Show Me Your Brass

Yea the Tangent car looks good but that L-105 in the background REALLY caught my eye!!  Wish I had one.

Weaver New Haven i-5's

These three freight cars were not built in brass, but with steel. They all seem to date from the early 1940's.

Offset side hopper built from an early 1940's Rail Craft kit having tinplated steel parts.

A USRA twin hopper built in heavier gauge steel than Rail Craft used.  Bought built up but lacking AB brake parts and a few other small details.

An 11,000-gallon tank car with a scratch-built steel tank on a Walthers frame and with a Walthers dome.  As bought it lacked trucks, couplers, brake details and most grab irons.

The steel tank car finished for Gulf Refining Corp.

The steel USRA hopper finished for the Reading Company.

S. Islander

S

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@Trainbros89  I really like your diorama and the brass to go with it....looks like the tank is leaving the station or guarding the troop train!

Picked these up at the Chicago 2 rail meet 2 weekends ago.   3 Milk Cars and a switch tower.  LOVE BRASS!  Now I need to start painting.

@roll_the_dice posted:

@Trainbros89  I really like your diorama and the brass to go with it....looks like the tank is leaving the station or guarding the troop train!

Thank you for the kind words!

I do not have any brass in 3 rail. However, I do have a small fleet of brass engines for my 2 rail switching layout. Here they are.

Left to right: Yoder 70 tonner, Yoder 45 tonner, Yoder 44 tonner, W&R 44 tonner, and another W&R 44 tonner.

A few different things in brass here.   I still own these models, but several other brass models I built or modified have been sold, so they are not shown here with the sole exception of the UP Centennial I built for a good friend who has since passed away.   Descriptions are with the smaller photos below.

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S. Islander

End of the month bump for one of my favorite threads...Recently picked up this empty pulpwood car from a forum member and just purchased this milk car.  My 2 main industries on my upcoming layout are pulpwood and milk/creamery.  I don't have the milk car yet, but am excited to receive it...will post more pics of it when I receive it.

I need to start painting brass!

Williams K4's, would like to pick up a Weaver 3768 to go with these.

Williams L1

KTM project 2-C-C-2, having trouble finding reference to it.  I originally thought it was IMP, but found KTM cast into the sprung driver journals.

Un finished Scale Craft K4 kind of shows what a 1939's kit could look like although this was  one with a factory built up chassis.

Another project, a Scale craft SP Mountain

Early 1934-35 version of the Scale craft Hudson

Parmele & Sturgis EP3 electric

Scratchbuilt crane car probably more tin than brass but still cool with a P&S aluminum 200 ton flat car.

3rd Rail B&O T4a I got at York:

Also a nice Sunset I-5 that I will eventually paint and decal:

One of my favorites, Overland Models O scale ATSF GE C44-9W #699 converted to Proto48.

John

Cornerstone of my “Empire”.  
T&P 2-10-4 by 3rd Rail.
Cheers 😉

3rdrail Niagara getting some maintenance done.

Here are some of mine

I’ll add one of mine, I just finished this Overland Models DRGW aux water tender for this L77.

Pacific Fast Mail 2-6-6-0. I refinished the model with Faulhaber coreless propulsion and custom built ball bearing gear box and drive; DCC with ESU. The rolling stock in this frame is PSC outside braced 50’ auto box and custom rebuilt Tom Mix 8k ACF tank car which I painted.

how about a few more

Overland Models PS2CD  w/custom decals   I saw these offered in ''HO'' scale and liked them

Correction!  The Santa Fe Auto Box  is by Pecos River Brass. Sorry

My other Overland Models PS2CD w/custom decals

Newest addition to my roster!

An New Haven I-4 Pacific heads a local passenger for Maybrook on the New Haven section of the layout. Soon after leaving the yard a New Haven L1-a  Mohawk heads a revenue freight on its way to Cedar Hill yard in New Haven.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/46uDFwj6givuSrbaA

@Erik C Lindgren posted:

I’ll add one of mine, I just finished this Overland Models DRGW aux water tender for this L77.

Pacific Fast Mail 2-6-6-0. I refinished the model with Faulhaber coreless propulsion and custom built ball bearing gear box and drive; DCC with ESU. The rolling stock in this frame is PSC outside braced 50’ auto box and custom rebuilt Tom Mix 8k ACF tank car which I painted.

Fabulous modeling and beautiful work as always.  Only a few of us here really know what you accomplished.

Posted elsewhere, but this really belongs here.  Sunset H-24-66 Train Master.  Needs a few more details to be fully PRR that I have when I get my "round tuit" out.

@86TA355SR posted:

Models painted by myself:

And a detail project I’m doing, cab had no interior when received.

Wonderful modeling.  Thanks for sharing.

Picked this up recently.  It's obviously not a Santa Fe waycar, but rather a PRR N5b cabin.  Any suggestions on manufacturer?  I'm guessing Max Gray, USH, or maybe KTM?  The Monarch couplers and the oversized flangers on the trucks would seem to date it to the 60's although I realize couplers get changed all the time and a lot of these never came with trucks or couplers.  A little TLC and it will be a nice addition to the roster.

