What is your preferred passenger car manufacturer? MTH, Lionel, K-line, Williams or others

GGD and 3rd Rail/Sunset. Sleepers come in 12-1 and 8-1-2 plans, the dining car interiors are outstanding and the under side details are pretty accurate.  John

When I got into 3 rail, I only bought K-line. Then I bought some WBB because of the blowout price, a few MTH. Then I moved on to Atlas 15", 21" and finished out with Golden Gate Depot.

K line.  The scale cars are a given . For me, it's  the 15" cars that can negotiate tighter radius curves but they are scale width  and height to go behind scale locomotives.

Secondly. K Line perfected close coupling  passenger cars 20 years ago.

The diaphragms on my K line cars nearly touch and they do not have the excessive length of Mth diaphragms.

Having said that. Mth is the leader when it comes to bang for your buck.

The green windows in Lionel cars has deterred me from even considering them.

GGD/Sunset.....detail

Fantastic photo's   thanks enjoying the replies!

Lionels 18 inch aluminum cars.

I love the 18" K-Line cars, but given they're not all that easy to find in all the various road names, the 18" MTH Premier cars come next.  They're easy to work on, and they are consistently around half of Lionel prices, and sometimes I find them even cheaper.

K-Line

My preferred passenger manufacturer is GGD/3rd Rail.  Problem is that I've never had a track with a minimum radius greater than O-45.  Between that and my road name choices there are not many GGD cars if any that would be candidates for my layout.  I do like some of the recent Lionel and MTH production.  I liked Weaver when they were around, but I probably have more Williams than anything else.

I am a semi-scale man , so:  A- Lionel baby Madisons ,  and B- railking .   Affordable, look great, operate on smaller curves,  nice interiors. JohnA

I have several passenger car sets from Lionel, a few from K-line, two from MTH, and two from Williams.

Since they are all in the medium price range they are pretty much the same. I kind of like them alll

MTH Premier.  They are the best balance of detail, quality, and price.

I also have some GGD, Lionel (18" & 21"), K-Line 18", and even a set of RailKing heavyweights.  I like them all but largely based on price and availability, I have settled on MTH Premier.  It's the #1 reason I'm sad to see MTH go.  I wasn't finished assembling my fleet.

I agree that the K-Kine aluminum cars are very nice, and also their heavyweight cars to, they look good on 096 diameter curves. The reason I mentioned 18 in cars is because they corner good on the bigger circles. Yes, GGD cars are super nice as is there price tag. One thing for sure, if your using tubular track, 072 Lionel track, Lionel heavyweight cars are more difficult to pull than on Atlas O/Gargraves track.  I visited a friend with the older Lionel Sante Fe heavyweights and his engine struggled pulling them. I disconnected the engine and pulled the 6 cars by hand and they were hard to pull. We then ran the cars on Atlas O track and they pulled very easy. That was a big surprise to me. I have Lionel, K-Line both, they’re nice. Good luck with your search for passenger cars. Happy Railroading

MTH Premier for me!

Most of my cars are either Lionel for my 18” sets and GGD/3rd Rail brass for scale.  To me the 18” Lionel, being 1/2” longer and slightly wider than MTH, look better.

@Jim S posted:

MTH Premier for me!

Ditto for me.

I hate to sound cliche, but the best passenger car is based on your needs and resources. I can point out the strengths and weaknesses of several brands I have experience with

These Lionel Norfolk Southern OCS passengers cars feature full scale length, Kaydee coupler compatible, moderately expensive, built in capacitor to prevent light flickering, and my favorite feature is the flush fitting windows with painted trim. The super dome car is spectacular.

The down side is the tooling is generic (not built to prototype) and some runs of these cars have had quality control issues. The interior of these beg to be custom detailed. They need at least O-54

These MTH passenger cars are the best value in my opinion. They feature nice details, 0-42 operation, have passengers inside, decent quality control, and are widely Available.

The tooling is generic, and not built to prototype. These are also not built to full scale (70 scale feet). I feel MTH could have really improved these with flush fitting windows with minimal changes to tooling.

These are ideal if you have a smaller layout on a tight budget

These are Atlas O comet II MBTA coaches. They are nicely detailed, 0-54 operation, more prototypical, full scale length and moderately expensive. These are an old tooling and not common. This run suffers from paint peeling issues on the purple color. Atlas O passenger cars don’t have passengers inside.

