Has anyone else seen these? I saw them at the LHS last time I was there, seemed to be nice, although much more expensive than an Athearn BB.
Now to the second part of my question, there was a CNW boxcar that had a logo that said “Chicago and Northwestern Lines.” Did that logo ever exist? Links would be appreciated [;)]
i haven’t seen them other than on walther’s website . i’m just wondering about them being “much more expensive than an Athearn BB” . they list at $9.98 , how much cheaper are BB’s ?
You may be right, it was last weekend that I went to the LHS so there’s no guarantee I remember right 
. If my memory is right they were in the $15-$25 range.
Where did you get that smiley face. well not exactly smiley.
http://cl.acurazine.com/forums/misc.php?do=getsmilies&wysiwyg=0&forumid=158 I know Chad Thomas uses this sight, he’s where I originally got the link.
Thanks,
how do i get them to show up as smileys.
Hey! I love those smilies!!! Will have to take a look later…
Walthers Classics… I don’t know but I suspect that they are the same kits that used to be just Walthers kits that now get put together in China and arrive as RTR fo a higher price. A lot of people seem to have told Walthers that they liked the kits so Walthers have brought them back.
As for price Walthers kits always were more expensive than Athearn BB but they also always had better/more detail. As I recall they were usually about 2X the price for roughly the same thing… but the Walthers were better.
Hope this helps [:)]
Actually, they are not much more expensive than Blue Box kits. Most Blue Box kits are around $7.50 and up. The Walthers kits are about $10.00. These are all kits Walthers used to import years ago that they are importing again. I remember that the RBLs (FGE boxcars), if not all three kits, were actually $11.98 the last time they imported them, so they have acutally decreased in price.
Something to consider about the price is the Athearn’s Blue Box kits are produced in an area where production costs are significantly more than where Walthers’ kits are produced.
I have not purchased any of these kits yet. If they are the same as the last production run, then the boxcars still have moulded on ladders, bars on the door, etc. Most of the detail is on the bottom. That is not much of a selling point to me since I rarely see that part of the car. Usually, I am looking down on them.
I have at least one model of these cars from previous production runs, and I plan to buy some more of these.
Does anyone know if these kits are the old Train Minitures that Walthers picked up probably 25-30 yrs. ago? They were probably the most well detailed kits at the time & still hold thier own with just a few modifications. jerry
What I find interesting about this new series of kits is the packaging: Walthers has brought back a sort of drawing or high contrast photo of a steam locomotive that graced their packaging 50+ years ago. In the past it was paired with a standard passenger car.
The kits that I examined at the Walthers showroom look to be more or less the same plastic kits that they offered 10 or 15 years ago but repackaged; not the train miniature kits but Walthers own. You can still find the original kits at swap meets and some hobby shops. They might cost a bit more than Athearn blue box (we geezers remember when most Athearn kits were under $2) but involve more parts and more work and thus provide both more value (assuming there is value in time spent on a hobby project) and more opportunities to modify. And yes things like ladders are cast on. The more I accidentally remove (and then cannot find) the separate parts just with normal handling of the better quality of modern kits such as P2K and Intermountain, the more I start to understand what Uncle Irv was getting at with all the cast on stuff, that is for sure.
What would be interesting is if Walthers brought back the SilverStreak and Ulrich kits that they bought the tooling for years ago. The Silver Streak reefers in plastic were impressive cars in their day.
The CNW herald has gone through several changes over the years (but with North being separate from Western, not one word – although early uses had a hyphen), including “system” and “employee owned.” I am pretty sure Chicago & North Western Line or Lines has a prototype
http://www.trainstuff.info/metalsigns/chicnwherald.jpg
although whether it is correctly used on this particular car is somethning I cannot say. The variety in C&NW heralds makes for an interesting challenge for model train makers and those who letter their o
Am I correct in thinking that the CNW had more different colours and more different variations of its herald in use on its freight stock at any one time than any other RR?
I just put together two of the Walthers kits in the past month. One was a new “Classic” kit that I purchased at my LHS, the other was a discontinued kit from the early 90’s production that I got off of eBay.
The biggest difference was that the 90’s kit had a set of build’em-up trucks that really didn’t look all that good. I replaced them with a set of Proto 2000’s with metal wheels.
Both kits built up into very nice models. For less than $10 new I can’t complain.
Mark Gosdin
Dave
I agree with you about the Silver Streak and Ulrich kits. The then new Silver Streak reefer kit was my very first kit - for the Railroading merit badge in Boy Scouts. The counselor would not permit an Athearn kit, as they were too “easy”. But it was and is a finely detailed model in plastic.
The Ulrich metal kits were pretty good models of various gondolas, in particular. The drop bottoms on most of them could be made to be operable. I still have a couple of the Ulrich Overton metal passenger car kits to complete.
thanks for a ride down memory lane
Fred W
And Chad Thomas got it from me…LOL [:D]
