# Favorite rolling stock brand?



## Shadowplayer (Oct 31, 2014)

Curious about this. Recently I got a Bowser 2 bay covered hopper. It looks great, and for the size it has nice weight to it. Runs great even on my somewhat not smooth track. Might be my new favorite brand. Ordered some more cars, should be here by the end of the week, maybe next week.


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## sawgunner (Mar 3, 2012)

My favorites are Intermountain and any of the Atlas series cars trainman and master line


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## little fat buddy (Jan 14, 2011)

so far for me its been walthers any of there series are nice and exact rails stuff is nice but pricey if you can find them discounted grab em you won't regret it there super nicely detailed and i have to agree with the atlas stuff too.


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## Shadowplayer (Oct 31, 2014)

Exact Rails is the name? Never heard of them.


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## sawgunner (Mar 3, 2012)

Exact Rail is AWESOME!!! I have them in N and HO but due to the price they are not among my favorites


the middle car in this pic is Exactrail


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Tangent makes a nice selection of rolling stock as well.....

https://www.tangentscalemodels.com


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## Shadowplayer (Oct 31, 2014)

While I made this thread...SLIGHTLY off topic

Any help IDing this car?


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## PhillipL (May 5, 2012)

I am a big fan of Kadee boxcars, coal hoppers and covered hoppers. I also like some of the Walthers mainline cars and Atlas Trainman (recently got a really great PC box car).


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## ssgt (Jan 8, 2013)

Shadowplayer said:


> While I made this thread...SLIGHTLY off topic
> 
> Any help IDing this car?



Looks to me like an Accurail 2 bay hopper.I have 45 Accurail 2 bay hoppers,though it could be a bowser kit.


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

Depends on the car type. I like the ole Roundhouse 34 foot reefers with the cast floors. Always well waited and good runners. Also like the Roundhouse kits for ore cars, they too had cast frames. I have used several of the Tyco gondolas, they are great for yard fillers and generic enough to work for anything, cheep to at shows. ATT made a set of shorty passenger cars that work great for lines with tighter curves without looking out of place. I prefer Athearn's passenger kits for all other rails. 

Overall my favorites tend to be Blue Box and Roundhouse era kits. They are simple to build, generally run well with little tweaking and are generic enough to make into what you want. 

Best part is my oldest son was able to but together his first Blur Box at five with little help. Painting it was a proud moment for him, difficult on those cleaning the surrounding area.


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## Shadowplayer (Oct 31, 2014)

ssgt said:


> Looks to me like an Accurail 2 bay hopper.I have 45 Accurail 2 bay hoppers,though it could be a bowser kit.


I bought it as whole back years ago, not as a kit. Think it is Accurail.


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## Chet (Aug 15, 2014)

My favorites are Kadee cars, although I only have a few due to the price. I managed to pick up a couple for $20 while visiting another model railroader out of state when he took me to a swap meet. Things were closing down and I made a offer and it was accepted. The details are great and I like the newer closer to scale couplers. Won't pay retail for them though. Haven't gotten around to weathering them yet. 










I started building my rolling stock fleet over 25 years ago and a lot of the cars available now weren't available. I picked up a lot of undecorated Athearn BB kits and custom painted them for my freelance railroad. 




























Many, if not most of them have had the trucks replaced with Kadee spring trucks, and then lightly weathered. When they are in a string of cars going down the rails, it's hard to tell them from the more pricey cars. 

I have a couple of Accurails, Con Cor and older Tichy cars which I also like. Being that I now have more freight cars than can fit on my layout, I have not bought many iin years.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Very nice job on those Athearn cars! The only thing I don't like about the older Athearn cars is the clunky corner foot stirrups...the "new" Athearn cars have been re-tooled with finer details for the stirrups....

But those paint apps and lettering you did is fantastic!


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## Chet (Aug 15, 2014)

Old_Hobo said:


> Very nice job on those Athearn cars! The only thing I don't like about the older Athearn cars is the clunky corner foot stirrups...the "new" Athearn cars have been re-tooled with finer details for the stirrups....
> 
> But those paint apps and lettering you did is fantastic!


Thanks for the complement. These were done in the early 80's and at the time there really wasn't a lot available for choices. I ended up picking up around 30 assorted undecorated cars and worked on them while waiting for goodies to keep the layout moving forward. Din't like the stirrups either, but as I mentioned, when they're part of a train moving down the track even simple cars like these blend right in with more expensive cars. 

