Latest Walther's Streamliner Set..............

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hey, I’m surprised I’m making this post, for I would have thought a half dozen of you all would have beat me to it…

Looks like the new annual Walthers trainset is the ATSF San Francisco Chief. It looks pretty nice, but a fully functioning ABBA set with all the cars is a $2k investment - perhaps a few hundred less from some of the online shops.

Like previous years, it appears on the cover of the new 2014 Walthers HO Catalog.

Can’t say as I fault their choice, for like anything else Santa Fe it will sell.

EDIT NOTE: The STEAMLINER sold out, all that is left are Streamliners…

2

It will sell but it is a streamliner set, not steamliner??

I am excited that they are making so many cars in stainless plastic instead of costing 5 to 6 hundred dollars in brass. Thank you Walthers!

I model the IC also in the steam era.

CZ

3

What I like is that one some of the cars announced are useful in other applications. The 24 duplex room “Indian” series cars were used on the B&O Ambassador, between Detroit and Baltimore, for instance.

Just about every LW ATSF car is now available in the Walthers line-up. And as you note, they are significantly cheaper than brass, and most likely more accurate.

4

$1,995 retail.

Oh boy, let me at it.

LOL

At the risk of injecting cost into the whole equation, sure it is nice that Walthers is producing even more streamlined passenger cars. But, only the most wealthy among us is going to be able to, or want to, pop for two grand or more when you add in sales taxes and shipping costs.

OK, yeah, only the foolish will pay retail, but what will the discounted cost add up to? Probably still gonna cost well over $1,500.

Most of us are going to have to wait for a few years till the excess inventory hits eBay.

Rich

P.S. Hmmm, maybe the Steamliner set that the OP referred to is cheaper. [(-D]

5

Rapido sold out the Canadian which was priced around the $1,500 mark.

I remember reading on this forum that Rapido which was taking a downpayment with the pre-order would not succeed with the Canadian project.

It was thought the numbers were just not there.

I have mine and do not regret purchasing it, If they were to offer another unique engine that I wanted I would not hesitate to order.

Walthers will do just fine, their quality is improving and discounts are available if you shop around.

.

6

I think there may be a lack of enthusiasm for their latest offerings because due to the lack of interest in these trains. A review of previous forum postings on the topic of model wish list of Walthers passenger train did not mention the San Francisco Chief, the Pere Marquette or even the Metroliner. I would suspect there was a rolling of the eyes for yet another Santa Fe named train (expect if you model the Santa Fe) along with the 3rd or 4th reoffering of the Super Chief. Named trains that one would expect before the SF Chief and the PM have included IC’s City of New Orleans/Panama Limited, Southern’s Crescent, Seaboard’s Silver Star/Meteor, ACL’s Champions, B&O’s Capitol Limited or NP’s North Coast Limited. Well known named trains will get people excited.

7

I suppose excitement or lack of excitement comes from one’s perspective. The last Walthers offering that I was excited about was their Broadway Limited, of which, incidentally, I bought 2½ sets. That was because the Broadway cars and previously issued Walthers PRR cars allowed me to make up several other PRR name trains. Santa Fe sells, perhaps better than any other roadname out there.

The PM, itself might not hold any allure to most modelers, but the cars in the PM consist were also used on the C&O name trains, and similar cars ran on the NKP (to N&W), SAL, ACL, SCL, PRR/PC, DRG&W,the B&O and the IC, for instance. Some of the previously issued Walthers cars were also suitable for other trains/Roads. That’s a baseline consist for any of the Exciting Name Trains / Roads you mentioned. ATSF cars got around. They would show up on the TCL and Broadway, as well as the Florida Special. Valley 6-6-4 Sleepers ran on the Capitol Limited, and as I mentioned previously, an Indian 24 duplex roomette, ran on the B&O Ambassador.

Walthers has been doing all West Coast trains of late, the ElCap, Super redux, and now the SF Chief. Another East/Southeast streamliner is due any time now. Chances are it won’t be the EL Lake Cities.

8

I see that the OP snuck in some edits and changed steamliner to streamliner. [(-D]

No matter, the train is still too expensive. [:'(]

Rich

9

Where do I begin?

First off, I have no dog in this fight - I don’t model the AT&SF, and I don’t buy expensive ready to run full scale length passenger cars.

WHY? Not because of their cost, well not completely because of their cost. I don’t run many full length passenger cars even though I have 36" radius and larger curves, for reasons I have explained before - let’s just call it the benefits of selective compression.

For me, if a RTR passenger car was EXACTLY the way I wanted it, I might be tempted to pay those prices. But as long as the couplers stick out too far leaving gaps between diaphragms and giving the toy like appearance of LIONEL, I’m not interested. I’m not paying those kinds of prices just to have to rebuild them to my standards.

Diaphragms and selective compression aside, I know many of you think prices, at least retail prices, are out of control in this hobby. And maybe, just maybe, a few manufacturers have bumped up retail prices to cover part of the deep discounting so many customers “expect”.

But in many cases, retailers in this business are

10

Sheldon,

Always enjoy reading your posts!

I need to add… I built up an 11 car consist of Athearn BB standard passenger cars and added the KDs, Intermountain wheels, American Limited diaghprams, decals, and tinted windows and some airbrushing.

I also have a couple sets of the Walthers lightweight cars (IC and ATSF).

Funny thing… I get as much or more thrill over those “cheapee” Athearn cars as I do the expensive Walthers. Maybe (likely) its because I built them - and did a lot more than taking them out of a box.

ENJOY!

11

The secret is to resist the temptation to buy immediately or, worse yet, to pre-order.

