You have to have passengers

Although there are lots of passenger train sets run without passengers, it always looks as if something is missing. This is especially true if the cars have lighting. I have added passengers to both my L&N and Southern N scale train sets even though they do not have lighting. I have just started acquiring passengers for the Kato Amtrak Superliners I received as a gift because with lighting installed they look really strange without passengers.This is especially true for the lounge car seats facing the windows.

Depending upon the cars and seats it usually requires chopping the figures off at the knees. For some dining car seating the back of the torso may have to be thinned down a bit. For lounge cars with more open seating you may have to file the bottoms and backs of the legs on seated figures to get them to look right. Trimmed fiqures will require touchup painting (get some good magnifiers). I have also repainted some of the interiors to highlight the seating.

I found

A guy that would sell just seated figures.  It still took some trimming, but it worked and looked great.

Z scale figures for n scale

I've read that Z scale passengers in N scale passenger cars fit better because the model's car sides are thicker meaning you lose some interior width resulting in narrower seats.

N Scale vs Z Scale

Found a guy that sells seated figures in both Z scale and N scale. Now to just decide which scale I would prefer. The difference between scales on paper doesn't seem too drastic but it'd be nice to see them in person before committing to either. My hobby shop doesn't carry Z Scale items so I'm scouring the web for comparison photos.

--Matt

N scale

I think for the money you are better off with N scale.

Found a guy that sells seated

Could you post a link please?

I have done it in ho scale.

In some cases such as Con Cor passenger cars, I actually had to put in bulkheads into the inside of the cars (sleeping cars) because the model was just an empty shell.  I think the biggest challenge is figuring out how to get to the interior.  Some models the floor drops out, on others the roof is lifted off.  I know nothing about getting to the inside of n-scale cars.

eBay

I found various auctions on eBay. They're really crummy quality but they're cheap and they're going to be inside train cars behind green tinted windows so I'm not willing to spend too much more than these prices:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/P150S-100pcs-all-Seated-1-150-Scale-Painted-Figures-Passenger-N-/221116965089?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item337b9920e1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/P200S-100pcs-all-Seated-1-200-Scale-Painted-Figures-Passenger-Z-NEW-/221110363887?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item337b3466ef

Look around for auctions rather than Buy it Nows. You can snag them for under $10 shipped. I went with Z Scale because I'm impatient and couldn't find an auction for N Scale. If these are too small for my liking, I'll eventually get the N Scale ones and have the Z Scale passengers pass off as children.

I'll invest in nicer figures like Woodland Scenics for exterior scenes on my eventual layout.

yes, eBay...

We picked up some seated figured on eBay..   A guy at the club recommended to go smaller than scale..  For our HO Kato Superliners we used 1/100th scale passengers and they fit almost perfectly...  I think we got 100 figures for $8.00 or something close...

Like the previous post, the quality leaves something to be desired, but unless you look closely, all you really see is a figure in blue, not the fact that he really doesn't have much of a face or a deformed hand that looks like a flipper...

-Stephen

Deformed figures...

Well, a deformed hand that looks like a flipper could be a passenger on the train out of Innsmouth, perhaps bound for Arkham or Kingsport...

Seriously, quality of figures inside a passenger car isn't necessarily an important thing.  The pretty decent figures I found are glued in place temporarily; they might debark for the station benches when I get around to painting some unpainted figures I found.  (HO scale for me)

(I do plan on having a loco or observation car named "Miskatonic."

1:200 in N Scale Cars