Walthers will finish the EL CAPITAN in their “Name Traiins” series with the last Hi-Level coach in May of 2012.
What is your opinion of what the NEXT train they will produce in the series.???
(Please,no “fantasy ideas” or far out things only you would want, just your opinion on which train they have designed the tool work for and are comitted to putting into production next)
Thank you
Doug
I’m wondering if it might not be the NP “North Coast Limited?” They’ve already done the “Empire Builder” and the “Hiawatha”, the North Coast sounds like a logical choice at least to me.
If not that, I’d suggest either the RI/SP “Golden State Limited” or the SP “Sunset Limited.”
Tom
Well Doug,
Respectfully you’re putting a “cap” on the type of feedback. Hopefully I’ll still be within your guidelines.
I may be mistaken but with a few exceptions, it seems that Walthers leans heavily towards western roads when producing a complete train.
I know for certain that a number of modelers have been asking Walthers for more eastern and southeastern trains (New Haven, Seaboard, ACL, Southern, L&N, ), but many of us realize that this may not be in Walthers short or intermediate term plans.
So, just my opinion, if Walthers is going to produce another train, it may likely be another western consist.
But, hopefully, the rumors of a metalized post WWII “Southern Crescent” are not just vaporware.
Of course that should be one of B&O’s top trains, the Royal Blue, or the Cincinnattean. For the latter they’d need someone to (finally!!!) build those magnificent P7 Pacifics [:P]
The answer to that question is likely to be found when we get our first advance peak at the next HO catalog cover.
Dave Nelson
From another thread, a list of Walthers Name trains so far:
2006 - The Super Chief - Santa Fe Railroad
2007 - The Empire Builder - Great Northern Railway - Big Sky Blue
2007a - The Empire Builder - Burlington Northern
2008 - Twin Cities Hiawatha - The Milwaukee Road
2008a -Twin Cities Hiawatha - The Milwaukee Road - UP colors
2009 - The 20th Century Limited - New York Central Railroad
2010 - City of Everywhere - Union Pacific Railroad
2011 - The Broadway Limited - Pennsylvania Railroad
2011a - The Super Chief - Santa Fe RR (Version B - metal plated finish, new “Regal” 4-4-2 sleeper)
2012[?] - El Capitan - Santa Fe Railroad
http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/name_trains
So, are we due for a East Coast Name Train? Overdue for a South-east US Railroad Name train?
Based on what they’ve done before, it would have to be:
– a major road. Not just Class 1, but a name even non-railroaders recognize.
– a road popular with model buyers.
– a road with a large geographic reach, to appeal to the greatest number of potential buyers.
– a line they haven’t done before, or at least for a while.
– transition era. Probably diesel powered. Definitely streamlined.
– a train advertised in national magazines (and therefore, again, recognizable to non-railroaders).
– Northeastern, Midwestern, or Southwestern.
Based on that, I’d suggest the SP’s Daylight or Lark, B&O Capitol Limited, the joint D&RGW/WP/CB&Q Zephyrs, or the Northern Pacific’s North Coast Limited. Less likely but still possible: Rock Island Rockets and Illinois Central City of New Orleans.
Just my guesses. I claim no special knowledge of the matter.
Great explinatin Steve, on how they decide what name trains to produce.
Here’s me hoping for the D&RGW/CB&Q Zephyrs. Because I don’t want to spend $900 for 6 cars BLI Zephyrs on ebay sellers who are crazy. LOL
Looking at the list of trains they have already done the big omission of the “most” famous trains is the Cal Zephyr.
But would Walthers make a trainset that has already been done by another manufacturer? Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe they’ll do an Illinois Central train, like the Panama Limited or City of New Orleans.
I think they might make a Santa Fe Big Dome. Then you could mix and match already built cars to make other Santa Fe trains.
