Atlas Trainman vs. Master Series

[One of One-Sixty]

As you can tell by the next following questions I have been out of the hobby for awhile and am trying to get a grasp on everything going on.

How different are these two Atlas product lines? What is the real main difference between them?  And finally are products offered for one line offered for the other later on?

[POVC]

The main differences between the Atlas Master and Trainman lines are level of detail and price.

The Master line is their newer tooling, with many add-on details and etched parts.  Most are weighted to NMRA standards, have proto-typical ride height, and include multiple variants.  The additional level of detail means they're more expensive to manufacture and assemble, so the price is higher ($15+ per car usually).

The Trainman line is mostly older tooling (pre-1990), although they have tooled 5 (or is it 6) new cars in the Trainman line in the last couple of years.  The Trainman stuff features molded on detail and tends to be a bit underweight.  They have fewer parts to assemble and are therefore cheaper ($10-$12 each).  Trainman cars are also done in larger production runs, with fewer road names/numbers; the goal is to make sure a specific car "type is "almost" always available, even if a specific road name isn't.

Both feature high quality painting and printing.

Hope this helps,

Tim

[Brakie]

As you can tell by the next following questions I have been out of the hobby for awhile and am trying to get a grasp on everything going on.

How different are these two Atlas product lines? What is the real main difference between them?  And finally are products offered for one line offered for the other later on?

None as far as quality.

As was stated the "Master Series" has etched parts.

Now for the shocker.

Place the Trainman and the Master Series cars in a train consists containing Fox Valley cars,Athearn cars,Intermountain,Exactrail, older Roundhouse and MT its hard to determine which is which brand.

[sirenwerks]

Place the Trainman and the Master Series cars in a train consists containing Fox Valley cars,Athearn cars,Intermountain,Exactrail, older Roundhouse and MT its hard to determine which is which brand.

Yeah, unless you start paying attention; to ride height, movable doors, grab iron thickness, separate ladders, etc.

Tim gave a good answer. And you can run all the cars together and it won't hurt anybody either, but there's a difference when you start noticing details. They may not come out without magnifying you\r own vision capacities, but when you start photographing the models it starts to become more evident.

[Brakie]

Bryan,Due to the truck mounted couplers the manufacturers insist on using the ride height is off on all brands..In fact careful observation of the same train consist as I mention in my last reply will show the roof line is about the same on all cars except the high cube cars which is taller..

As far as details...N Scale still lacks in that department and pointing out the oversized handrails proves nothing other then they are oversized and sticks out like a sore thumb..

Some day we may see scale size handrails and stirrups.

[bbussey]

Due to the truck mounted couplers the manufacturers insist on using the ride height is off on all brands..In fact careful observation of the same train consist as I mention in my last reply will show the roof line is about the same on all cars except the high cube cars which is taller..

That general statement is absolutely untrue on a number of points.  All BLMA, Bluford and ESM rolling stock stands at a prototypical height.  Various models produced by Atlas, Athearn and IMRC (the three Atlas USRA boxcars, Athearn Airslides and IMRC 60' flat immediately come to mind) stand at a prototypical height.  All ESM rolling stock comes with body-mounted couplers.  All BLMA rolling stock except for the Top Gon comes with body-mounted couplers.  Recent and announced future releases from Athearn, Bluford, IMRC and MTL come and will come with body-mounted couplers.   Every N scale caboose on the market today has body-mounted couplers and stands at a prototypical height.  Don't lump in current tooling with that of twenty and thirty years ago and claim that "none" of it is correct.

As far as details...N Scale still lacks in that department and pointing out the oversized handrails proves nothing other then they are oversized and sticks out like a sore thumb..
Some day we may see scale size handrails and stirrups.

Won't ever happen.  They may get more fine, but they never will be to scale.  If they were, you wouldn't be able to see them with the naked eye.  Not easily anyway.  Full size grab irons are 3/4 inches in diameter, which scales down to 0.0046 in N scale.  Stirrups have a similar profile.

Also keep in mind that, the closer to exact scale fidelity you get, the tighter the tolerance when it comes to issues such as track radius.  People want fine scale models, but they still want to be able to run them on their existing 10", 11" and 12" radius trackage.

[Brakie]

Bryan wrote:That general statement is absolutely untrue on a number of points.
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Not for the manufacturers I mention..Every car I have rides high.I have cars from Atlas,Athearn,IM,MT,ER,FVM,BLMA,older Roundhouse and Red Caboose..

