I see that Walthers is announcing new cars for their next passenger train.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/newproducts/cr/200908/Passenger
They are just calling it the UP streamliner.
Nice! I guess Walthers expected bigger excitement - the way the showed the cover on their new catalog with partial view of new cars and diesel. Since no excitement ensured, they just quietly adding them to the catalog.
I see they are sticking to the $64 point and still want us to install grab irons. Rapido has them installed with framed windows and lighting at the same price point - we’ll see how it works out for Walthers. If the interior in the Walthers cars will be plain again, like they have done in the 20th Century - I’ll pass. Although it seems like Rapido doesn’t see additional sales from having multicolor interior because they are going to one color in their latest offering - that’s sad. [V]
I have the Super Chief from Walthers and loved them till I discovered I had to install the grab irons. Drilling holes with a #80 bit in a pin vise is not my idea of what I need to do. If I could hire a teenager to do it, I would. I checked and have discovered the process is employed at Guantanamo on terror suspects.
It would be one thing if the grabs were accurately sized to fit the the hole dimples in the body, but too many are not. I have since quit buying the Walthers cars till they offer their cars with the grab irons installed. Since then I have purchased only the Cal Zephyr cars from Broadway and others from Rapido. To me the $10 price difference is a bargain.
The above explains dissappearing railroad car kits. I’ve built six Branchline Pullman kits. Each had eight grab irons to install which I didn’t find difficult or burdensome. This seems to be a minority view, however.
Mark.
Mark, I understand and agree, still building kits here too.
As for this new train, not on my shopping list, everything I model is east of the Mississippi.
Sheldon
Great news, Mark and Sheldon. I’ll pay you guys to apply my grab irons allowing me to once again purchase passenger cars from Walthers and spur the economy in the process.[:)]
I don’t think the issue here is that there is no demand for kits. The issue is that Walthers asks almost $70 for cars with monotone interior, no installed grab irons and no lighting. If Walthers priced these cars to be less than $40, like they have couple years ago, than it would’ve made sense when compared to cars by Rapido with grab irons, multi color interior and lighting at $65 each.
By the way, Rapido guys, if you are reading this - it doesn’t mean you need to price your cars at a $100 [(-D]
Pack them up and send them over, I’m sure my rates will be reasonable enough. Especially in bulk, I’ll set up an assembly line process, speed production and reduce your cost.
Sheldon
Perhaps you should call CNN and have the do a special on the Walthers grabiron torture method to get terror suspects to talk! Sounds like Mark there would be happy to do your grab iron installations for you since he didn’t find it particularly burdensome.
I am glad I didn’t have to model any Santa Fe passenger trains. But I do have two Walther PS 52 Seat coaches that were used on the prospector so I guess I’m not exempt from this form of “fun”
You sound like a kit martyr. But seriously, can’t the kit builders and RTR folks just get along? As I get older I find kits less pleasureable to build but I do them occasionally - it just isn’t the joy it was in my 20’s and 30’s.
[quote]
I don’t think the issue here is that there is no demand for kits. The issue is that Walthers asks almost $70 for cars with monotone interior, no installed grab irons and no lighting. If Walthers priced these cars to be less than $40, like they hav
Several responses have surfaced my real reluctance to apply the grabs. First, as Riogrande states, it is no longer fun as it once was (and that’s a linear relationship to my age). I am the target market for brighter and more highly magnified hobby lamps. And then there is the price point issue pointed out by trainsbuddy. $65 should not require me to install itsy-bitsy grabs.
Whew! I’m so glad that I can still get the Walthers streamlined cars that were first produced a few years ago for under $30! IMHO, they’re still great looking cars. I’ll put my handrails in, eventually. My only “borderline” complaint is the generic spartan style diaphrams.
Overall, my view is probably simplilstic. I’m in my 40s and still remember when the best looking passenger cars that you could get in plastic were the “featherweight” AHM and Concor cars during the 70s and then the nicer retooled Rivorossi’s in the early 90s. All with “plastic” wheels. Ironcially the 90s retooled Rivorossi cars actually have very nice looking diaphrams.
