and Max Gray made credible brass versions, and they can be found on eBay.  Shame to cut them for 3- rail, but it can be done.

HW, if you read my post I pointed out the SP version is not prototypical. I got it cheap for that reason. I plan to strip it and detail it using Mullet River and other brass castings. Been modeling SP for over 50 years so I do know the difference.

 

Pete

The brass era for Williams was something like 1986-1992 IIRC.  The Samhongsa brass steam locomotives can be great or very mediocre based on the specific model.  My good ones run like clockwork while the mediocre ones tend to get hot and start squeaking after just after 20 minutes or so of running.  The cars are decent, but like the locomotives you are probably better off finding a better detailed one for the money these days in plastic and if your budget is in the brass range, it is worth finding a good quality brass model over what Williams used to offer.   Just my opinion.

The Williams brass freight cars are scale dimensioned - but IMO among the least detailed brass models. For example they lack brake rigging details commonly found on better brass  and plastic models.   As a general comment, from a scale model perspective the most important factor is the prototype research done prior to approving a model for production, not the material the car is made with.  There are good and bad brass models, as well as good and bad plastic ones.   Products developed in the recent past benefit greatly from the wide availability of prototype research materials through the Internet and railroad historical societies.  It appears that several of the Williams cars were simply brass knock offs of the 1930's era Lionel scale freight cars - very nice for their day, but below what we see in today's better models.

 

Ed Rappe

I think they also made a PRR N5c in brass. The cars are scale size but like most all of the Williams brass they lack detail.

Actually Williams made the N5b Cabin car not the N5c. The N5b has rectangular Windows and rectangular cupola. the N5c looks more streamlined with the Circular porthole windows and angled cupola.

N5B Williams on Left. N5c MTH on right.

 

Williams N5b with Trainphone Antenna

 

Williams 1991 controversial Sale Flyer with Blowout prices on the Brass 4 car freight set and the seperate sale Sunoco Tanker.

 

The lionel 1991 Repro Freight car set that was made die cast like the originals back in the 1930's

Comparing the Lionel tank car[left] to the Williams Brass tank car[right]

 

Comparing K-line die cast hopper[top Left] to Lionel Die cast hopper [Bottom Right]

 

A closer view of detail differences between the two.

I have a set of the 4 car set my Dad purchased.  They are reproductions of the scale Lionel cars made before the war. The tank car looks the best. The four bay Hopper car couplers keep opening up, however I like the opening bay doors. The PRR box car looks semi scale, and the caboose trucks are too far apart, with oversized plastic lanterns. The are very expensive and weigh a ton! I keep them on the layout to remind me of my Dad.

The Lionel 1990s set was based on the semi scale pre war cars instead of the scale cars, I assume because they wanted to make it compatible with existing rolling stock coupler wise. The big mistake was to use the semi scale truck spacing instead of the scale car truck spacing. MTH made a similar set in the late nineties but even though they used the pictures of Lionel's 1990 set in their catalog, only two cars are close copies, the boxcar and hopper. The tank car came with a walkway around the dome like the chemical cars and the caboose came with roller bearing trucks. I switched out the trucks on the caboose and relocated them on the MTH die cast caboose. Lionel's "archbars" (Their term) are closest to the T section bettendorf you will find in three rail. AFAIK only Pecos River has done correct T section bettendorfs and they are two rail.

 

This is the MTH caboose but similar mods can be done on all the modern remakes.

 

Before:

 

 

 

After:

 

 

Pete

Here is another of MTH's contribution to the Pre war repro cars:

 

 

Pete

Williams was a lot closer to the prewar scale cars.  I have a set of 700 cars, plus a converted Williams caboose and tanker.  Wirh proper trucks and converted underframes, the Williams cars fit right in.

 

The box car is small because the real thing was small.

 

Unless you are an expert, the K-Line hopper is a 716 copy with the wrong bolster casting.

 

 

Sorry about the fingerprint.  Those trucks came from a scale show - five bucks.  Perfect shape, with bolster mounted couplers!  A lot of 717 cabeese had body mounted couplers - either that, or switcher tender trucks were more plentiful.

 

Mullet River has the best looking Bettendorf T trucks.  Opinion.

I am pretty certain Mullet River and Pecos River trucks were from the same source. Mullets have some plastic, Pecos is all brass but the parts are interchangeable and identical except for material. Moot now as Pecos River is closing down.

FWIW here is a pic of the prototype 19000 caboose truck.

 

 

Pete

 

How/where does one purchase Mullet River Bettendorf T Section O-Scale trucks? The Mullet River website makes no mention of "trucks".

I am pretty sure they will not mind me posting this.

 

 

Give them a call, or call Des Plaines Hobbies.  I ordered a set, but they sent me arch bars.

 

These are lost plastic from San Juan parts.  You could use NWSL wheels, and that eliminates the plastic part.