The more recent California Zephyr cars have superior detail and are some of the most exquisite O scale passenger cars ever mass produced. They do require O-72 to operate.

This Golden Gate depot CN superdome is the flagship of my passenger fleet. It features all brass construction, great detail, full scale length, built close to prototype, overall the quality control on this was good.

This is an very rare model, only a handful ever built to order and I would recommend operating on O-72. Compared to the previous models, it is very expensive, but worth it if you really want something truly unique and epic in your collection.

I love GGD. These N&W Pass Cars are made by them, and they are beautiful.

Those are all nice, to be sure, but since I like to build stuff, I like old Walthers kits.

Mark in Oregon

Regarding heavyweight cars, for PRR scale accuracy, GGD and Sunset are terrific. I have 3 PRR heavyweight headend GGD cars that are 18/19 inches (2 RPOs and a B70) and they track well on my O72 Atlas. I have K-line cars and for the money, availability in road names and smooth running they are great. MTH that I have are about 17.5 inches so I have boxed those up but they are nicely detailed and track well. I have recently received 1 new and have 1 used  on the way Lionel commuter car with 4 wheel trucks. They are 19 inches at the couplers, nicely detailed, the color looks good, they are somewhat accurate for PRR and they track well. Full retail prices for Lionel are high but deals can pop up you know where. I also have 3 Weaver B60 cars and they are nice as well.

Thanks for your photos rattler. I enjoy seeing your collection.

@Cogen1981 posted:

I hate to sound cliche, but the best passenger car is based on your needs and resources. I can point out the strengths and weaknesses of several brands I have experience with

I second this statement.

I'll also put this disclaimer in: I am not a "rivet counter", but I do like my models to be accurate to the prototype in terms of design, paint schemes, and shades of paint (tuscan vs. brown).

I have 4 MTH 64' woodsided coaches which I absolutely love. They are very detailed, right down to the figures inside. Also, these are the only open-ended platform cars on the market from a major manufacturer (you could get Labelle kits of this style coach).

The Lionel heavyweights I have are nice, but don't have LED lighting (they were built 2010). They are very robust which makes them nice for handling, but at the same time they feel feel very plain in comparison to the MTH woodside's in terms of detail. This might just be the nature of the prototypes for each coach as well.

The GGD P70 coaches (and maybe a few other of their PRR cars) are on my wish-list; mostly because they are road specific and have very accurate paint schemes. I do wish these had the markers on the end of at least one of the coaches, although other on the forum have installed them by hand. A Lionel B60b baggage car is also on my wish-list... I have seen these in person and they have a high level of detail.

Any passenger train painted and decorated by Christine Braden.

K-line. Mostly 15 inch, Both heavyweights and streamlined. I will be selling them and switch to 18 inch. Don

21" K-Line. Granted, they 're pretty generic. But unless you're a stickler for detail and have a ton of cash to spend on GG Depot cars, they get the job done.

Their close coupling, ride height, distance from truck to vestibule, unobtrusive couplers, and super smooth rolling characteristics are what I like about them.

Hal

My only experience is with Lionel traditional and MTH Railking and Premier (3 rail). I prefer the longer cars of the Premier line. (I do not care for their diaphragms.) That said if I could find scale K-Line or Golden Gate or 3rd Rail around MTH pricing I would take a look at those. To me its how big is your layout, how detailed do you want and what are you willing to spend.

Then if you add a couple of cars to a 5 car set, the train is over 10 feet long plus the engines. Now its a question of terminal size, siding or yard space. I thoroughly enjoy watching my Milwaukee Road EP-2  pull a 7 car Hiawatha consist - very relaxing and satisfying.

ScoutingDad, I think I have every 15 inch Milwaukee passenger car made. Love the heavyweights behind the box cabs. Would love to get a couple of green Pullmans in as they did in the day. The only K-line streamline car I did't like was the full dome car. Somehow it looked very stubby. I switched it out with 15 inch MTH dome and they looked much better, though the color was slightly off. I will be happy with 18 inch cars.

