Where did all the brass go?

Nice discussion Jerry.....

But I would add that if the brass manufacturers were being as successful as the plastic manufacturers, then they would also be uping the game when if came to details. They would also have made the switch to all wheel pickup in the tender etc and the addition of larger flywheels and my what a locomotive we would have.

The IM cab forwards look really good, but from what I have seen, they can't really pull very much. Certainly nowhere near the car counts I have seen from my Hallmark Northerns. I am still not that impressed by the pulling ability of palstic steam.

 

The only problem with Atlas that I have encountered personally is they are unwilling to listen to us modelers as to what WE want. I suggested to them to produce a CF 7 and they told me that only having one RR that owned them there is no need to produce the engine. I then informed them of all the shortlines that owned then after ATSF got rid of the CF 7s and they were still unwilling to listen. I then suggested to them about doing a chop nose GP 7/9 and it stilll rang on deaf ears. :tb-mad::thumbs_down:

 

I would like to see more brass bridges, like the ones Overland has done in the past.

 

I have several Key brass models (all PRR steam locomotives). I didn't see much chance of many of them becoming available in plastic anytime soon, and I could afford them at the time of purchase. I couldn't afford any brass now that I'm retired, and really I'll be totally happy if someone makes a K4s in plastic. I run DC, so the difficulty of installing DCC is not an issue for me. I will say that every one of my brass locomotives is a good runner and reasonable puller. And despite my present lack of means I'd think hard about purchasing a brass P&LE 2-8-4! Unfortunately I probably couldn't survive a year without eating.

 

I don't need a CF7. I want a GP38 in New Haven colours. Hey, they will produce one! Wow, Atlas really makes what its customers like!

You see: everything is completely personal...

 

Jerry,

Your experience is the exception to the rule from what I have seen and heard. Most of the cab forwards I have seen in action have a difficult time pulling 30 cars around a level NTrak layout. Could be that these are the lemons of the build, but I haven't seen or heard from my friends that they can pull any more than about 35 cars. Where as my Hallmark 4-8-4 pulled 88 cars and a cboose without breaking a sweat. May have pulled more but that was all the cars I had brought to run.

I have also ran my Hallmark 2-10-4 with 112 cars plus the caboose too.

I have yet to see any plastic locomotive pull over 100 cars. The Athearn Challenger can come close with 80 cars or so. Haven't see the Big Boy in action but it may be one to come closer to the 100 car mark or even over.

The Kato GS-4 doesn't stand a chance at any more than about 50 cars.

I am sure the good amount of cars a locomotive can pull is pretty much up to the individual. In my model world, I use 80 cars as my nominal train length.

If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say between 1/3 - 1/2 the cars the prototype regualery would pull.

 

My Key cab forwards (samhongsa) will pull about 50-60 cars each. The Nakamura cab forward pulled over 90 and it didn't have TT's. My IM unit will pull about 40 before it stalls out. I must say, it was cool seeing a 100 car string with a cab forward at the lead, middle and pushing during an NTRAK outing last fall. I havn't reached the limit yet on my CC 2-10-2 yet, I don't have enough cars, the thing is a brute.

With advanced prototyping and all the new manufacturing gizmos these days, it is safe to say that plastics will allow for the small limited runs that brass used to have. I just wish the manufacturers would up the prices a bit on some of these locos to get the small numbers out there in the models that people would like to see (yes we all need to stop being cheap for this to be done).

Fox Valley, pls make a SP MT-4 or a 4-10-2, or perhaps a PRR Duplex or Mountain, I would be more than willing to pay a higher price to get these on the shelves.

 

I have to say my AC12 struggles around the Ntrak layout with about 30 cars but I'd have to add as well that my Hallmark 2-10-4 doesn't do any better, so it looks like everyone makes the occasional lemon.

 

Anyone who decides to do it can put me down for any Santa Fe steam they do but it would have to be someone I could trust to get it right first time because there would be likely no second run for them to work the bugs out.

I wonder what the amount of Hiawathas run was compared to brass.

 

First of all let me admit that I only own ONE brass steam locomotive - a Hallmark ATSF 4-8-4.

But I've worked with a lot, including some client repowerings.

N scale brass grew from HO brass and some of the same importers, but I think the customer base and market is entirely different. In HO, they seem to be more like art forms. Lots of collectors. I'll guess that only about 25-30% are actual runners. The rest get squirred away in cases and boxes, like N scalers do with MT cars. And at least in the old days, rarely painted. Those that did do runners were also artists and machinists and thought nothing of spending a lot of extra work on a 'RTR' locomotive.