Here are two brass Weaver Pocono Locomotives, a brass Car Works ALCo switcher, and a brass Weaver caboose.  All lettered for the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western.

@NJCJOE posted:

That's some serious brass!!!!!

I finally lucked into a nice old Max Gray Brass 200 ton flat car for a great price...

@Dennis Holler posted:

I finally lucked into a nice old Max Gray Brass 200 ton flat car for a great price...

I have one of those somewhere in the stash but I am almost positive that it is not a Max product. There are enough construction differences that make me think that it is not MG.

Athearn made that same car in H0; mine is ERIE 8086. With a few extra weights from another car (installed in the "cells" in the underframe) it tracks very well.

A few items I obtained in the last several weeks.

MP 4-8-4 imported by PFM (Fujiyama) in 1972.

Video: 'yard test'.

Runs quite even with an open frame motor which will be replaced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3-vlkNd_WE

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NYC T-3A box cab electric imported by Alco in 1974.

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PRR DD-1 box cab electrics imported by Soho in 1978.

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SP automobile car with end doors imported by Oriental Limited in date unknown (probably in the 80's).

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B&O caboose.

@samparfitt posted:

A few items I obtained in the last several weeks

PRR DD-1 box cab electrics imported by Soho in 1978.

You are almost making me miss my HO days!  Almost When I was an HO modeler, I was young and living on an Athearn blue box budget.  Your collection and layout are wonderful.

I think I posted it earlier in this thread, but my Sunset O DD1 for comparison.  With a plastic chain drive in my Sunset, I'm suspecting your Soho may be a better runner.

Excuse the backyard in the lawn photos as I don't currently have an active layout.

Jonathan,

Very nice.

Here's a video (yard test) until a decoder and painting has been installed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZMuS7MmB4c 

Here's my thread on my GN railroad:

The thread is 76 pages now so there's a lot of topics 'out there'!

https://ogrforum.com/...hern-railway?page=76

Budget brass to be sure, but some snapshots of my Williams brass locomotives.

A basket case Southern PS4 Pacific I replaced the front and rear trucks on.  The Hodges trailing truck is either too far forward or just too small, it was a Lionel part and what I could find at the time.  The feedwater heater was a modification that it came with when I acquired it.  A little more work and this could be a nice locomotive.  It is a good runner.

CNJ Camelback out of the box.  The rear tender truck is a little warped and the wheel falls out from time to time.  They are the wrong trucks anyway, so scheduled for replacement one day.  I'd actually prefer to find a 2-rail version of this and pass on the 3-rail version to someone else one day.

N&W J Class.  Mine came with an aftermarket QSI sound system.  It has no volume control and it is loud!  Photo is taken on the OLD Paradise and Pacific Layout that got dismantled in 2010.

SP GS4 to pull my not so prototypical K-Line Daylight cars.

Challenger running on some former Tin Plate Trackers modules with backdrops I created in Photoshop and printed on a large format plotter to represent the various scenes found across Arizona.  On the other side of the layout is the high pines as shown in the photo below this one.

K4s.  A bit spartan on detail, but still a decent runner.

A most unusual of pairings.  T1 double headed with a Challenger on a NJT excursion train.  Sure that makes sense!

USRA Mikado.  The tender is lettered PRR, but I put my CNJ one behind it as the electronics are fried on the one it came with. 

NYC Niagara.  I prefer this over the Hudson when it comes to NYC locomotives.

I also have a basket case Williams Hudson too that looks like it was drop kicked one too many times.  It is on the list of "a round tuit" projects. Here is it hiding between an unidentified brass 10-wheeler, the only Aston Martin DB5 I'll ever be able to afford, and it's more common, yet more collectible Lionel cast cousin.

Overall, I find the Williams brass locomotives can be a good value sometimes.  While they are all Samhongsa built, they can be hit or miss.  Some of mine run like Swiss watches while some of them run like the watches that only tell time twice a day.  When they are priced well, I don't hesitate to add them to my collection still on occasion. 

Jonathan, have you considered a Precision Scale Ps4 trailing truck for the Williams Ps4?  They are a kit, bit I'm sure you could assemble.

@NHVRYGray posted:

Jonathan, have you considered a Precision Scale Ps4 trailing truck for the Williams Ps4?  They are a kit, bit I'm sure you could assemble.

Thanks for the lead!  I'll see if I can track one down.  There was a really nice 2 rail one on eBay for a number of months several years back and for some reason I never purchased it.  I think I was concerned about the flange depth on the wheels, but I'm not sure why as I run 2 rail on 3 rail track all the time and just watch the wheels bump through the turnouts.

Both 3rd Rail products and my only brass locomotives…

And a few cabooses Weaver (N&W), 3rd Rail (Erie) and unknown (PRR)…

Tom