Received my 11 car consist of BLI California Zephyr cars from several
different sources last week. Comments:
These cars really look good IMHO. They generally run well; the
lighting doesn’t flicker and they roll well, tho not as freely as
Branchline Blueprints (what does?). The Observation drumhead and
red light are great and I like the diaphragms and coupling.
Of note: over the metal plating, there is a thin layer of paint.
This paint does not bond well to the plating and is easily pulled off
by friction, removing tape, etc., exposing the bright plating. Even
moving the car in and out of its foam insert can damage the paint.
One of mine, supposedly new, had damage to about a square inch at one
end of the roof. I suggest handling the cars with more than usual
care. I wouldn’t use the boxes for storage unless the foam can be
kept from contacting the roof.
The metal wheels have quarter axles that fit into plastic tubes which
set the gauge. I found many to be slightly tight, and a couple were
worse. I also found one incompletely pressed wheel/axle that caused
the overall axle length to be so short that it would barely stay in
the frame. A vise and an axle-diameter cut off drill allowed repair.
One car had tight truck bolsters, causing it to derail on curves. I
worked the trucks awhile and added a small amount of oil; they’re
still tight but not enough to derail. My baggage car derails in one
direction, but I havn’t yet found the cause.
Next: paint the interiors and add some passengers?
If this helps: On my “Easy Sharpening Up” thread, I provided info on the interior colors of a California Zephyr car that I actually boarded and photographed years back. It’s on the 3rd page of that thread. Here’s the link:
Unfortunately, this is one of the downsides to handling “Metalized” finishes. Even sweaty fingers can leave their mark.
Generally if modelers apply “clear” to a high quality metalized finish; the “metalized effect” dulls considerably. However, there is one solution that’s been working. Future Floor Finish (available at most grocery stores) can be sprayed with a quality airbrush onto a lacquer metalized fini***o seal it. It doesn’t dull the metalized finish down nor damages it.
Of course, modelers buying CZ cars don’t want to have to spray anything on the models, especially after paying the money for them; but it is an option to consider if a lot of handling is going to occur.
I’m currently experimenting with Alclad II with the
I had one car out of a ten car group that had a dead short. BLI said to go ahead and pry the car open instead of sending it back to see what the problem is…
Well, it took a while but I finally discovered that the protruding ends of the diodes on the little clip-in PC board were not trimmed close enough to the board and they contacted the metal weight/contact strips and caused a short.
After trimming the diode leads shorter I still put a piece of kapton tape below them to insure isolation.
Otherwise, I have had a few wheel sets that are out of round and one was poorly molded. Broadway quickly sent me four replacement wheel sets.
at the price they charge for these units you think they could have checked them a bit better, this seems to be the norm … lets send out a lemon and hope no one notices
Budliner…
I’m guessing that Broadway is trying to get as many of these cars into the market while demand is hot so QC may take a back seat to production speed.
Another little annoyance on these cars is the tendency for the light to show through the dome floor (thin plastic) but I suppose I’ll eventually open each car and do a little painting on the interior partitions and I can correct this problem at that time.
I would also have prefered to see the actual marker lights lit instead of the single red light above the observation car’s rear door. Wasn’t this a Mars light that was only activated when the train went into emergency?
ED
At the NMRA midwest regional show my Dad did end up buying the dome-observation in CBQ colors (sorry, can’t remember the car name). It runs really great, looks good on the end of an Amtrak train (as a private car) or at the end of the BNSF business train.
