Ahhh, the “joys” of mass-produced rolling stock… I need to vent… Here is my latest example.
I started assembling the first of three HO-scale kits by Red Caboose of Southern Pacific’s 5700-series express box cars. I completed the underbody and then suddenly realized there was no signal line or steam line detail. The provided detail was that of a mere freight car.
These express box cars are PASSENGER cars, not FREIGHT cars. The visual distinction is the steam and signal line detail. I can’t let this stand. Got to order some Branchline passenger end detail parts.
Then I noted the roof walk was simulated wood. The prototype sported metal grate material. Need to order more parts and hope they fit.
Then I noted the Youngstown doors were wrong. The prototype had modified Youngstowns with a distinctive appearance. I’ll probably have to accept the wrong doors.
Lastly, the extra rivets for the prototype’s additional vertical support members weren’t there. Thankfully, that omission isn’t noticeable unless the model is nose-distant.
At least the model seems to be correctly lettered and painted.
No wonder most of my recent rolling stock additions are from Westerfield and Sunshine.
Look at the bright side. They didn’t take a car that was only used by the Reading or D&H and simply give it a Southern Pacific paint job and numbers…
And now, by way of contrast…
When I was accumulating 1/700th of the JNR freight car fleet, nobody was making the newest class of box cars, the WaRa1 17-tonners. OTOH, WaMu65000 class cars were readily available. So now I own a dozen four wheel box cars numbered in the WaRa1 class that are a foot too short and a foot too low in profile - or (more accurately) a dozen WaMu65000 class cars misidentified with WaRa1 class reporting marks. If this be heresy, so be it.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - more or less)
[Sigmund Freud accent] Und ven eggxactly did chew notice zat chew haf started counting ze rivets ? [/Sigmund Freud accent]
[:)]
you have to wonder how much extra work it would have been for the manufacturer to research the details and get it right . i don’t know what you paid for the kits but i’ll bet you weren’t planning on paying for extra detail parts
New molds for car body rivets and perhaps the doors were most probably not cost effective, but it seems the correct roof walk and steam/signal detail could have been included with minor cost and price effects. At least it would have been nice if the manufacturer noted the departures from the prototype with suggestions on how to correct this. But manufacturers believe this will hurt sales (they’re probably right) and won’t do so.
The more I learn about the prototype the more I believe that when I accept a model as prototypical it is because I’m ignorant.
I foresee Mark extending himself into the realm of scratchbuilding his future rolling stock. I’m far from a rivet counter, but I do agree that when a manufacturer chooses a model to produce, they need to do better research. Just painting a wooden box car the right color doesn’t make it an express car. That might be fine for the low end and toy markets, but not for the guys that MODEL.
Just curious, Mark: did the SP use AB brake gear on those cars or the UC system? I know that the CNR had some boxcars in express (passenger train) service that appeared to be regular freight cars outfitted with steam and signal lines, while other, similar cars were used, but fitted with high-speed trucks and the UC brake system.
The SP 5700-series cars (classed BX-50-24, built in 1946) were essentially AAR-design cars. I have no information indicating they did not have AB brake gear, so that’s another instance of blissful ignorance. Likewise, I’m not sure whether the model comes with the proper early style of improved Dreadnaught ends.
Of course, the prototypes came with high-speed trucks. All came with A-3 Ride Control trucks. Twenty-four cars had their A-3 trucks replaced by Allied Full-Cushion trucks because the NYC no longer accepted the A-3 trucks. Those trucks were later reinstalled and some cars received General Steel Casting BX-high-speed trucks with outside equalizers. The models come Bettendorf-style trucks which I can’t distinguish from A-3 trucks (again probably due to ignorance), but I have acquired a couple set of the GSX trucks mostly for their distinctiveness to further distinguish the model from the basic AAR boxcar look.
Regardless, with steam and signal details, steel-grid roof walks, and truck variations, I should reach the “good enough” point.
Not likely! Those mass-produced, highly-detailed car kits usually represent an evening’s modeling. In contrast, a Westerfield represents two-week’s evenings of work over a period of three to four weeks for me. Perhaps I’m fortunate to have reached the saturation point for rolling stock.
