Pecos River Brass - 1861 - Passenger Car, Lightweight, Budd - Undecorated

Specific Item Information: Pecos River Brass used Kumata of Japan to make these beautiful plated cars. PRB's 9-car 1951 Super Chief was divided up into three sub-sets. This auction is for the first of the sub-sets: #1861 The sets were broken down as follows: #1861 - Baggage (3432 series), RPO (80 series), observation (Vista series) #1862 - 10-6 Budd sleeper (Pine series), 10-6 ACF sleeper (Palm series), 4-4-2 ACF sleeper (Regal series) #1863 - Dome (500 series), diner (600 series), Dormitory/Buffet/Lounge (1339 series)

Model Information: Beautiful hand painted detail brass models of North American prototypes.

Prototype History: In the post-war period, passenger rail service boomed. In order to increase efficiency, the railroads set to replacing their old wood, steel and concrete heavyweight passenger cars with newer lightweight, streamlined cars. The new cars were made from stainless steel, aluminum and Cor-Ten steel. These cars required less motive power to pull and were cheaper to manufacture. Production was also concentrated in a few manufacturers rather than each railroad making its own. This led to standardization which further reduced costs. The new "lightweight" cars were also given "streamlined" designs to make them more visually appealing. Budd, Pullman Standard and ACF were all well known manufacturers of these cars.

Budd was well known for their corrugated cars (for which they held a patent).

Road Name History: Although they may be molded in color, unpainted and unlettered, undecorated products are marketed to modelers who seek to custom decorate their models for private roads and/or road and/or company names that were not commercially produced by any of the major manufacturers.

Undecorated models are frequently also unassembled or only partially assembled and required modelers to be comfortable with glue, paint and sometimes solder in order to prepare their models for display. Materials for these models can vary but often include plastic, pewter and resin. Models may or may not come with decals or other decorations such as plastic signage, railings and ladders to enhance the appearance of the final product.

Manufacturer Information: A Japanese manufacturer of N Scale brass trains.