By waiting a fair amount of time, I have recently been able to purchase the Walthers 85’ passenger cars for the Santa Fe Super Chief, the Union Pacific, and the C&NW for an average price of $40 for brand new cars on eBay. Some of those cars were acquired for as little as $26 per car.

Had I purchased these cars when they first came out, the average price per car would have been $70 or more.

Rich

12

Rich, good for you.

But I would also suggest that the days of that sort of “product dumping” are going to come to an end soon as well. If fact I already see signs that the Broadway Limited business model, also tried by some of the others, as not proven to be a good path and those “closeout specials” 10 months after each new product comes out are getting fewer and fewer and the “discounts” are not as deep.

It really is a bad business model for an industry like this one and I feel it has already hurt the hobby and the hobby industry.

One of two things happens when you buy something at or below cost. Either that retailer already made his “money” on others at a much higher mark up, but he is still cash poor. Or, he is not really in business to make money. In either case, that retailer is not likely to be around for the long haul, he surely is not the kind of guy who is going to “invest” in always having enough Atlas flex track in stock when you need it, and given the opportunity, he will take advantage of you.

So grab the bargains while you can,

Sheldon

13

I have come to learn that at least some of the on line retailers, eBay or otherwise, buy a lot of new stuff from LHS’s with overstock. They get it cheap an

14

“overstock” is just a euphemistic term an under capitalized business uses to discribe its poor management decessions.

Example one:

Broadway Limited comes out with their first run of N&W Class A 2-6-6-4 locos at about $400 retail some years ago. After about a year, 20% of the production run is still sitting on the shelf at BLI, but they are cash poor, and China wants the next payment for the next batch of something else.

So they have a sale - they tell all their dealers that N&W Class A’s are now $270, just a few dollars above their normal cost. But the dealers get no relief on the ones thay have stock, rather BLI offers to drop ship the discounted ones for the retailers and sell them at a lower price, but not the same percentage markup they would make selling one for $400.

I buy one from Standard Hobby (now out of business) and it is shipped right from BLI. BLI sells out of N&W Class A’s.

In another year, maybe two, BLI does another run of N&W Class A’s. Many people still want them, some people pay whatever the going rate is (20% off $400), others wait for the sale…

The value of the product is degraded in the market place. BLI and dealers missed the profits on the ones they sold on sale, and so the cycle continues…

Result - some people will not BLI unless they get the “deal” - that would be me, partly because of their marketing, partly because I’m going to rip out the sound decoder.

Example two:

Retailer, big enough to buy direct (or so he thinks), buys a big pile of Walthers passenger cars to get the lowest price. But now decides they are not moving fast enough and too much of his money is tied up. He sells 1/3 of them at his cost to basement Johnny, who can no longer sell Athearn because you have to be a “real business” to get an account with Horizon, he then sells them on Ebay for a 15% to 20% profit because he has no overhead and has a day job.

Again

15

Walthers’ Union Pacific passenger trains were for several of UP’s streamliners. I am wondering why Walthers has not done somthing similar with Santa Fe.

The San Francisco Chief looked like the Chief and the Texas Chief from the mid 1950’s to the mid 1960’s. The consists all had head end cars for baggage, mail, and express. They had standard height coaches, full dome lounge car, diner, and sleepers. Cars were mostly stainless steel made by Budd, PS, and ACF. A few coaches and sleepers were painted smooth side cars in two tone gray.

In the mid 1960’s Santa Fe included high level coaches (El Capitan type coaches) in the Texas Chief and the SanFrancisco Chief. They coupled “step up” high level cars to standard height cars so passengers could move between cars in a train.

Locomotives were typically F3’s and F7’s. The A units did not have steam generators, and usually at least 2 B-units were in the consist. A 3-unit consist for the F3’s and F7’s would normally be ABB. I never saw an ABA consist with F-units on a Santa Fe passenger train. These trains were usually long enough so it was common to see 4 to 6 unit consists. A-units had front-end MU connections, and a 5-unit consist with AABBB was often seen. Walthers has an advertising photo of a Santa Fe ABA consist with the El Capitan, and it looks wrong to me.

In later years, FP45’s and GE passenger units were commonly seen. In the 1950’s Alco PA’s also used on these trains. Sometimes EMD E-units were used in the 1950’s, too.

If I were the Walthers decsion-maker. I would call the new train the Chief/TexasChief/San Francisco Chief.

Regardless, Walthers should be congratulated for continuing its line of passenger trains.

My request remains to be the Northern Pacfic North Coast Limited. Meanwhile, a “close enough” model could be put together if the GN Empire Builder observation was painted for the NCL.

16

ANOTHER damned Santa Fe train from Walthers…

WHEN will they start covering some of the other trains and quit it with re-running the Super Chief cars over and over again, for us East coast modellers, It’s getting sickening.

They must have a bunch of Rocket Scientist (naw, they would have done something ROCK ISLAND by now, if they did) Marketing Idiots…

no matrter what era of the San Francisco CHIEF you model, they completely missed the boat on the car that was consistent the entire life of the train…the squared off 4 bedroom-Lounge pre-war Indian Tribe observations…the re-run the blasted REGAL, PINE and Budd 46 seat coaches, but ignore one of the key cars in the consist.

This is really getting annoying with them…insufficient quantities (BROADWAY, 20th CENTURY, CofLA) and incorrect cars (1st SUPER CHIEF)…

Model Railroading is (anything but) Fun !!!

Doug

17

Weren’t you saying the same thing 2 1/2 years ago?

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/187255.aspx

Maybe it’s time to find a new hobby.

Rich

18

I don’t understand… if its “not fun”, why participate???