Advise for online store / Rolling stock / Wishlist


D

DALDEI

Member
I'm new to this hobby, I've been having a great time laying track and building but now its time to get a few cars. I am modeling the steam/desiel era and have 2 DCC locos (a steam and a switcher). ( http://trains.calldei.com)

My wife wants to know what to get me for xmas so I told her I could use some cars. She's confused what to look for and honestly so am I !!!

I only have 2 cars I picked up at a local toy store, there are no good hobby stores near so its up to the internet. She wants me to make a list of suggestions which I thought would be easy but I'm dazed and confused.

I'm looking for decent quality cars (whatever that means !) low end $10-$30 range. I know I want metal wheels and either Kaydee mag couplers or I can put those on myself. But beyond that I have no clue what to even look for.
I'm not that picky for now as I'm just starting out so nearly anything would be great but I dont know what to look for, what all the buzzwords like "Ready to ruN" and "AAR" mean, whats a good online store to go to and what to suggest for my "wish list". I did try a http://hogtrainz.com/ which I've used for other parts (tortises ) and like them but I'm still confused as to what to look for !

Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks
 
Welcome to the hobby.
There are several online hobby shop e-tailers, adn everybody has their favorite.
I will list a few here for you.
But I will tell you what I do each xmas. I send "Santa" a letter {goes to MOH- My Other Half} in an email with direct links to the exact train items I want for xmas. That way "Santa" {MOH} doesn't get confused and can pick from my exact list so I am not disappointed. {I once even sent the "birthday fairy" the exact items I wanted for my B-day with strict rules of I WANT this!}
SO now for a few shops- oh BTW KaDee couplers only come on a very few cars, most of them you will have to switch out yourself, so don't forget to send "santa" a link to a package of the appropriate # KaDee couplers!
KaDee conversion chart is here:
http://www.kadee.com/conv/holist.pdf

KaDee cars site is here:
http://www.kadee.com/index.shtml
http://www.kadee.com/ca/allcars.htm

A few of my favorite online e-tailers:

http://www.wholesaletrains.com/HOProducts2.asp?Scale=HO&Item=a

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/default.asp

http://www.internethobbies.com/

http://www.walthers.com/

http://www.trainworldonline.com/default.php

just to name a few. Good luck, now find some stuff you want with the search engines on each site and EMAIL "Santa"!!! Ho Ho Ho!
________
Avandia lawsuit
 
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Let your fingers run wild on the internet and have a good long look at what is available; this hobby is certainly different than even 10 years ago, let alone when I started dabblin' in it 35 years ago...here's a shortlist of websites..and hopefully others will chime in with some I've missed...
http://www.accurail.com/accurail/
http://www.atlasrr.com/
http://www.athearn.com/
http://www.bowser-trains.com/
http://www.walthers.com/
http://www.branchline-trains.com/

Plus the fact there's a good dozen other manufacturers that have folded, but you will still find their cars on sale at model train shows. Good luck, and enjoy the hobby!
 
"Ready to Run" simply means that the car is all built up and meant to be able to be put on the rails and run right out of the box; not kit-built or user-assembled. That's the majority of stuff these days.

AAR = Association of American railroads. If you see that in the name of a model it's referring to the specific design of the car (eg. "1937 AAR Standard Boxcar")

BranchLine Trains and Intermountain are sources for good models. Atlas is also good quality but not necessarily a large amount of 1950s era models (you mentioned steam/diesel transition)

Athearn is decent, but some of their older tooling is a little spotty or crude when it comes to detail. Unfortunately most of their stuff that is more appropriate for your time frame falls into that category. Most of their newer models have been more modern cars.

Accurail has a good variety of car models that are very economical. They are mostly kits but go together very easily, and while the detail is not extremely fine, the cars themselves are generally pretty accurate.
 
I would recommend cars by Atlas, Athearn, Exact Rail, and Walthers. They all should be within your $10-30$ range.

For the trasistion era, I would get some 40' - 50' box cars, flat cars, tank cars, and gondolas. Any roads are fine just mix it up a bit. If you get some cars that aren't in your era, no big deal it's your railroad.

Also passenger cars. Depending on your minimum radius on your layout, you can get 70' and if you have 24" min radius get some 85' streamliner or heavyweight cars. You can find some deals on Walthers.com on some older runs of cars.
 
I don't think ExactRail has anything close to his time frame; but one thing I forgot about is the Proto2000 series of cars. Formerly Life-Like, this brand is now offered by Walthers, and all the Proto2000 cars are ~1950s cars.

Also, the Pennsylvania gondola from Tangent is an absolutely beautiful car and should be appropriate for your time frame.

Also worth mentioning is Kadee. In addition to couplers they have some very nice high end models which are mostly 1950-1960 prototypes.
 
Hey go to www.walthers.com and create a "wishlist." Its a great way for both you and your wife to keep track of what you want. You can even let others view your wishlist. You are not restricted to Walthers items either.
 
You can't get everything at Walthers though. Walthers does not carry Athearn, ExactRail or Tangent. They do distribute most of the others though.
 
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