Hi everyone. As some of you might no I’m building a heavyweight passenger fleet. So far I have 12 B&O heavyweights on the way and 11 Pullman heavyweights more on the way. However, Walthers seems to be out of the coaches so I found the bachman coach. It looks nice but how does it compare to walthers? The two walthers that I have recived yet are simply stagering so is the bachmann comparable? Also do they look ok together or can you see any difrences?
Lillen
Hi Lillen,
I have a Bachmann heavyweight and 2 of the Walther’s heavyweights. They look okay together but the Walther’s is a much nicer car. My only disappointment was that the directions for opening up the roof on the Walther’s cars suggested using a chisel blade X-Acto knife and that resulted in me breaking some of the tabs that hold the roof on. If you’re going to open up the Walther’s cars to put lights inside or people in the seats, DO NOT follow those directions. Rather, grab the car at each end with your hands and twist. The roof will pop off without breaking the tabs.
Hope this helps.
Mondo
I had an oppertunity to buy a set of 4 Matched HW’s in PRR for 60- last year in the Spectrum and am on the fence because part of me regrets not buying it and the other part says… forgetit these cars are way too heavy.
The walthers will need oiling on the wheels, a generous radius and as stated before the lighting is problematic because the roofs break the small tabs almost every time they are removed.
The Walthers are nice cars but I gotta step up and caution… easy on the buying… Im not one to tell you if you can buy entire sets of passenger cars but rather try one or two in the beginning and if you like them alot then hammer down and buy the rest.
This is the year of the Rapido for me. Maybe BLI or someone will release an appropriate PRR set suitable for the T1.
The Walther’s paired window coach and the modernized version are as close to prototype as you will find short of buying brass. The Spectrum coach isn’t even close. It’s not a bad car, has some issues with lighting and contacts as well as the swing couplers, but can work OK as a stand-in until you can find the Walther’s.
I waited many years for decent B&O passenger equipment to finally come out in plastic. Once the Walther’s came out, I decided on them.
The Rapido is, hand down the most detailed piece I have ever seen. They blow the brass ones away in fine detail. The only trouble is, nothing released yet is anywhere close to B&O. Eventually they may do a prototypical B&O set, and who knows, that may make the Wather’s just stand-ins for now.
If you don’t already belong to B&O yahoo group you should check it out:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Baltimore_and_Ohio/
This group has some of the most knowledgeable people in B&O, many are directly involved with the BOHS.
Magnus, I don’t know how you are fixed for $, but have you considered Branchline or Rapido? You may get lucky with your road, but you will also get something at least as good as Walther’s, and probably somewhat better in many respects. Just occurred to me.
Do they make B&O heavyweights?
As for $, I’m back at the university right now so while I don’t have insane amounts of money to spend I have enough to buy most things. So dollars are not a real concern as such, aslong as it somethings that I can take to my real layout planed to be built in three or four years when I’m done. So for buildings and rollingstock and engines it’s ok with expensive as long as its’ good. I do not want crap. Only quality.
Lillen
I designed my layout to be able to use these cars. They are the reason I choose the B&O. Minimum radius will be 36 inches on the mainline and the passenger stops. I had abslolutely no problems at all putting in the lights. I was real scared after having read it would be so hard. It took 5 minutes with two cars and nothing broke. I’m the kind of guy who thinks it’s an achievement when I change tires on my cars so I suck at this technical stuff. Neddles to say I was relieved that it was so simple.
I bought two cars first. I loved them and then ordered 9 more. Then 12 more last night. I found them cheap and since I live in Sweden it gets alot cheaper buying lots at a time. I think they rolled so nice and looked awsome. Some will probably just be on display and never run but that is ok. I have lots of models that I only have for display purposes and never use. I like the collection part of the hobby as much or more then the running of the trains. But, thanks for caring, I apreciate it.
Lillen
Thanks for the link. Those were staggering. I will have to get me ONE of those to see how they are.
Lillen
Good deal!
I went ahead and committed my budget for this year to getting a Rapido Train in the B&O but that depends on them releasing the other car types. Im not a blow hard rivet counter and can accept the finer things that I dont know about with these cars. In one paper they stated that they built the Electical cabinet 4 inches shorter. Imagine that.
I bought mine in the Pullman Heavyweights so I can run them with any number of steam locos in different roads. A little bit of a compromise on my part for the walthers cars.
