source for passengers

wb47 posted:

What source are you using for passengers small enough to fit in the chairs of most passenger cars.  A while back GRJ had a nice source for miniatures but I cannot find those now.  Keeping in mind the legs come off anyway but the scale size are just way too big.  thanks

I have used a lot of Sunset/3rd Rail/Golden Gate Depot "Little People" for my passenger cars.

Generally you can pick up passengers at the station

GRJ can answer for himself but one source is a fleabay vendor from the Orient who goes by the handle "We Honest" (no joke, that's the name). Generally if you do a search on the auction site for O scale passenger figures you will come up with quite a few options for both seated and standing passengers. True O scale figures are just too big for the sub-scale interiors in Lionel and MTH cars, which are really more like S scale in their dimensions. But if you are not bothered about cutting down the figures it might not matter.

IMHO the best figures are the old MTH Railking ones, which for the most part will fit right in either Lionel or MTH seats. But the painted ones are pricey and not easy to find. The unpainted ones require a lot of work.

There are also Chinese knock-offs of the very detailed Prieser O scale figures but again, those are big.

The RK figures are a good size, but as stated, they're also very expensive.  Lionel's latest figure sets are the right size, but they're expensive and the last couple sets I got the paint was tacky after being out in the bench for a month!  I suspect it'll never dry, so I was not impressed for the price.  I also use the 3rd Rail Little People a lot, they're a bit cheaper per person than the Lionel figures.

I have tried to find S scale figures for mine with no luck. I have been cinsidering using HO figures especially in the domes of my O27 cars. That way I won't have to cut the legs off.

I use the Preiser 65602 Unpainted Seated Figures with 24 different poses and paint them myself.  I get a better paint job. I have done 110 boxes of 24 so far (2640 people).  I use pastel pink, blue, green yellow and lavender for the women's dresses and tan, brown, gray, and blue for the men's suits.  I leave the skirts white to add contrast to the colored blouse.  The more colors on a figure, the more it is easily seen in the passenger car.  I avoid all one color for a figure's clothes.

I start with the flesh, then the tie, then edge-in the shirt, them edge-in the suit coat, The hair and shoes are last. I paint what I can on the sprue holding the unpainted figures. Half way through the painting process, I remove and sand the pieces at the sprue joints, and finish painting.  (Sprue figures are not finished. Each figure is inspected and touched up as necessary.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Hancock52 posted:

" True O scale figures are just too big for the sub-scale interiors in Lionel and MTH cars,"

Yep, tried the Preiser figures once and they really are too big. They all would have been leaning to fit inside the cars.

Whoa!  Hats off, pal!  For patience, persistence, painting skill, and financial fortitude (current msrp for 65602=$38.99/box!), take a bow!

They look very, very nice. 

Not sure about a 1:1's choice of a white skirt for travel by train, though.  My recollections of 60-70 years ago, anyway, would've left soil reminders on most clothing by journey's end.  OTOH, perhaps Amtrak's accommodations are squeaky cleaner?   Yeah, right.

One nice thing about the Preiser set is that some passengers have their heads turned to the side.  It 's always bugged me a bit that most ridership sets have folks staring straight ahead.  For all the work I put into scenery on the layout, you'd think it would be of enough interest by free-loading riders to view the vista.....even when passing at warp 2.0 speeds and being thrown centrifugally at a 6-g force around the curves.  And, even if the passing scenery is poorly executed, at least two riders can have a eye-to-eye conversation.

Glad to see your railroad ridership is doing well! 

KD (Lucas Gudinov)

John Rowlen: WOW! VERY NICE work if you have the time and skill to get such beautiful results!

John, you have WAY more patience than I do!  Great looking figures, but I can't see spending that kind of time, over 2,000 of them???

Absolutely amazing perseverance! Even with my sub-clinical OCD, I could never have that level of focus! KUDOS to John - he is the figure KING!

John R.    Great work!  I keep a kit of paint and unpainted people on a table near my TV.  If I am watching TV  I am painting figures.  Most of the eBay, Chinese figures I have bought are stated to be 1:50 scale, look appropriate in O scale passenger cars and are cheap, about $2 per hundred. My greatest problem with them is they are off the sprue. I usually use alligator clips on a stick to hold them.     I have a search for 1:64 scale figures running on eBay, for several years now, and as of yet no cheap 64th scale little folks. The closest to S scale I have seen on eBay are 1:77 scale.     J