These points of lack of fidelity to the prototype are the price we pay for having things available in affordable but cookie cutter plastic rather than brass. Still I agree with the poster above that including different doors and roof walks and extra underbody detail to match all the paint schemes you intend to release the kit in, would involve a very small incremental cost. Even Walthers used to include a choice of door types in their 40 foot box car kits.
… and some of us remember when some of the craftsman kit manufacturers would also paint multiple road names on the same kit regardless of accuracy. I am thinking Silver Streak in particular. They weren’t all Ambroids.
Hah! I’ve noticed the same problems with the cabooses. The ‘all-steel’ modern ones that are generically made all have square windows and the cupola is off-center, and are too short. The CN ones, anyway, have rounded oval bay-windows and a centered cupola. Also, there were no roof-walks on these models. I’ve kit-bashed my own version (that I’d like to upload, but can’t figure out how), as I can’t afford the Point-St. Charles caboose kit worth over $100 (in HO).
Prairie, you will need a photo hoting site, or your own website. www.photobucket.com is free, but there are others. Sign up, then look for tab that says “my album”. Click that, go to the upload pictrue, click browse, and it will hopefully take you to your picture folder. Find the pic/pics of your caboose, and click on it. If you have more than one pic next to each other, hold the mouse key down somewhere near the first one and drag the mouse across the ones you want. It will upload these. Then below the picture should be a link that says [IMG] next to it. copy that link, paste in the reply box here. Lotta words for a quick upload.
HEdward: I’m going to disagree with you. But here’s my take on it: When I see a layout, the things that I look at is the scenery and the locos. If there are any, the flashy paintjobs, a unique car, such as MofW, or the Hiawatha Skytop, woill draw me, but I could care less about doors or roofwalks. The same goes for the layout I may never get to building. Does this mean I and 80% of the modelers I know are not modelers? (Rhetorical, as this spins off into it’s own topic and nosedives) The right details may be nice to have, and may provide fun if you like modifying a wrong car, and I may do that. But not many of the people I know would do all that
Doc, I received the following information from another source.
"All of the express box cars (and PFE BR-40-10 cars) had AB-1-B brake
valves. This was a standard AB valve with a filler piece between the
bracket and the emergency section. It’s not very noticeable on a model
except that a branch pipe from the signal line went to it. PSC made the
part in 0 scale as #4286 but I haven’t found the part in H0.
"This pipe changed over the brake to passenger mode when there was air
pressure in the signal line.
“So, to review per Tony’s books, the express box cars received AB-1-B
brake valves, signal and steam lines, and marker brackets on all four
corners as well as Dark Olive paint.”
I know a hazard, they install the couplers upside down!!! Yep, Winter of 07’ I bought ordered 6 con cor n scale 85’ stream liners in BN paint. They where all out of stock so I back ordered, and a few weeks later the Diner, Dome and Observation arived and the diner’s couplers where up side down! I have the skills to replace HO scale couplers but not n, so my dad (remember I 'm 12 almost 13, but back then I was 11) and they where going to send me a new one. I will continue this part of the story in a minute, but first…
Anouther danger of ordering stuff is they send you the completly rong thing. (this goes along with the story above) I had ordered with thouse 6 passenger cars a Intermountain f7 ab set and it (along with the other diner) never came. So after 6 weeks of waiting, We decided to cancle and go a difrent route. We cancled the replacement diner and insted of the f7, ordered a bachmann spec. sd45. In a week a Walthers box arived (which is where I’m ordering from) and I thoght it had my loco in it, nope it had something completly diffrent, a UP 40’ stock car!!! How do you get that mixed up with a BN sd45??? So I check the part # of the stock car and it’s not even close to the sd45’s #. So they let me keep the car because, it was going to cost more to ship it than it’ worth. I finaly did get my sd45 though.
Why is it that in the thirty-two months I have been a member of the forum I can recall never having read a posting bellyaching–as outlined by Been Nothing Since Frisco (BNSF)–about receiving the wrong item from a local hobby shop. Believe me, were I to walk out the door of my local with the wrong item the next time I walked back through the door I would be wearing a sack over my head to avoid recogition–I am an Oakland Raiders fan and I have been doing that regularly over the course of the past couple of seasons.