Populating coaches

[Intercity]

Do you populate your passenger coaches with passengers? I know this can be somewhat subjective due to the scale size of our models, but wondered why people opinions were on this.

Is it better with coach lighting or does that show up more flaws that what is trying to be achieved?

How do you deal with trains that are supposedly ECS or stabled in sidings, it may look odd with a train out of service but full of passengers!!!!

I can't find it now but there was a post about the GNER mk4s, someone fitted the interior seats and tried to put in lighting but there was too much bleed through on the body sides for the lights to be effective, was there ever a solution to the bleed through (I bought interiors, but didn't trying lighting)

[Bealman]

A lot of enthusiasts do populate their coaches. The standard method is to brutally dismember the poor plastic souls by cutting them in half at the lower torso.

I guess they can look silly parked in carriage sidings, but most layouts these days are based on the hidden fiddle yard principle, and coaching stock is mostly seen on the move on the visible layout.

Like so much of this hobby, it's a compromise. If you want passengers in your coaches, plomp 'em in! 

[woodbury22uk]

Earlier this year in Model Railway Journal 281, there was an article which included a section on populating an LNER Quad Art set which needed a lot of passengers. Although this was 4mm scale, I felt that the idea had a lot of potential especially if a Silhouette cutter or similar was available. The figures were double sided and detailed silhouettes usually with a fold down their backs or fronts. No garish paint, just sober 1930s colours printed on paper, and the potential to include the commuters' broadsheet newspapers. They looked good inside the gloom of the carriages. They were not obviously pieces of flat paper but created a convincing impression of a crowded carriage. One of the photos showed about 70 seated passengers ready for installation and at N size, and on its own could be scanned as the basis of an experiment. In our scale even just a dark silhouette would probably do the job, though cutting out each figure might be a challenge to my hand steadiness.

[Bealman]

Certainly interesting! Must see if I can get a look at that!

It does sound like the sort of exotic thing  MRJ would feature