Has any one seen those new BNSF and CP 50’ box cars with roof walks,
what in tarnations were they thinking, that is as prototypical as modeling an apollo capsel on mars.
I think some one outa get slapped for that one, or at least kicked in the shins.
Ms Pelosi wouldn’t get that analogy.
[V]
I suspect its a foul up at the Chinese factory…Still NO [censored] excuse for such terrible mistakes making it to the customers!!![B)][8][xx(] I expect cars like that from Tyco and other such like companies but,surely not Athearn.[V]
Did you also see that they did CN boxcars with the website logo?
Guys,
Take a deep breath; the sun will set tonight and rise in the morning and life will still go on even though Athearn got it wrong with this one particular car.
Don’t get sick! Just skip buying the Athearn cars. They obviously messed up and will probably have to eat most of them and be sick for sure.
If this is the same car from the blue box line that is probably why the roof walk is there.I dont see Athearn retooling that car to remove the roofwalk.That is no excuse to paint them in that scheme though.Maybe they should label them foobies.Details Associates makes plugs for the holes the roofwalk fastens into.If it bothers you that much,purchase some of these,install the plugs,paint them and woila,no more roof walk.Dan
I guess that they will be just fine with my “no such prototype” lionel HO M&StL diesel switcher. Since the PM guys won’t be buying them up, they’ll be a bargin in no time. Get a whole car for the price of the trucks.
my solution to the goofed up athearn 50 foot boxcars is not to buy them. the only athearn boxcars i have ever boughten are 9 of their 40 foot smoothside and outside braced high cube boxcars. those i will use for spacer cars during moves of tankcars hauling chemicals. if i buy modern up to date boxcars i get ones from manufacturers like walthers, accurail, and branchline trains. at least with those three companies you do not break your piggy bank on one freight car, as you would if you bought a single boxcar from athearn. the only way i would buy any athearn freight car is in person at model train flea market or local hobby shop
Thanks for pointing that out guys, I had not noticed the roofwalk yet. More rolling stock for my bargain bin.
Not defending Athearn here as this sort of thing drives me up the wall too, but back in Model Railroading 101 class we learned a pretty easy fix for part of this.
I took my BNSF car out of the box, slipped a knife under the roofwalk where the pegs would be and gently lifted up the roofwalk. You won’t even have to buy those roofwalk plugs or fill in the holes as the pegs or whatever you want to call them are gonna stay in the holes.
File them or sand them down, get out the BNSF mineral red and paint the white spots. Shave off the roofwalk end brackets and what do you know the car is better. Or leave those brackets alone as they are still on some cars.
I know that still leaves the high ladders and the high brake wheels. And I know that maybe you shouldn’t be expected to deal with any of this on a RTR car that MSRPs for 15 dollars but getting the roofwalk off would take care of the most egregious error.
Still not defending manufacturers here, but this sort of thing IS pretty rare to find in this day and age. Seems like most everybody is pretty much sticking to the prototypes where it is economically feasible to do so.
IF I wanted that car for a earlier era I would buy,strip the paint,repaint and decal…Athearn has some super nice cars but,they slip and fell flat on these two cars…I will continue to buy Athearn,Atlas and Accurail cars…I bought my last [censored] Walthers car…[xx(][:(!] But…That’s another subject.
Why, is there something wrong with 'em?? I just chased around to every hobby shop in town today and bought twenty-nine of them!! ebay, here I come!!!
Now if only I could find any Penn Central steam locomotive decals; Walthers, are you listening???
SPoregondivision, if you are still having trouble keeping your purity down in the morning give me a call and we’ll get you an appointment with a rivet counter specialist!!!
Yeah this is the price to be paid for slapping paint and lettering on cars because it sells – this has been an issue with mass produced plastic since Day 1 in the 1950s. It goes both ways too – old fashioned billboard lettering, banned by the 1930s, on more modern cars because that is the tooling the maker had available. And yes the cars sell.
Having said that not many years ago I was railfanning at Milwaukee’s Butler Yard (CNW/UP) and noticed a rather modern boxcar with a roofwalk and high ladders. I thought – how can this be – and then noticed it also had roof hatches, I guess for Kaolin loading. It was not a covered hopper but it was a boxcar. There was a need for crew to get to the roof.
So maybe somewhere there are “almost” prototypes for these cars, assuming you could add the hatches (and the white dust!) although having said that, I suspect those Kaolin boxcars have since been retired in favor of covered hoppers and I doubt if any were BNSF much less the “swoosh” logo.
Dave Nelson
What’s wrong with the dot com scheme? Remove the walkway and fill the holes and you are 85% accurate. IIRC, someone makes plugs for those holes as well
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cn/cna404812bpl.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cn/cna404871apl.jpg
Not a bad effort without retooling the whole car
I have a picture of a boxcar taken about 8-10years ago that still had the high mounted brakewheel. No walkway though
Typical athearn manufacturing practice, paint 'em any scheme mentality, many athearn cars still don’t have correct prototypes to match cars produced, you get what you pay for…
You nit pickers with the roofwalk problem, there is probable one out there like that, maybe in china. I hear prototype this and that and in some cases it is true but if you look at real railroads, not just here but elsewere you will find some weird things. Used to be a collum in a mag with such pics titled so you think it not prototypical.
Not only Athearn my friend like you suggest but,Walthers,Accurail and Walthers/Life Like…I even read where some of the high dollar cars like Branch Line,Atlas,Genesis and Intermoutain isn’t exactly perfect either.
Oh, I agree Brakie, (in)accurail’s next and even branchline and red caboose have flubbed lettering. With all the time and money they spend to make these cars, you’d think they’d try to get the paint scheme/lettering right ! I guess those r&d people and tv weatherpeople are the only ones who don’t have to be correct and still get paid…