I agree that a CB&Q Zephyr would be nice - maybe the Denver Zephyr. Maybe Walthers will look at the demand for the BLI cars and decide to do the California Zephyr? Well advertised, famous name, covers three class 1 RRs, several choices of motive power (all done by Walthers/Proto - one of the unmentioned criteria)
Of course I would still take another batch of UP Streamliner cars; the 12-4 “Western” sleepers, the 6-4-6 “National” sleepers, the “River” club-lounges, and more head-end equipment.
I agree that he SE trains have been neglected, but I am not familiar enough on them to comment.
Based on that, I’d suggest the SP’s Daylight or Lark, B&O Capitol Limited, the joint D&RGW/WP/CB&Q Zephyrs, or the Northern Pacific’s North Coast Limited. Less likely but still possible: Rock Island Rockets and Illinois Central City of New Orleans.
Probably not the “Daylight” (it’s been done). The “Lark” would be a better choice or perhaps the “Shasta Daylight” (or “Cascade”). Maybe even the “Sunset Limited”.
The California Zephyr’s already been done by BLI, probably not a good idea to duplicate.
The North Coast Limited is probably on the short list. Neat train, too, especially in Loewy colors. Also ran on the CB&Q since the NP didn’t go to Chicago.
Then there’s the C&NW “Twin Cities 400” or the NYC “Empire State”, the Seaboard “Orange Blossom Special”, the ACL “Champion” or “Florida Special”. B&O’s “The Cincinnatian” would make a nice pike sized train behind either steam or diesel, although you’d need a streamlined P-7 for the steam version.
How’s about Southern’s “Crescent Limited” or the joint Frisco-MKT “Texas Special”?
What would really be cool is a train of mixed streamline and heavyweight cars like the Santa Fe “Grand Canyon” or the joint UP-SP-C&NW “Overland” of the late 40’s/early 50’s.
Andre
Excellent analysis of the criteria for a likely candidate by Walthers.
As for the above suggestions…
SP Daylight: don’t we have two versions from MTH and BLI?
D&RGW/WP/CB&Q Zephyrs - the CZ has been done in multiple runs by BLI so I assume any future demand could be addressed by another run of BLI, especially in light of the speculators/scalpers trying to sell their passenger cars at double MRSP. As far as trains like the Rio Grande Zephyr, BLI talked about doing it but must have judged demand not to be adequate because they have so far opted to not produce it. They have the tooling but I"m not sure about removing the name boards. I don’t recall WP running its on post CZ train, nor CB&Q?
The RI and IC trains seem like good candiates, surely the City of NO is a storied train!
Not really a passenger train modeler, but I would think they would want to do a name train that would make use of at least some of the available molds from previous runs.
B&O Washingtonian/Capital Limited would be good choices given the almost “starved for more equipment” B&O modelers
C&O George Washington (Modern blue/yellow scheme) Although the George has been done by Bachmann with J-2 class 4-8-2 Heavy’s with pullman green coaches.
Walthers seems to hate anything C&O and/or steam, so I doubt it will happen.
Not in the diesel era. Modeling a version pulled by E7s would be a way to appeal to those who model later eras, without having to directly compete with MTH’s steam-powered versions.
Hows about the Wabash Cannonball 5-6 cars for a medium pike. Kevin
You beat me too it. I was going to suggest this too. Who doesn’t want a Canonball? That might even have appeal to newbies just getting started. Put a loco & 4 -5 cars into a “set” for next year’s Christmas rush.
Right now I am running my Wabash E7 on the front of the City of St. Louis with grey UP cars behind.
Isn’t one of the trains circa 1941 while the other is early 1950’s? Either way, didn’t these trains get pulled by diesels? I realize steam/diesel transition ran from the late 1930’s to the mid-1950’s, most major RR’s having retired steam by about 1955/56 approx.
CNW 400.
Count me as another vote for Crescent with a green & gold Pacific up front. Those things were just gosh darn good looking.
Even though I couldn’t run it on my layout, that’s a set I’d buy just to display as a Christmas present for my wife. Even though she’s not a model railroader, she loves the looks of that train.