I am looking for good quality lighted passenger cars. I want the interior lights of the cars to be powered by the track. I am looking for passenger cars of the latter era of steam locomotives. Is there a manufacturer supplying such lighted passenger cars? By the way, I would greatly prefer the cars to be of aluminum construction. Any help will be greatly appreciative. Merry Christmas, Switch Track
Are you running DC or DCC? I would say your best bet is to go to the Walthers site and do some searching.
Rapido Trains. They have a website and offer very nice cars, if pricey. They are RTR and have what they call "Easy Peasy" lighting kits. Battery operated, too, so no flickering like the Bachmann sets.
traingeekboy, I do not know what DCC is. From the research I've done to date, there's not much available. I have a 50 year-old plus American Flyer set with a Hamilton Dome car and another similar lighted end car. I briefly set it up, and my six-year-old daughter was literally ecstatic watching the illuminated marvel wander around the track in the dark! If I can get the same result with HO, she'll become mollified for hours and I'll get a much deserved break!!! Merry Christmas, ST
COverton, I did look at Rapido, and while expensive, I did not cotton to the notion that illumination was powered by integral battery and not track. And that's what I want: put the cars on the track, turn the transformer knob, the steam engine pulls, the cars begin to move and the interior lights become lighted. It's America, right??? So why can't I have what I want??? I guess it's a good sign that season's stress has not caused a loss of my sense of humor!!! Merry Christmas, ST
The track powered lights tend to flicker, and they're on when track power is on...even if your cars are sitting on a siding...unless you toggle the power to the siding. So, unless they're LEDs, which they are not, they'll continue to burn away the life of their filaments even when not in use. With the battery design, you can run the lights when you decide it is important to have the interiors lit.
The flickering is off-putting for me, personally, and with the sloppy couplers makes the Bachmann Spectrum coaches a less than salutary purchase experience. They're nice enough cars, but not in the same league as the Walthers, and well outside what Rapido and Branchline are marketing. If you really aren't sold on the battery part, you can always wire a parking track with a toggle switch and leave track power shut off to that section when you aren't running your passenger cars. It unfortunately means having your passenger train on that section all the time when not in use. Merry Christmas to you.
I actually like the flicker Especially as the train is off in the distance I think the flicker is nice. Could be passengers moving around as easily as it could be a power supply problem to the cars. ConCors had some nice light weight passenger cars but you'd have to do seperate light kits. Battery powered would make it easier to move those about from car to car if you want to switch them to another line later.
In my experience, limited to the Bachmann cars, the entire interior flickers since the lights are in series. So, any resemblance to scale passengers moving about is lost on me. If only individual lights flickered it would be another impression, possibly.
I have some IHC heavy weight cars (Alton Limited) with track powered lights and they work with DCC but it eats up the power if you ask me and causes issues with the DCC locomotives. They tend to flicker when in motion. I've disconnected them. I have a few UP passenger cars that I installed the battery powered lights. They work when I want them and don't flicker and they don't effect the way the locomotives run. Now I need to buy a whole lot more of the battery powered kits an install them.
