Freight & Passenger Cars

Probably the first question I'd ask is for passenger cars, what's the smallest diameter curves you're planning?  That will change your outlook on what exact size passenger cars to buy.

How big a layout are you planning?  Are you planning on traditional size O or scale size for the layout?

The smallest curve is 042; largest is 072. 

The layout is traditional size O, about 10' X 18' with 3 main lines, a reversing loop and a 3 track freight yard.    

You really can't go wrong with any of the O gauge manufacturers these days.  They all make good product.

When you say "traditional sized O", do you mean the same size equipment that Lionel made in the Postwar era, as opposed to the scale sized stuff they now make in their Standard O line?

In planning your layout, it may be helpful to decide what industries will be on your layout before buying freight cars, so that you can concentrate what kind of freight cars would naturally service those industries.

Also, it is a lot of fun to have unit trains to run (all one type of car, like coal hoppers, tank cars, covered hoppers, ore cars, boxcars, refrigerator cars, etc.), so you may want to look at assembling one or two to run.

Andy

for passenger trains I have these;

http://www.collector-modeltrai...log_item/MT-0067479/

and 30-6751 and 30-6752

and they are pulled with this;

http://www.lionel.com/products/finder/ProductDetail.cfm?ProductNumber=6-34573&CatalogUID=9FE3047F-EE66-41FC-1451DFE4B99B2EAA&PageID=2024

http://www.lionel.com/products/finder/ProductDetail.cfm?ProductNumber=6-34579&expandBranch=0&Keywords=&CategoryID=0&RailLineID=&CatalogId=

Andy,

I'll most likely stick with MTH loco's, either scale Imperial or Premier, and DCS.  Thanks for the suggestion of unit trains and the idea of matching up freight cars to the idustries.  I plan on having the culvert loader and unloader, the horse corral, milk car, operational water tower, barrel loader, passenger station, brewery and a few surprises thrown in.  Some of hese operational accessoeies I had a a kid in our family layout and it would be nice to recreate them again in my new layout, many years later.        

Hi Mike......As Andy said, I think unit trains look very realistic. Sometimes the major manufacturers offer a "Train Set" that usually includes 4 or 5 similar cars, and in a lot of cases will offer a further "add on" set of 3 additional matching cars. I have a GTAX tank car train that was purchased that way. 5 cars with the set and a 3 car add on set. (see pic) Pretty much all of the major manufacturers produce really good looking, and realistic pieces, but as with everything, the really nice ones command the bigger dollar.

As far as passenger cars, there are a lot to choose from. My layout has 048 & 060 curves, so I opted to stay with the smaller sized passenger cars, as I think they look better. I think the smallest you can get are around 13". The other consideration is the construction of the passenger cars. Aluminum bodied cars seem to be the cream of the crop, but some of the prices for Aluminum passengers cars are well up there. I went for a set of Williams 15" (60 footers in the real world) Aluminum cars, which I'm very happy with, and In my opinion they are a decent price. For a similar Lionel product it would probably be almost double the price.

Personally, I'm not a "collector" and want to be able to run my stuff, so for us smaller layout guys, I think it is important that you decide early along so you don't end up with a mish mash of stuff that ends up on shelves or in boxes. I don't really consider my layout all that small, it's an "L" shape about 22' x 16', and I'm almost at my max as far as the number of pieces I can have on it at one time.

REV 

Williams by Bachmann is a favorite of mine. Wide variety; low prices; low-tech; and reliable performance.

Welcome to the hobby!

I've been back in the hobby about 14 years, starting out with postwar, moving to new traditional, to semi-scale, and lastly to scale equipment. 

With my last move to scale equipment, I decided to focus on two rail lines, the Reading and the B&O.  I decided to find the most protypical equipment that I could afford, and purchase from whomever made it, rather than focus on one manufacturer.

Only piece of advice that I will give is don't go to crazy accumulating stuff for the layout.  Many of use who bought stuff before the layout was built ended up buying much more stuff than we could ever run.

Jim

Due to my small layout, I run semi-scale. Although I'm a Lionel TMCC fan, my passenger and operating freight cars are MTH. The passenger cars are very detailed for the reasonable cost, and the operating freight cars operate slowly and smoothly.

Since you have a nice size curve diameter, the size of the passenger cars won't matter that much. However I will offer one piece of advice that I have come across doing large size passenger cars, Atlas 21 inch Amtrak passenger cars, don't use a smaller locomotive than an SD-40 to pull them; reason is the coupler swing-derailment. There needs to be a decent amount of coupler and truck free-play or the units will derail. From experiance you need an engine with a gentle swing ratio to knuckle coupler when pulling large passenger cars.

Lee F.