Arriving in the mail today much to my glee is an N&W P3 coach, part of MTH’s new Powhatan Arrow set. The rest I hope will be delivered soon.
Now, I am not a detail snob, but I can get picky at times, so though I didn’t measure out the car, the dimensions looked good at first glance. In comparing the model to the photos and drawings in Dixon’s Powhatan Arrow book I find the model compares very well in terms of fidelity to detail and paint and lettering. Only having had Walthers and Spectrum cars to compare this model too, I’d been impressed by the level of detail included, such as the cut-levers, air, steam and signal lines, plus all the under-frame piping.
The car came standard with a variety of Kadee’s #58 coupler, and rather free rolling metal wheels.
I rather liked the stock lighting, though waiting for the capacitor to activate on DC might take a bit of time as it says in the instructions.
The interior includes not just molded seats, but also seats in the smoking lounges and restroom accouterments. but they tried to approximate the style of seating used with the armrests molded like the originals. The seats and floor are a dark-brown while the sides are a light greenish-brown (I have a hard time with some colors so forgive me if that’s not accurate).
There are two screw holes for the couplers so one can have the cars closer coupled if they like.
That had been the good, now here’s what I am not so thrilled about:
The interior has the chair surfaces barely above the floor, so anyone seeking to add figures will need to chop off legs. I did so though I can see I’ll have to do so to the conductor figure as well as he towers well above the other figures. Some of Preiser’s passenger sets do not include the full legs, so they’d work well.
Thanks for your review! Really appreciate it. I looks like MTH done a good job. Bummer about raised floor - that’s one feature I like about Walther’s cars - scale size chair height in most cases. But it seem like everything else looks good, including build in flicker-free track-powered lighting; something no other manufacturer can master, it seems.
I just might pick up this set later this summer. The Southern set looks very tempting as well, even though I never planned to model that railroad. Then again, I never planned to “Model Railroad” in a first place [:P]
One thing you might want to watch out for, if you decide to go for ‘close-coupling’ on the MTH cars. I’ve got their Daylight set–very impressed with it, BTW–and adjusting the couplers increases the minimum radius from 22" to a whopping 48"! I tried adjusting only one end of each car for a little closer operation (my minimum radius is 34"), but it still increases the minimum to about 40". Not much difference. That’s my only complaint about my Daylight set–the standard coupling length leaves a little ‘gap’ between each cars (the Daylight is full-width diapraghms),
Other than that, IMO, MTH is pretty much of a ‘winner’ in the HO passenger car department.
If you are concerned about chopping legs off, you might look into the knock of China peeps on Ebay. Much cheaper and they won’t mis their legs like the more expensive Preisers.
I’m working on it, I’m working on it, LOL! [:P] It’s just that Sierra Nevada granite–it blushes easily,LOL!
Agree with you–it would be nice if MTH could do something ‘in the middle’ as far as coupler length. I’m almost thinking of trying out some of the Kadee long-shanks to see if they might work. Or maybe Walthers sells their passenger car coupler fittings separately. It might be worth looking into. But the cars themselves are real honey’s.
I do wish the diaphragms were setup differently so as to still touch but yet work on narrower curves than a 48" radius. Hopefully MTH will take that into consideration with future passenger cars. Walthers cars as is can be close-coupled and still work on curves that are not so wide.
I realized after posting my review, that some history on the cars would be appropriate for the review. According to Thomas W. Dixon’s book on the Powhatan Arrow. The P3 is a class of 10-coaches built for the N&W by Pullman-Standard and delivered in 1949. They came in a couple different interior color schemes with the MTH car using a 2-tone brown interior scheme. The MTH model represents an as-delivered car, though it has black trucks instead of the original Pullman green. The under-frame skirts are in place, as are the cinder deflectors at each end. The skirts were removed in the mid '50s to make maintenance easier, but I don’t know when the cinder deflectors were removed.
I’d used figures I painted myself, (minus the conductor) so the cost hadn’t been high thankfully. The Chinese figures look acceptable for passenger car interiors so I might pick up a set sometime soon.
I just received eight MTH N&W’s today, and am close-coupling for 35 inch radii (two so far) with a minor trick I learned with the Daylights. I’m replacing the MTH coupler covers with KD boxes. I take the box and elongate the center holes toward the back with a small round file. Then mount them in the “44 inch” holes. Just a small amount of slop, not enough to go thru the center cylinder, can accomodate 35 inch. I’m saving the MTH covers in case I want to sell the cars later, but I like them pretty well. Note: another thing besides folding angle can force derailments: the diaphragm plates catching on each other. They need to be smooth, and may need sanding. Hal