But in N... you don't see the same display collectors. If you just want to collect brass, collect HO. N scalers like to run, driven by the unavailability of a locomotive EXCEPT in brass. So you saw a lot more prepainted locomotives, probably the majority, as its just so difficult. Somehow that looses the 'case of brass' display case appeal, too.

But the mechanisms were just downsized HO mechanisms, and the majority just didn't run all that well. Particularly the diesels, but also the steam. The only company that seemed to 'get it' was Hallmark at the end, when they did a brass ATSF SD26 that was on a Kato SD45 mechanism. Until the Atlas SD24 came out, that was a really good choice and commanded a premium price. And surprise, the Atlas SD24/26 has better detail, better handrails, better paint, and runs very well.

So....if it doesn't look like art (brass), doesn't run that well, costs more...and doesn't necessarily look better than RTR plastic... yikes.

And other than a few nutbags such as myself, most folks seem very reluctant to put N brass under the knife to modify or 'fix' them.... it's a little scary when you know there simply is NO SOURCE of repair parts if you slip or loose something.

The only paradigm shift I've seen (more on rolling stock than locomotives) is that photoetched brass is just an excellent medium for N, and the availability of home CAD systems and photoetch contractors makes it much more possible to do limited kit runs in photoetch brass. Look at the stuff that Bob Knight (TrainCAT) is doing, it would put any oriental brass producer to shame. I think that's a positive step, and they aren't that impossible to assemble. Where you could do that over top of a commercial steam mechanism it might work. The missing part is the brass castings - that's still an expensive process to do in limited runs.

The tooling costs for injection molding are just so high divided back over the number of pieces that I think its rather borderline to expect a whole lot out of a plastic limited run. When the math gets this tight you see manufacturers getting cold feet. Throw in a bunch of problems, complaints, and warranty repairs and it starts to not be a whole lot of something for fun and profit.

Maybe the common parts like compressors, other detail parts could be shared in plastic or resin and the boilers and superstructures in etched brass? You loose that 'artsy' all-brass feel though.

The only reason I've done what I've done is that I work backwards - start with an available third party mechanism and see what I can do with it as an add-on.

 

I have heard that some brass runs saw as few as 100-200 locomotives. I myself would be more than happy to spend a few extra pennies to get a locomotive in plastic that would be in a limited run status.

As far as brass goes, I qualify as a nutbag. I find them a joy to work with, they are easy to work on, easy to remotor and it takes some simple tools to work on them. I've managed to modify all of my cab forwards, they now pull like mules and are super quiet.

Fox Valley, pls make a SP MT-4 or 4-10-2, I would also love to see a PRR Duplex or Mountain.

 

The Hallmark Samhongsa micro-geared diesels of the mid-1980s were very good, (once one replaced the nylon gears in the trucks with brass ones supplied by Samhongsa). I bought about 20 of them. They were able to crawl like an Intermountain F-unit, and all were geared to run at compatible speeds (F7s, RSD-5s, S4 switchers, etc.).

I never finished that layout, and so most of mine will never be used (superceeded by the excellent present-day ***painted*** plastic diesels). However I did extensively modify a few of them to SP prototype, and may still use the RSD-5s. Since I'm still using DC, the old Samhongsa RSD-5s may be speed-compatible with my IM F-units. I don't yet use DCC...

MH

 

Oh I wouldn't say that . . .

 

Here is the thing. Plastic was always expensive to design and tool, but cheep to produce per unit. This has changed in the last 5 years or so. Anyone with tallent can design a model on the computer and have it tooled by CnC mill while they sleep. I remember one model train company rep telling me they actually left the mill to run tooling while they went home for Christmas. I don't know if that was true, but the days of hand tooling a die long gone.

And that was the benifit of brass: low overhead. You didn't need a guy tooling one car for months that would only be ordered by 100 people. But now, that car can be designed and tooled much less time and with better detail than brass.

Where is brass going? Ask BLMA and TrainCat2. Both use computers to design their work. TC2 relies on the modeler to build the kit while BLMA has the kits built and painted with a much higher price tag.

Personally I think TC2 has the right idea. Those of us who worry about getting the model exactly right and refuse to use stand-ins are most likly to build kits.

 

One...brass runs poorly....BUNK! Early units yes, but later units NO! Late model Key steamers have Faulhaber motors and universal drive shafts. They run fine.

Two...has anyone noticed that no one...NO ONE ...plastic or brass... is producing steam right now? Hiawatha was announced a while ago and just arrived. Cabforward is in rerun. No one finds value in N Scale steam production. I predict maybe you will see a few boutique shops open that will build CNC produced brass or brass/hybrid models. But not till the economy gets way better. And then expect the prices to be high. And pay the price if you want the detail/performance....

Run superpower!
Dave