Hello,
does anybody now if there are any plans at Walthers to produce some add on cars to their Hiawatha fleet, so that you can model the Olympian Hiawatha too?
As far as I know 5 types of cars are needed for that: baggage dormitory, Toralux sleeper, 8-6-4 “River” sleeper, 10-6 “Lake” sleeper and Skytop “Creek” sleeper lounge observation. The other cars already produced can be used for the rest.
What do you think, are there plans for that at Walthers or not?
Daniel
Dan,
Anything is possible. But with the bad economy and general slow down in hobby sales - It might take some time. We have all seen the dramatic price increases for the newer runs of the Walther passenger cars as well. My understanding(rumor) is maybe a NP North Coast Ltd may be produced, but I just as well would expect nothing new in the next year. The problem with the cars you mentioned is that they are basically Milwaukee Road only and I suspect the reason we got the Twin Cities ‘Hi’ was because of the Walther celebration and the fact that it was the ‘Home Town’ road for them. New passenger train decisions may be made on what cars are already available from their existing selection. Keep your fingers crossed!
Jim
Hey Jim,
interesting rumor you heard about the North Coast Limited. This train would be superb too, I think it has the most beautiful paint scheme ever applied to a streamliner. But when looking at it under the aspect of the crisis, wouldn´t it be much more expenisve to produce 9 complete new cartypes (and new painting) rather than adding 5 new cartypes to an existing Hiawatha fleet?
Daniel
If Walthers would offer a 10 car Olympian Hiawatha set like in that picture (all cars made out of plastic, featuring interiors and the possibility to install interior lighting, plus red signal light already installed in the Skytop Sleeper), how much $ would you be ready to pay for it?
And what loco would you like to see pulling it? E Units, F Units, FM Eries, Little Joes or Bi-Polars?
By the way: I drove that OH yesterday all by myself, what do you think?
$50-75 would not be unreasonable for these “add-on” cars. Skytop lounge sleeper could see for a premium of $65-90. Hey, Walthers, I believe that there exists sufficient demand out there to make production of these Olympian Hiawatha cars very worthwhile. Additionally, the FM Erie-builts could be re-run (from the earlier Proto run a few years back) and enhanced to include the original flat-windshield design. Offer 6 different paint schemes: original 1947 as-delivered; revised scheme which did away with the pin-stripe/wave; 1953 orange/maroon (as pictured); and of course the 1957 yellow/gray UP scheme; finally, the add-on sleepers should also be offered in CN and VIA schemes to replicate their post-Milwaukee careers up North. I believe there may be even more demand for these now, since MTH has introduced their Little Joe and Bi-Polar models now in HO scale.
I think this could be a good seller for Walthers, and it would add some good cars to their Hiawatha series, add some cars to the Union Pacific series, and make some model railroaders happy. I would love to have an Olympian Hiawatha because it ran 30 miles from here (in Bozeman, MT) and the train covered some spectacular scenery. These cars would be important to have for the Olympian Hiawatha to work, and Walthers could do them.
The baggage car, coaches, dining car, tap lounge, and Super Dome cars are the same on the Olympian Hiawatha as other trains.
Mail-Express Car: this could start a prototype for a general RPO-baggage car, which seems to be missing in the general passenger market.
Baggage-Dormitory: I’ve seen a lot of pictures of Milwaukee baggage-dormitories on the UP Cities Trains. This would be a good seller for Walthers as it would fit the UP Cities train so well.
10-6 sleeper: Walthers has made a lot of these for other railroads. For example, they produced one for NP (which had 2) and GN (which never had a 10-6 sleeper). Milwaukee Road wouldn’t be that hard, and they could be used in UP colors and on CN as well.
Toralux sleeper: While this is a unique Milwaukee model, it would be an interesting car.
Skytop sleeper-observation: This is a neat car that could also be done in a CN scheme. I know people who bought the previous Skytop just because it looked neat. I’d imagine that the sleeper version would be the same.
A 8-6-4 sleeper could be nice too. I don’t know how often they ran on the Olympian Hiawatha though.
Power could be anything the Milwaukee Ran, especially Little Joes and Bi-Polars.
I may not have added much to this discussion, but I know I would buy the necessary Olympian Hiawatha Cars to add to the Hiawatha ones I already have. If Walthers ever did the North Coast Limited, I’d really be happy!