I have two Kato HO CP Rail AC4400 locomotives (dual flag scheme), beautifully weathered to look like work horses. One thing that really irks me about both locomotives is the severly warped side handrails. I have noticed this alot with Kato locomotives. Is this something common? How can a fix these hadrails to get them back to looking striaght? Nothing ruins the experience of running these great looking locomotives when you see the warped handrails. I really like my locomotives to look prototypical and I have never seen real locomotives with warped handrails. Any help would be appreciated.
Do like i do just don’t purchase anymore Kato AC4400. I was given the same answer by Kato , No Stock. My unit was BNSF. If you didn’t glue the handrails you can take them off and put them in the freezer. This might help them to shrink. Then when they are at room tempature put them back on.
Short of that you will have to get a kit for wire replacement handrails.
No problems with my 4 Kato 70MAC’s, I seem to remember the handrails being great quality, and I painted 2 of them from undec. Several companys make replacements, or you could try ordering Athearn’s I think they’re around 9 bucks a set.
Unfortunately not too surprising,I had similar problems with GP35’s,RS2’s and the NW2’s they made each time even back then that I tried to get replacement parts from them I got the same answer No. So in the long run I’ve bought smoky valley replacement sets for all my effected units, ( the NW2’s I bent brass wire for ) and have not bought any more of their models. Athearn metal or plastic hand rail kits may be a fix for you as well.
I’m a custom builder/painter and I deal with Kato all the time and I have to say, than more often than not they DO have the parts in stock and are also very helpful and efficient.
None of the manufactures make productions of just parts. Parts stock are generally made up of calculated overages of the original loco production to maintain parts availabily for about 3-5 years. The RS-2 and NWs runs were small, so after 5 years I wouldn’t expect all the parts to still be avaible. The GP35 is victim of it’s own success, it’s been popular with us kit-bashers as well for a long time, so the some parts have become exhausted, unfortunately, sorry!
I have had no trouble getting parts for most of their locomotives, so to blackball a company because they didn’t have a particular part for a locomotive they produced 7 or 8 years ago is going a bit far, have you tried to buy Proto parts?
Try Ebay, there are some sellors of Atlas and Kato parts, amoungst others.
Another option would be to cut off the handrail between the stanchions, drill out the stanchions and use an appropriately sized piece of brass wire in it’s place. Alot of work, but for worth it if you want perfect handrails.