Along with the Atheran BB kits like this one










I also did a bit of modifications on some of them to give them a bit of a different look like this caboose. A few windows were plugged and a few grabs installed, along with removing the springs from the Kadee trucks and installing leaf springs. 










I also built a few wood kits, which I really like a lot, like these cabooses. Guess I just had too much time on my hands waiting for orders to come in. 



















I still have a number of old Silver Streak kits sitting on the shelf that have yet to be built.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Very nice!

Did you do your own multi-colored (waterslide?) logo decals for the G C&W?


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## Chet (Aug 15, 2014)

There's a bit of a story behind this. Another modeler and I we planning out layouts and they tied together. We have a fictional history. The parent company, or partial owner was the Northern Pacific. Thus the Monad, reversed. The NP wanted to run south and connect to the Union Pacific Railroad which, at the time, did have track into West Yellowstone, MT. ICC regulations in our twisted history prohibited a direct connection, so the Logan Valley came about. It connected to the NP at Logan, MT and ran south to Gallatin Gateway, MT where it had an interchange with the Gallatin Canyon & Western, which did run south to West Yellowstone. My friend and I were each building our layouts, and I was custom Painting locomotives and rolling stock for both railroads. My friend has money and I ordered custon decals for him. They were only in 2 colors for the herald, with a clear spot where the red is. Before applying the decal, a bit of red paint was applied where the clear area was to get a three color herald. I had kids growing up at the time and didn't want to cough up the bucks for custom decals for the Logan Valley, which is all done letter by letter, which was a pain. 

Unfortunately my friend, Robin suffered a fatal heart attack and we never completed his layout. In my twisted history, the Logan Valley bought out the GC&W, which is represented by hidden staging tracks in th elayout. I also have a few locomotives painted for the GC&W. The railroad is so busy the it hasn't had time to repaint the locomotives or rolling stock yet. 

Did I bore you???


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## Grabbem88 (Feb 24, 2012)

Ill say accurail as well look just like that.

Favorites love my tangents p2k tank cars walthers gold line has hit and miss

Bowser executive are nice

Atlas master line and trainman if you like adding detail to a gray foundation 
Intermountain has nice hoppers too


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Chet said:


> Did I bore you???


Absolutely not! It's great to hear the behind-the-scenes of our railroads!


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

ssgt said:


> Looks to me like an Accurail 2 bay hopper.I have 45 Accurail 2 bay hoppers,though it could be a bowser kit.


None of the above.

Walthers. Currently discontinued though as far as I can tell.

While they're all 2-bay kits, this one is much longer over the body than the Accurail and Bowser 55-ton 2-bay hoppers.


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## Dr Bob (Dec 31, 2013)

After reading this thread, I went to my favorite online retailer and looked at some of the rolling stock. Being new again to the hobby since some 25 years I was extremely impressed with the details, scale and quality of today's freight cars. I was also shocked by the price. OUCH!! I saw some multi bay closed hoppers close over $40 each! I am sure I will buy some of these find products over time, but I think, right now, my favorite rolling stock is my collection of my kit cars (Athearn BB and others) from 25 years ago. My plan is to work on upgrading these with metal wheels and other details.


Dr Bob


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## Chet (Aug 15, 2014)

I, like you am more than happy with my bb kits. All of the wheels, if not the entire trucks were changed to Kadee products years ago and have been operating just fine for over 25 years. Like I mentioned before, when they are in a train with more expensive cars, you really can't notice much difference.


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## dsertdog56 (Oct 26, 2014)

I probably don't have a favorite brand, since most of my time is spent trying to find parts to fix the stuff I have. Parts to upgrade and or super detail seem to be available from a couple of sources. I've read a lot of information from this forum that will help me in the future. 
I love Silver Streak and the older Roundhouse/Ulrich/MDC stuff.


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## Mr.Buchholz (Dec 30, 2011)

Bachmann and Athearn. I don't use anything but those two, and I hate Tyco with a passion.

-J.


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## DavefromMD (Jul 25, 2013)

I like the Bachmann silver series and Atlas Trainman line. Good value, roll nicely. Don't know how they are detail-wise, I'm not much into detail. I just like to run them.


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## Luke 221 (Feb 12, 2013)

I really like my Atlas Trainman series of rolling stock. Runners up would be Accurail, Athearn Blue Box (nostalgia and whats not to like) Also I really like Con-Cor covered hoppers for some reason.


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## Gramps (Feb 28, 2016)

This thread is from 5 years ago, how did you find it?


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