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Walthers HO scale 70-foot heavyweight baggage car
The baggage car is also available in the two color orange and green Great Northern “Empire Builder” scheme. I plan to add this car to the Walthers “Empire Builder” consist currently being made available.
I do not understand why they run Illinois Central in all of thier other passenger cars, but fail to run any baggage or RPO’s with Illinois Central Lettering
Beautiful model! The problem that I have is $45.00 for any single car. It seems that since Walthers has pretty much taken over the hobby, the prices have only gone one way… UP! We can attract younger members how? Even Athearn blue boxes approach $10.00. My baggage cars made from reconditioned AHM/Riv cars look almost as good and cost ~$35.00 less per car. Dan
I am looking foward to the NYC cars in pullman green as this is what I* vision for mail trains. L Steen
These are beautiful models and reflect the quality we’ve come to expect from Walthers. Unfortunately for most of us, it also reflects the high prices we come to expect from Walthers. I do like the easy-to-snap-off roof that hopefully leaves room for Walthers to offer the car with updated turtleback roofs, or enables the modeler to easily perform this modification. I assume the doors slide open…otherwise its a waste of a nice interior. Hopefully these cars quickly reach the ‘under $20’ category.
I have purchased the entire heavyweight series to date. The models are indeed surperb…at least until I tried to run them. The couplers need to be replaced with longer ones and most wheel sets are out of gauge.
I purchased two of these cars at the Madison train show a couple of weeks ago, C&NW and Milwaukee Road. Pleased with the appearance of the two cars, however the roofs are on so tight, I haven’t managed to seperate them from the carbody to look inside or install lighting. I was disappointed that the NYC model was painted Pullman Green instead of the two-tone gray that would match the rest of the Walther’s line of NYC NYC Heavyweight Passenger cars. Lastly I am very disappointed with the poor trucks. Wheels have too much friction. Will have to reem out the sideframes and clean out the excess flashing on the truck sideframe pieces, plus oil everything to get them to run smoothly. Shouldn’t have to do this if they’d pay attention to QC when they put the cars together.
I really like the cars, but I think $45.00 each is a bit much. I have reworked a whole stable of IHC/Rivarossi passenger cars with (interior lighting, metal wheels, hand rails and diaphrams) and they look great and track well. Maybe Walthers should think about a price reduction. The hobby will not grow if new people cannot afford to by model railroading products. This goes for a large portion of items not just Walthers passenger cars. Thanks
The model IS very nice but I agree with the comment concerning the trucks. I’m leary of over-reaming so may just replace them with an old pair of CV trucks I have on hand.
I too have a complete train of the NYC two tone Grey scheme with the white stripes and was GROSSLY disappointed that this new can came painted in some lame green and black scheme. At $45 plus shipping,[I actually paid less because I bought it from someone other than Walthers]; you would think that there would be some “consistency” in the the color scheme. I also agree however, that the tooling and quality of the build are great, but the running characteristics and those plastic couplers- that is the first thing I addresswhen I get these. I believe Walthers knows that when you get a long, heavy train rolling, the plastic couplers seperate; they just don’t want to invest in Metal Kadee Couplers because it would cut into their profit margin. All in all I do give this car a 3 1/2 Star rating out of 5.
I agree with the comment on the quality of the new Walthers cars but the $44.98 price tag comes in at close to $60AUS at current exchange rates! Really really hard to justify at that price.
the cars look awsome, but i am into “N” guage.
this is the only heavy weight car that will run on a 22 inch rail