Passenger cars are great these last two years compared to the old offerings of decades past. I had a Athearn B&O lightweight set that just rocked when I was a kid but hardly worth putting on the rails today. There is definately a gulf between the old and new.
You from Sweden? What is the Exchange rate against the US Dollar? Are you feasting on very cheap stuff or are you being stripped by our Treasury?
The B&O heavyweights are so nice. They are somewhat responsible for draging me back into the hobby after a 20 year hiatus. They are the reason I choose the B&O. I also decided that I needed one B&O passenger train and simply got them. They are the things I have the most fun with and they look so nice in there cabinets so they are a joy even when I don’t run them.
Since I don’t like streamliners the choises are somewhat limited and I want quality, No Life-like cars for me thanks. I rather spend 40 then 10 to get what I wan’t. Acording to First Hobby they will release more Rapidos in summer. But wich are best? Branchline or Rapido? It seems that Branchline have a greater variety?
Lillen
I have the 8-car Bachmann Spectrum HO Santa Fe Heavyweight set that was purchased several years ago. Another member of our club has Walthers passenger cars, and another member just purchased a Rapido set.
The Bachmann’s have interiors and interior lighting, for what it’s worth. The lighting consists of an incandescent bulb mounted in the center of the car and a plastic light guide that is supposed to carry the light to both ends. As with practically every similar system, you wind up with a bright spot in the center of the car and dark ends. The lights tend to flicker a lot of you have the least bit of dirt on your wheels or track.
The Walthers light kits must be added separately, and they have two versions depending on whether you run DC or DCC. I haven’t seen one of their DCC kits, but the DC version draws almost 1/2 Amp of current from your power pack. It uses 3 incandescent bulbs mounted within a plastic light guide running the length of the car, and has a voltage regulator and capacitors that smooth out any tendency for the lights to flicker because of dirty wheels or dirty track. I tried substituting 3 super-bright inverted cone LEDs for the incandescent bulbs in one of the Walthers cars, and it made no difference in current draw, so it appears that the capacitors are what cause this.
Rapido uses two very tiny mercury batteries in their light kits, similar to those used in a battery powered wristwatch. A magnetic wand is supplied with which to turn the lights on and off. They use two 3mm LEDs; one at each end of the car shining into a plastic light guide. The wheels do not pick up power and the batteries are not rechargeable. The lighting is dimmer than track powered sets, but there is no light flicker caused by dirty wheels or track. If you forget to use the magnetic wand to turn the lights off, you’ll have to take the roof off to change the batteries, and mercury batteries are no
Will the Rapidos come with lightning already installed?
Lillen
Rapido comes with lighting, but not installed. You have to install the batteries and the light kit yourself.
Unless you operate in the dark, you’re not going to see the interior lighting in a passenger car, so I personally don’t consider it worth the extra cost if it’s an add-on item such as with Walthers cars.
The Rapidos come with the lighting. A few club members have just bought them recently. I have no idea how long the battery will last.
The 2 trainsets I’ve seen so far, are Canadian roads. Rapido seemed to start off most of the first runs in these (a Canadian company after all, why not).
The detail on them is absolutely unbelievable! The underbody detail just blows me away.
If they ever do more accurate B&O runs, I may consider them. In the meantime I’ll be satisfied with my Walther’s heavyweights.
If you do buy the Branchline, in kit form instead of RTR, they do require some work for assembly. They are very decent cars. Some of the detail surpasses the Walther’s but of all the most reliable running cars in my club, the Wather’s seems to be the best for total trouble free operation.
Regarding Bachmann heavyweights, my exerience was the plastic knuckle couplers tended to uncouple. I used two different methods to correct. One is to remove pivoting coupler boxes and mount kadee #5’s with kadee boxes directly (with shims as needed) to car bottoms. That worked fine, but those who have tight curves may not be able to use them.
My second method was to glue plastic strips of an appropiate thickness beneath the pivoting boxes. That reduced the jiggling of the boxes.
The Bachmann cars are decent cars for the money.
I’ve used the Bachmann’s to build up my commuter fleet but the through trains will be composed primarily of Walthers. They don’t look bad together either but Walther’s are much nicer. I don’t like the pivoting couplers on the Bachmann’s and have replaced them with fixed couplers using JayBee conversion kits. It you have 28" radii and up, it might be a good choice.