I currently have a HO Amtrak 40-8B by Walthers and the passenger cars are the RTR Athearn in the blue and yellow box. I’ve had these cars for about 10 years now and just started using them again. I have the vista dome, observation, coach and diner car. I don’t know what they are by Amtrak like if they are Viewliner, etc. However they are given me nothing but problems don’t know why. Don’t know if they need new trucks and wheels and new couplers or what? But thought about putting them on Ebay and selling them as this will give me an excuse to want to purchase the Amtrak AMD 103 which Amtrak currently uses and the Superliner II cars. My question is this? Do you think they will run on a 5x9’ layout??? I have 22’’ and a few 18’’ radius curves. I just recently bouth the Kato bi-level commuter cars and they work fine but not sure about the Superliners. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
You don’t say what kind of problems you’re having with the Athearn “Blue Box” passenger cars, which would represent Amtrak “Heritage” fleet, in other words cars that Amtrak inherited from the roads that used them in 1971.
If you can’t get the Athearn cars to run you really have to look at your track work OR there is a major problem with the Athearn cars. I have quite a few of the Walthers Superliners which are the double decked cars patterned after the Santa Fe El Capitan cars. They are huge in comparison and demand NO LESS than 22" R.
Also do you have back to back S curves? That’s no good for cars over 75 or 80 foot length.
However, you say the Kato bi-levels run fine so maybe your track work is OK but I have found the Walthers cars to be less forgiving than the Katos. I run a six car C&NW push-pull bi-level with the engine at the rear sometimes and it tracks beautifully. The Walthers cars on the other hand seem to derail more frequently. Their trucks have very little pivot play in them.
I have a few of those Superliners (slowly putting together an entire long distance train). They’re incredibly unforgiving on tight curves. Also they’re enormous and don’t look so great on those curves.
On my (currently in storage) layout, I forced them around 24" curves without too much issue and with no modification. They played nicer on the 26"s. And just messing around, they did not like the 18" under the christmas tree loop at all.
Thanks for responding. Ughhh that sucks big time because I really wanted to purchase them but yea I don’t like the Heritage fleet anymore. Lol Got bored I guess. Like the Superliner’s alot. What other passenger car company do you think would work on double track over and under layout? As far as the Heritage cars they were derailing all the time, truck assembly moving to freely and cars not staying coupled together. Just problem after problem My freight cars seemed to work fine though. I like the El Captain as well but if you say the Superliner’s are having problem then the El Captains probably would be the same thing.
Here are some pics of the layout…I know i know its pretty busy…have to find somewhere to store my cars when they are not in use on the layout…Any sugesstions though I’m all ears as im always open
As others have just said, the Walther’s cars are NOT forgiving at all. I set up a GN set in Big Sky Blue theme, and I had to do “surgery” to the underside of all the Walther’s cars to use them on a radius of 23". I bought a Rapido observation car for the end of the train, and it trails fine. It’s good to know that the Kato cars you have work good, as I was thinking of getting rid of all the Walther’s Super Liner, View Liner, etc. Amtrak cars and switching to Kato. Bachmann commuter cars also work great, but I don’t think they make anything labeled for Amtrak. Actually, all the Rapido and Bachmann passenger cars I have also work great on the Christmas layout I set up every other year or so, and that uses Bachmann’s snap-togetther (the track with the grey road bed attached) with tight radiuses.
What cars do Bachmann make? Also I always thought of Bachmann making so-so products. It seems for their American market that everything they make is of subpar quality but overseas they are considered one of the best. I’m trying to see who else I could model. I like passenger railroads more than anything so the Kato’s Metra really looks good on the layout and they’re full Bi-lvel cars.