Passenger cars for 18' radius


W

weshamilton

New Member
I am returning after a number of years to model railroading. I have a small HO layout. I'm wondering what sort of steam era - 1930-40's passenger cars would look halfway decent and run on 18" radius track. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Wes
 
Your best bet would be older Athearn streamline cars that are a scale 72' long. They are not the corrrect prototypical length but they wil work on smaller curves and the don't look bad as long as you don't get a bunch of rivet counters show up. :) If you don't want streamlined cars, the old Roundhouse Harriman cars were a scale 60' long. Some people don't like the way they look but I kind of like that arch roof. You can find both types on e-bay.
 
Rivarossi 1920 era passenger cars

Thanks for your quick response. I was looking on ebay and saw numerous ads for rivarossi 1920 era pass. cars. The dealer claims they can run on 18 inch radius. Any idea of quality or if in fact they do run on 18 in radius?
Wes
 
MDC Roundhouse made some 60 ft. Harriman passenger cars. They seem to be a bit scarce now that Walthers doesn't stock them.
http://www.3rdrail.com/reservation.html#harriman
Try the above link, then click on "Harriman" to give you an idea of what they look like. If you click on the photo of the model you'll get a larger picture. The ones on this site are brass and cost the big $$$
This next link is to a site that has some of themin HO and much much cheaper. However they're CN or CP
http://www.udisco.com/hobbies/inv/MDC.HTM
Your best bet for getting these may be train shows.

Cheers
 
passenger cars and 18 inch radius

Thank you all for your responses. If anyone has any info on the above mentioned rivarossi let me know. Again, thanks.
 
I have a few of the Rivo 1920s heavyweight cars. I do like them, they just look right to me, but I think they're a tad oversized when compared to say an IHC heavyweight. I have not compared it to a Spectrum or Walthers HW yet.

These cars have the coupler mounted on the trucks, so they should go around 18" curves as long as you're pulling. If you're backing up, this kind of setup is ripe for derailing, because the force is on the trucks, and not the body.

Speaking of which, I think they come with horn-hook couplers; you can replace them with Kadees if you buy a conversion set. Or, an alternative is to go with the McHenry drop-in replacement. Or, do like I did which was to body-mount the coupler. But, if you do that and do prototypical spacing between cars, there's a good chance they won't handle the 18" curves any longer. Mainly because the cars are too close together and the outswing is too much.

Kennedy
 
Thanks, Kennedy. I think I will stick w some of the above listed suggestions. The rivarossi's sound a bit too dicy for me.
Wes
 
weshamilton said:
Thanks for your quick response. I was looking on ebay and saw numerous ads for rivarossi 1920 era pass. cars. The dealer claims they can run on 18 inch radius. Any idea of quality or if in fact they do run on 18 in radius?
Wes
Click to expand...

The IHC and Rivarossi HW cars are similar and will work on 18" radius. They may not look right but they don't have any problems. The IHC cars have the coupler mounted to the truck which makes them pull correctly. I have a set of Alton Limited HW cars from that era and they worked fine.

My problem with 18" radius track were the steam locomotives that are associated with the HW cars - a 4-6-2 is okay but 4-8-2 or 4-8-4 locomotives don't much care for 18" track.
 
Here's some pics of my repainted Life-Like "Scene Master" passenger cars, following my repainted Tyco-Mehano Chattanooga.


MVC-496F.jpg


MVC-497F.jpg


MVC-498F.jpg


MVC-499F.jpg


MVC-500F.jpg


Rotor
 
OldGettysk said:
They look pretty good Rotor !!
Click to expand...

Thanks OldGettysk...I did those 13 years ago, and they get run all the time.

I did notice something in the pics that I never noticed in person...I need to paint the tender and car wheels. Those wheels stand out like a sore thumb in the pics! :rolleyes:

And I need better lighting for pics. ;)

Rotor
 
Rotor, thanks for the pics. The card look great. Nice paint job. Are they running on 18" radius track? They seem to be exactly what I'm looking for.
Wes
 
weshamilton said:
Rotor, thanks for the pics. The card look great. Nice paint job. Are they running on 18" radius track? They seem to be exactly what I'm looking for.
Wes
Click to expand...

Actually Wes, I shot the pics on the 22" radius track. The Chessie was running on the 18" track, so I just set up on the 22" for the pics, since it was easier. :rolleyes:

They do run fine on the 18" radius on my layout, though.

BTW...there are 2 versions of these cars, one with diaphragms, and one without. These have the diaphragms.

Rotor
 
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