Premier vs Railking rolling stock

The smaller the prototype, the closer it is to scale size.

 

But when we're talking about "small" we're talking ore cars and (maybe) Civil-War-era rolling stock. As you approach 40' cars, the proportions are already diverging from scale and the gulf gets wider the bigger you get.

 

MTH hasn't sought to label any RK rolling stock as such if they happen to be scale-proportioned (like the ore cars). Anyone buying RailKing is assumed to be much more concerned with operating on traditional-style curves and/or alongside traditional-sized rolling stock, than with scale fidelity.

 

---PCJ

I should add, are there any specific types of RallKing rolling stock you are looking at?

 

---PCJ

Ive mainly been fond of the coal hoppers and tanker cars. A few box cars I could throw in too, but like I said I have always like the tankers and coal hoppers. 

If you have modern priemier diesels I would stick with scale size cars, most rail king is not scale size and as your railroad grows the non scale equipment will stick out more.

 

  

I favor the overall impression of a train, not the details of individual pieces, so Rail King is ideal for me. Another point is that Rail King is very affordable. 

The impression I get is that Railking stuff is narrower, even if nearly as long.  I mostly gtet Premier though.  Scale works better for me unless the car/loco is really really big. 

Lance

 

The Railking four bay coal hoppers and 8000 gallon steam era tank cars are pretty good scale models.  You may want to take a look at the O Scale Freight Car Guide series for more info.

 

The Tank Car Guide is here.  There is info on the Railking car on page two.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...-car-guide-tank-cars

 

The O Scale Guide to 70 and 100 ton open hoppers is here.  The Railking cars are mentioned in the original post.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...100-ton-open-hoppers

 

For scale MTH boxcars stick with the Premier line.

 

Lee is correct about the RailKing cars tending to be a bit narrower than their Premier counterparts.  Also, R/K cars tend to have either no or very minimal lettering on the car ends...not always, but usually.  Generally speaking they also have many molded in details (grab irons, ladders, brake lines, roof walks, hatches, etc.) whereas these details tend to be separately-applied parts on the Premier cars.

But as previously mentioned, they are priced very competitively and are a good value.  Only you know how important scale size and add-on details are to you.

If I may offer one more thing to consider, the Trainman line from AtlasO offers scale-sized cars with a moderate level of add-on details in mostly prototypical paint schemes at fairly affordable prices.  I encourage you to at least check them out.

Ted Hikel's freight car guides are excellent references. He has done a lot of research on all the cars in the series and put a lot of effort into the posts. Those are very informative threads. Others have added to his information as well. I would definitely recommend those as the references to go by.  

 

Most all of my RailKing cars are smaller than scale (Premier). Some are more difficult to tell than others. It took me a while to really start noticing the differences and I have pretty much stopped buying RK cars. I have now switched to purchasing mostly Premier scale cars and Premier or RK Scale engines after finally figuring out a little more about what I was doing (still working on that one, lots left to learn). The RK stuff does seem to me to be bigger than the Traditional or O-27 size as Lionel calls the smaller cars. Some of those really look small.

 

The RK Imperial engines used along with the RK rolling stock are really a great value for O gauge trains. If you keep them separate from your scale sized items they make up some very nice trains. I still occasionally run RK with Premier and it doesn't bother me too much, but I do notice a difference in sizes now much more than when I was just re-entering the hobby a few years ago.

Consider the size of your layout and how you want to use it.  Passing sidings, freight yards, industry.  How much room do you have?

 

RK cars will fit nicely on small layouts.  If space is not a consideration, Premier cars sure look nice.

 

Ron

 

I recently purchased some Premier cars (CSX Fuel tankers) and they have much more detail then the ESSO RK tankers I own. They are noticeably bigger as well.

 

That being said I buy RK and say under 14" long since these long cars look wrong on 31" & 36" curves. 

Thanks for all the replies! My minimum curves are 042 so I'm most likely leaning towards the premiers.

Just didn't want to buy some RKs and they look dumb being pulled behind premier engines.

Took some pics to help you out.  Left side is Premier.  Right side is RK.

 

I have a siding that will fit 5 cars.  Note the extra space gained using the RK cars vice the Premier cars.  Not much... but if you have a small layout, you might need every inch.

 

I have some video with a Premier Diesel pulling both the RK mixed and Premier mixed.  It does not look out of place from my perspective... but I'm not a rivet counter.

 

Premier on siding.  7" from magnet

 

 

RK on siding with 10" from magnet.

 

 

Premier on left.  RK on right

 

 

Hope this helps with any decision.

Ron

 

       
       


Thanks Ron! That is perfect!

Here is the video...

 

It seems to me like the newer RK stuff looks better than a lot of the older RK pieces, bigger and with more detail. The thing that will bother me the most about a RailKing car is if it was made without stirrup steps, or if it has what looks like HO stirrups instead of a reasonable size. Most of the time the RK cars just don't look right to me, and it seems that they just sit way too high off the rails. Even the Premiere cars seem to sit a bit high, probably to clear the truck mounted couplers, but they tend to look better than the RK.

 

In any scale, I am not a fan of very fine, fragile details that are too easily broken off, especially if they cannot be replaced. MTH details seem to be a little more robust (without looking too gross) than some of the other brands whose details seem to break if you look at them too hard. This "phobia" is probably because most of my model railroading is done with modular layouts, and transporting models is very hard on those fragile details.

 

Honestly, I rather like the Premiere cars, and usually prefer them over the other brands.

 

Bill in FtL

MTH also made Rugged Rail cars which were even small than RK years ago.

They are so much smaller in fact that they can't run with RK or Premier.