We could be discussing cars from different eras.I don't have any cars from the manufacturers you mention other then the Top Gons from BLMA and all my Atlas cars has truck mounts..
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Bryan:All ESM rolling stock comes with body-mounted couplers.  All BLMA rolling stock except for the Top Gon comes with body-mounted couplers.  Recent and announced future releases from Athearn, Bluford, IMRC and MTL come and will come with body-mounted couplers.
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Those few examples doesn't make it true for the majority of today's cars including Atlas's "Master Series".We're not talking about tooling that is 20-30 years old-FVM and ExactRail has shown that.
It will be many years before body mounted couplers becomes a standard simply because of the curves you mention.

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As far as scale handrails I agree they will be fragile to the touch but,I won't completely rule them out..Of course that is many years down the road.

[tom mann]

its hard to determine which is which brand.

Blindfolded

[One of One-Sixty]

Thanks, this discussion helps greatly, and made it a lot easier to decided which cars I am going after.

[Brakie]

Blindfolded

Not quite..

Stevie Wonder can see that there isn't much difference in the brands of cars I mention.

[Mark5]

I would examine the Trainman cars on a case by case basis. Some of the line consists of 30+ year old tooling. There are some quite nice cars in there though:



Mark

[Dave V]

Trainman is an interesting beast.  This 40' double-door boxcar is new tooling and has some very nice detail...  but has that infamous Trainman super-deep roofwalk:



Now, let's take a look at a few cars in a train.  In order from left to right, we have the end of a Trainman boxcar, a Deluxe Innovations boxcar, an Atlas USRA rebuild, and another Atlas Trainman 40-footer.



You can draw your own conclusions.  I find the mix doesn't bother me when the train is rolling, but when a cut of cars is standing still, I am aware of the disparity of detail.

Now, Here's the new Athearn PS2 2-bay.  The detail is stunning, in spite of the truck-mounted couplers.



Etched metal walkways, free-standing grab irons, closer to scale ladders, etc.  It's a shame Athearn didn't go the extra mile and add body-mounts.  After all, the car is short enough that it could easily take a 9 3/4" curve with body-mounts.

ExcatRail is extremely hot, but again, doing the truck-mounted thing makes it feel like it's giving up a little.



Lastly, there's ESM:



I can't say enough about how ESM has upped the ante.  Body-mounts on a 65' car in N scale is gutsy, but the right thing to do.

And then there's ESM:

[Brakie]

Dave,Compare the modern 50' boxcars..Those are the true look alikes between brands.

Tomorrow I try to post a picture of a string of boxcars before going to the club if not I will post a picture after I return.

[DKS]

its hard to determine which is which brand.

I'm not sure where to begin with this. So, since pictures often speak for themselves, here are just a few random comparisons...

Can anyone guess which is Atlas Trainman and which is Micro-Trains?



Incidentally, it says quite a lot about Micro-Trains when one considers the tooling is roughly from the same era.

Here are a couple of airslides. One is Atlas Trainman, the other is Athearn.



Now here's a comparison that speaks to the original post in this thread: Atlas Trainman versus Atlas Master Line...



The Atlas Trainman Line is basically a catch-all for old tooling that has long past its prime as well as some newer tooling that they don't consider top-of-the-line. It's a way of keeping the bucks coming in to help pay for higher-quality tooling for their Master Line. That said, some newer Trainman releases are quite good; for example, their Magor caboose. It's a clever marketing approach that lets them cover a wider market.

[Hyperion]

Dave,Compare the modern 50' boxcars..Those are the true look alikes between brands.

Tomorrow I try to post a picture of a string of boxcars before going to the club if not I will post a picture after I return.

Well when you qualify the statement down that much -- a string of 50' modern boxcars rolling by, it's not quite so hard to see where you're coming from.

Modern boxcars are just that -- boxes.  Once you ditch the roofwalk, there's not really much opportunity to display additional detail and even less when looking at them from the side.  And the Trainman 50'6" boxcar, like their Magor caboose, is actually a pretty decent model at twice the price.  Not that some of the newer boxcars aren't worth their money, the detail difference is definitely there, but it's not glaringly obvious while the car is moving.

I think most would agree that if you're just looking to build large trains of modern 50' boxcars you're just as well off buying Trainman as anything else; once weathered they're amazing cars considering a $5-7 street price.  But look at almost every other car outside of that one particular boxcar, the other 20-some-odd cars in the Trainman line, and you'd have to be blind not to notice a tremendous difference in detail, ride-height, reliability and every other measure one could think of between the likes of Trainman and any other more expensive option.  Some are barely any better than stuff from the likes of Model Power and frankly I'd be hard-pressed to equate to anything more than 'toys'.