What is your favorite car or cars in your collection? Me, I have always had a weakness for the Solid Cold mechanical reefers. You can see 4 of the way too many I have rolling by in this shot. So what about you all?
Wow, favorite? I guess I would have to go back to one of the first "true" N scale cars I ever had. I had been playing with my 000 Treble 0 Lone Star trains for about 5 years when I got an Atlas boxed set. The cars and locomotive all came in neat little clear plastic jewel cases. The locomotive was built for Atlas by Rivarossi, a Fairbanks and Morris C-Liner. The cars all came from Austria. I was just fascinated by all the crisp detail molded into the bodies and the under frame. Lone Star was so crude by comparison. My brother had brought me a few Arnold cars from Germany, and they were cool but still a little clunky with no detail on the under frames like the Atlas cars. This car in particular always comes to mind when I flash back to those simpler times. I can remember just holding it and inspecting every detail.
I have no photos of them, but the 86' Bluford Shops and Trainworx autoparts boxcars. These cars are huge, rolling billboards for the owning railroad. Great details, snappy paint schemes, and I'm a sucker for bright colors. Close second: Red Caboose trilevel fully enclosed auto racks. The etched stainless flanks looks fantastic. Oh, and bright colors. Did I mention bright colors?
My favorite car -- ?? well.... that's a tough one.... I have so many that I really like. At the moment, I really like my SP impact car: Thanks, Wolf
Me too! Tankers, tankers and more tankers! All sizes, from shorty Beer Can ones to 17,600 gallon ones. The 17,600 ones are REALLY nice, similar to mtntrainman's but the problem with them is the delicate piping. Yes, they're somewhat flexible and stretchy but taking them to train shows and running them often leads to breakage to handling and transport. So they usually stay home. I usually take the 30' Beer Can ones and the 50' Modern Tanker ones (Roundhouse vintage) to shows as they don't have many delicate details.
A set of Revell Rapido boom crane and boom caboose are my favorite. I bought them from eBay for $20 several years ago. Joe
I could have written almost the exact same thing. About the only change is, my brother never brought me anything form Germany. He had never been there. My first Atlas car was the red Norfolk Southern composite gondola and first box type car was the Blatz reefer with the red top and ends, not the black. I always did like the looks of that KO&G car, however, and I did eventually get one when I collected all the A1G cars. I know I have at least two. One is for running and the other(s) are in the mentioned clear jewel cases. The other two A1G reefers are the National Dairy Despatch car and the Thermice car. And yes, it was all absolutely fascinating. Whenever I scraped enough money together to buy another car ($1.50), a 10 minute ride on my bike seemed like an hour to ride home from Nichol's Hobby shop to put it on my layout. SO, I guess I would have to say my favorite car is that N.S. gondola but the other first 5 -10 of the Atlas cars are close behind and I have always kept those with the Rapido couplers on them. Doug
What's my favorite car, all of them It would be very hard for me to narrow the choice down to just one or two, so here's a few that make the top of the list. My Red Caboose P&LE coil cars. Micro-Trains 36' Wood Sheathed Ice Reefer in the Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale paint scheme (There's a special story behind this car) Micro-Trains 51' 3-3/4" Rivet side Mechanical Reefer in the Klondike Bar paint scheme (I have both cars in the series) Yes I love Klondike Bars Then there's my E-R models NYC bay window caboose. And my Bluford Shops P&LE Transfer caboose But my very first collectable car is seen in the top of this photo. It's the Model Railroader 40th Anniversary Micro-Trains (Kadee) 40' boxcar in Al Kalmbach's Great Gulch, Yahoo Valley & Northern paint scheme. This car was offered in Model Railroader magazine as part of their 40th anniversary celebration. Like I said, I could go on and on, but I'll stop there for now
Well they would all be my scratch built or modified cars. A maintenance of way car that mounts a speeder and materials for the bridge and building gang. Bridge and Building Crew Rack and material car by John Moore posted May 31, 2006 at 6:03 PM And my powered rotary snow plow with tender pickup. Rotary by John Moore posted Mar 15, 2013 at 8:23 PM
Yeah, Klondike bars! They are especially good when they start getting a little melty while you're eating one. I have the MR 40th anniversary car, too. I thought it would never get here! "Great Gulch, Yahoo Valley, and Northern" I have had that memorized all these years. Doug
Wow, some really cool stuff everyone! My problem with my favorite, the Solid Cold reefers, is I tend to buy more every time I see them at a good price. Have about 14 or 15 now including one with a sound decoder in it. I have to admit, that observation you did is one cool car.
I tend to favor some of the rail cars that I have weathered and if I have to pick just one it would be this one. It was one of my entries in the weathering contest we had a few years ago. ASAB 7208 by nscalestation posted May 7, 2016 at 9:48 PM
Well you all know that I am an N scaler but one of my favorite cars is an HO ( oh forbid ) that was given to me at my retirement from 33 years of the Chevron battles. I am trying to decide on an appropriate N scale car to use for a bash of this car. This car, as built, was a 2 compartment car. I shall see. The model is an Overland Models brass production............