Availability of passenger coach underframes?

[Kevin S.]

Mr. Bachmann,

Will passenger coach underframes ever be available as a separate item?

There are starting to be a fair number of aftermarket kits for a nice rage of passenger coaches of one sort or an other that require a Bachmann passenger coach underframe.

It is such a shame to have to toss the body and roof, not to mention pay for the entire coach, when all you need is the underframe and possible the trucks.

Given the kitbasher mentality of many modelers in On30, this should be a reasonably popular item.

Thanks for reading/listening.

[scouts]

Mr. Bachmann:

Agree with Kevin and if you could also make passenger car roof's available for the same reason would be great

Thanks

[the Bach-man]

Hi, guys,
I'll pass that along...
the Bach-man

[fm_tx]

Count me in on this....frames and roofs would be great!

Paul

[Ken Clark]

   Kevin

    If I was not well into building a passenger train, I would take a look at the Scenery Unlimited S Scale
  passenger car roofs and underframes. (Aug 2012 MR, pg 16, has a review). they are darn close to the Bachmann Passenger car, which I have also assembled in to my Local Passenger service.

     Ken Clark
      GWN

[mabloodhound]

Excellent suggestion Ken, however a little pricey for just a roof or frame.

[railtwister]

Most of the kits I've seen that use passenger car underframes don't come with trucks, so even if you could buy the frames separately, you'd still have to purchase the trucks separately too. Frequently the roof is needed as well, so I'm not sure you'd be saving anything over buying a complete car...

Bill in FtL

[Kevin S.]

A lot of the projects I use these underframes for are more scratchbuilding than anything else.

I just need a passenger coach underframe.

For example, lots of MOW stuff is ex-passenger coach equipment that lost its roof and passenger trucks but retained the end steps, etc.

Since Bachmann makes the underframes for freight cars available, it is not beyond the stretch of imagination that passenger underframes might be made available.

[railtwister]

One thing to consider is why the freight car under-frames were made available in the first place. It was after a design revision by Bachmann that allowed the cars with the new frames to sit at a lower height and use center shank couplers rather than over shanks. I suspect they were intended more for modelers to upgrade their older cars to make them match the newer production models, rather than being aimed at scratch builders (who benefited more as a side effect).

While having them available separately would benefit kitbashers and scratchbuilders, would they be a large enough audience for Bachmann to expend the resources needed to bring them to market?

Bill in FtL