It isn’t the issue of installing the grab irons. It is installing the grab irons on a model that costs that much.
Yup, me too. I was looking forward to the Century but have not gotten any. After getting 2 Super Chiefs (30 cars), 3 Empires (50 or so cars), and a Hiawatha (13 cars) Plus the associated locomotives, I figured they would want to keep my business. But I guess not.
Right, because I wouldn’t buy those either. $59 for the BLI beaver tail dome observation was about my limit.
OK–Is this about the cost of these cars or the fact that the grab bars are to be put on by the hobbyist?
If it is both then maybe the fact that the grab bars are to be put on by us would indicate the prices would be going up even more if the thing was totally RTR.
I’m in my mid fifties with eye issues and bifocals and not so steady hands and I’ll keep building kits and scratchbuilding—it is what I enjoy------[swg]—after all I’m the silly one who paints N scale people with super high magnifying loupes and such—[(-D]
We all have our own sense of value, and we all make choices based on that. I understand, and was just looking to help solve your problem. Personally, I don’t buy $65 plastic RTR passenger cars, or even $35 RTR passenger cars, with or without grab irons installed, because I would rather build a kit, even if the kit costs $65.
Or, even if the kit costs less, I might spend that much by the time I get it the way I want it.
And, I have yet to see one of these RTR passenger cars up to my operational standards right out of the box. You think for $65 the grab irons should already be installed, I think for $65 the diaphragms should have more detail and should actually touch all the time and work like the ones I install on my kit built cars. I will not pay that kind of money to then “rebuild” them to my standards, much easier to just build a kit.
But there are lots of expensive items in this hobby you will never see on my layout. My only two brass locos where purchased at “die cast” prices (and now have plastic tenders behind them), there is no brass rolling stock, etc.
Again, we all have our own sense of “value”.
Sheldon
Somehow I have a hunch that if the grab irons came installed a predictably large number of cars would be returned to Walthers due to bent or missing grab irons, whether due to the manufacturing, the original shipping to the USA, the warehousing, the shipping from the warehouse, what the hobby dealer did when stocking the shelves, or various customers man-handling the merchandise. The cost increment to just add the grabs is tiny; the cost increment to account for the larger amount of damaged merchandise much larger I suspect.
Dave Nelson
The thing is, if one models the Santa Fe, and they needed the passenger train in plastic, then the best you can find out there is basically Walthers. It isn’t a matter of choosing kits vs RTR. It would only be that if one could buy similar quality Santa Fe passenger cars in either Kit or RTR; but we know that isn’t possible. So for whatever railroad and era we model, most of the time we only have the choice of what is offered and have to take it (Kit or RTR). The only way one can truly choose to build only kits is to buy only what comes in kit form,&nbs
The difference is that in the last few years, the price has almost dubled, for what seems like no further detail improvements. And, for a time, Walthers was attaching them. The stopped.
HALLELUJAH!!!
Thank you Walthers, you just gave me 2, possibly three of the cars I need for the Train of Tomorrow. Love you guys!
And if one models the B&O there are NO models of most of the name train equipment in kit or RTR. Your statement actually reinforces my main point, we all decide, based on our needs, wants, resources and values what we are willing to pay, or not pay, for the products that are offered.
AND, we decide what we are willing to do to those models to make them more accurate after we pay what ever we pay.
No one need hold their breath waiting for their “favorite” roads passenger cars because the unique nature of passenger cars says that even with the large selection availabe today, the surface as barely been scratched.
If your lucky enough that someone has done what you need/want, and your willing to pay, good for you. If not you do without or settle for the other choices, or build your own.
The point of the OP is that compaired to other products out there, the grab irons should be installed for the price Walthers is charging. BUT, if enough people keep buying, is opinon will fall on deaf ears, just like my opinion about the diaphragms.
I free lance, so Santa Fe or B&O is not of much concern, and I gave up rivet counting years ago at my doctors advice.
Personally, I have voted with my pocket book