These days I pretty much just buy GGD scale passenger cars. Pricey, but unmatched for quality and scale realism. I do have two long trains of K-Line 15" PRR coaches - beautiful cars, great in a long train.

Jan

I run mostly small freights but I did get the 2 rail Atlas Zypher set. It. is a beautiful set. I have run it pulled by 2 Sunset CB&Q E8s. The train is about 22' long.

Dick

Sunset/GGD are the nicest. MTH for value.

My best passenger cars are 21 inch K-Line cars.  NH Joe

For those of us space limited folks the Atlas Trainman 60 foot cars fit the bill for me.  Especially since they came as CNJ cars, perfect road name, perfect size for my two or three car commuter trains.

Budd. In the real world

In the model world, passenger cars for me have issues.  Scale cars based on cars from 1900 and so long, they overpower many layouts.  If too short, they do not look right either.

My favorites are some of the earliest MTH smooth sided cars which look like Williams cars on droids.  I think they are 18' long.  They do run on my O31 curves, but I have to take the lanterns off the O22 switches.  Got 3 UP ones 2nd hand.  Look good with UP Heritage.  Not all the detail, but in motion who is looking?

I like Lionel 15” Madison cars (not the 12” ‘baby madison’) from Lionel, built end of Century... I like the opening doors and passenger silhouettes....light at end of obs car nice (until they burn out).....

Depends on the road name. Since it is seldom an apples to apples comparison it's hard to pick the "best". With that said, I'm still looking for an accurate Wabash BlueBird, (Lionel got close), Illinois Central Panama Limited or City of New Orleans, nobody yet has made even a "good" stand in yet and lastly, any of the Chicago & North Western "400" streamlines. Looks like it will be a 401 Models train of built up cars for that one.

As people eluded to above, nobody makes the "best" passenger, all manufactures have some sort of compromise, it just depends on what level of compromise you are willing to make.

Charlie

Currently for ME it's Golden Gate Depot for the most realism

Many years back I picked up full scale length sets of CZ ( 2 rail) and 3 rail Circus HW and Sounder Commuter train. Really like these trains they look and run great. Have a variety of 18 inch MTH they look OK and run well for train shows and look good on the layout. All are 3 rail except for the CZ set. These are my favorite passenger sets. On the older trains I have been converting from the big power sucking bulbs to LED light strips.

I have some 2 rail as well and several of the Sunset/Golden Gate heavy weight passenger cars they look good with the 2 rail but had some problems with the ends of the cars warping down a bit so have to do some work to line up the scale couplers.  And light bleeds out through the roof to car body side on some cars.  These have been a little more fiddly in 2 rail to keep them running well in a long train.

Also have a set of Sunset/Golden Gate Budd Canadian Pacific streamlined Passenger train. These are about the best detailed and most expensive set I have, they really look great for the overall look and attention to detail. The one drawback is the 2 domes on the train; the joint for attaching the dome piece to the main passenger car body sticks out as it is cut through the fluted section  on the roof and the gap is quite wide. I also have the same type of passenger train models built in the 1960's so not as detailed  and used Mac Shop Brass dome kits and this looks much better where the dome joins the roof.

Have 1 set of 18 inch Williams cars but find they do not roll as well, need lots of lubrication to keep them rolling  and of course are not as detailed but cheaper and good for a train show for the kids to see trains running.

I like setting up at model train shows over the years and often run multiple different loops of matching set passenger trains.

@Charlie posted:

As people eluded to above, nobody makes the "best" passenger, all manufactures have some sort of compromise, it just depends on what level of compromise you are willing to make.

Charlie

Same observation here. I believe I have examples of all the types mentioned here save Atlas 21" cars. All have their pluses and minuses. If I had to thin my collection the ones I would save are the late MTH heavyweights and the Lionel 18" aluminum streamliners, though I would have to figure out how to close the gap on the Lionel cars.

Pete

For the price it's hard to beat he MTH passenger cars.  I will miss MTH when they close down because of this.

The favorites among the three manufacturers in my collection are the K-line Heavyweights...fading into history.  MTH has done a great job with variety of road names, quality, and price.  Gold Gate Depot is hard to beat for scale, quality, and detail  I'm in the process of replacing the diaphragms between K-Line cars.  After storage for quite a few years, the originals began to deteriorate. Any suggestions for replacement?