Looking for a Good Source of :Painted Passengers" to place in Passenger Cars

What's the big secret?

I don't know what the secret is either, but I have been using "Beep People" (RMT I think), and "Little People" from Sunset/3rd Rail/Golden Gate Depot.

Check their respective websites.

Look here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/350914...id=p3984.m1431.l2649

The people figures in the dome car are 1:100 Scale. 1:50 Scale people require trimming to fit, otherwise you cannot see their faces when looking through the side windows.

The figures I use come from China, and they are inexpensive (100 for $13 shipped). You will need a lot of figures, and other brands are expensive ($1 per figure or more).

I use Duco cement to attach the figures. Put some walking figures in the aisles too.

The passengers made by MTH...Railtown Accessories...are good choices, too, albeit a tad on the expensive side.  Of course, they also sell the same as unpainted 120-piece bag (30-11043) which works out to about 25 cents per passenger...much less $$$.  A good project for rainy/snowy days, enlisting help from the kids/grandkids, etc.. 

The MTH folk are somewhat small (IMHO) for true O scale, but that's their advantage when populating passenger car interiors....they fit the cramped confines much better.  If your cars have molded seats, you'll probably find these peoples will fit rather easily.  Others (esp. Model Power, et al.), while nice looking in street scenes, station platforms, etc., are too large (again, IMHO) and will probably need serious, radical 'surgery' in order to fit the seats. 

A good time to decide on the 'fiscal health' of your imaginary railroad!!  That is, LOTS of peoples..=..times are good, train travel is 'in', tickets are affordable.  Few folks, empty seats..=..tough times, expensive travel, poor routes/connections, lousy equipment/condition, no advertising, etc., blah, blah.

Be sure to glue their glutinous gluteus' to the seats well the first time!  Rough rides and five-fingered flights will often fling the less-fortunate hither and yon.....and it's not fun to get into some of these cars for a second time (or more!)....much less the first time!!!!

FWIW on a Monday, always...

KD

THANKS, All of YOU............Will Pursue each Source!!

FREDSTRAINS

Fred:  Take a look at 3rd Rail/Sunset Models' seated passenger figures.  If you're looking for people styled the way they might have looked in the 1940's - 1950's.  All the female figures are dressed in skirts, many are wearing hats.  The men also wear a lot of hats, but are dressed in suits with ties.  No jeans, here! 

Unless you're modeling present day RR's, using Amtrak for the last 40 years, to me the 3rd Rail people are excellent.  They're not terribly expensive, either, costing about $20 bucks for a package of about 40 seated people. 

These are the folks that are populating my layout, passenger cars, automobiles, park benches, etd.  The "workers" around the layout, of course, are dressed in coveralls, rougher clothing, etc.

Paul Fischer

KD,

Just discovered this populating some MTH Madison cars. They are definitely smaller than the MTH train engineer figures but they fit the interior seating perfectly. My guess is that this is by design. They are also pricey as you say but I like the fidelity.

Scott

I use the MTH people (in my case, the ones I painted myself). They are a tad on the small size, so they fit into most seats. They are also dressed appropriate to the 1940s-50s, with most males in suits and ties, woman in dresses and hats. They also include some kids, and about 15% of them are standing (for waiters, bartenders, porters, and people in aisles or in private compartments).

Fred Golden Gate Depot at  http://www.goldengatedepot.com/instock.html

The RMT passenger figures are identical to the ones in K-Line scale cars, only painted differently. RMT bought or leased the molds when K-Line's assets in China were distributed. Those and the GGD figures are what I use in scale cars; unpainted MTH figures if I need smaller passengers. 

I have a lot of MTH Premier passenger cars, the RMT figures are much too large for the seats in those.

Interesting how different two brands of "scale" cars can be. As I understand it, the Premier cars are supposed to be scale except for the length. I wonder if the K-Line seats and figures are oversized, or the MTH are undersized?

I don't have a lot of MTH passenger cars and I've never added passengers to the ones I have. I would think the big bag of Rail King figures would be the way to go, but of course you have to paint those, which is time-consuming to say the least. I have a bag but I haven't painted them yet. I would think the best way to do it would be to set them up in batches of 20 or so and do one color at a time on an assembly-line basis. Man gets blue suit, woman gets blue blouse, next woman gets blue skirt, etc. I've found that Testors cream color enamel is a good flesh tone for white people. Unlike most cream colors, it's kind of pinkish. 

The seats are as small as the RailKing versions.  I ended up using 1:75 figures, they actually sit so you can see the heads in the windows.

You are correct. 20 at a time is maximum. Do light colors first (like flesh and white). Hold by the area not being painted (hair/hats/shoes the last to be done). Sit them on a length of wood to dry between colors. IMO, it makes no sense to attach them to something while painting them (holding with your fingers makes painting a lot easier).

I found these on ebay, I have some already and the quality is great. They are from China though and took 3 weeks to get them. I cant post the link but here's the item number to put at the top in the search bar. Item# 400096480173. They fit nicely in my RailKing 60' passenger cars.

I always found 1:48 figures to be too tall in my RailKing or Premier cars.  Do you have a picture of them and how they appear through the windows?