Walthers Latest Announcement

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

Have to be a heck of a scratch builder to build your own. Not an option frankly for most of us. As it is, I was lucky and BLI made nice CZ passenger cars!

Honestly there is no solution there. What do you expect, all Santa Fe fans to band together and boycott the Walthers SF passenger cars because they don’t have grab irons installed at the price they charged. It will never happend. SF fans will suck it up and count their blessings and Walthers will continue to do what they do, squeeze a few extra dollars profit. Sadly or not, thats what seems to be and will continue to happen. I am happy to agree with the OP and wish Walthers sold their RTR stuff with grab irons installed. I don’t honestly see a solution but to gripe and yes, it will fall on deaf ears.

Freelancing gives you many morer options than the rest of us have, and one of those is to easily vote with your wallet. Many of us don’t have that luxury if we model a specific RR and don’t enjoy rolling our own (ie paint and decal stuff). And before anyone criticizes us for not doing that, remember, its a hobby and its supposed to be fun. Some of us don’t find fun in certain as

22

I picked up a Coach Yard Southern Pacific class 75-CS-1 heavyweight club-smoker/baggage car today. All 22 handgrabs are installed. Its companion, a rebuilt, all-coach class 72-CB-2, has all six handgrabs installed Of course they cost several times more than the Walthers cars. I’ve been holding my breath for these models nearly five years.

Mark

23

Riogrande5761,

First let me say I agree, especially about the idea that the hobby is just that, a hobby and each should find fun in his own way.

As to how difficult scratch building a passenger car is, well, maybe not as hard as you think, but again I understand if one is not a “builder”.

Even as a freelancer I do a lot of serious kit bashing to get the models I want and to avoid “train set syndrome”, that is everything on the layout being a readily idendifiable commercial model. I do scratch build a little but I’m mainly a kit basher.

And, even as a freelancer, my “protolanced” railroad interchanges with three “real” railroads and I do try to model them within reason. But as stated before, I gave up rivet counting some time ago. At a younger age I was quite the rivet counter. After a while it became no fun.

So now, close enough is good enough as long as the “feel” and “flavor” is captured. Example: one of those roads is the Western Maryland, only WM 4-6-2’s ever offered have been brass. I only need one but the few out there often reach near 4 digit prices, I won’t pay that for ANY HO model train locomotive. So unless I stumble into a brass one cheap, a kitbashed IHC light pacfic will do just fine.

Rivet counters can be quickly dispatched to the door if their comments are too offensive.

As a reformed rivet counter, I can tell you to a certainty, that a large number of these “new proto specific, high quality, high detail, RTR models” are full of “errors”. It all just depends on how many rivets you want to count.

Example: all the Pullman or Pullman type heavyweights being offered by Walthers or other RTR have a single “set” of underbody details regardless of road name based on the typical details of that car type. But in fact many where different from the “standard” plan or where modified through their

24

All well and good for the freelancers to complain, but I model the UP and I am DARNED GLAD to get the new Walthers cars. Am I happy at the price, well who ever really is? I am glad that WKW came across for the western modeler and I will buy as many of these beasties as I can afford. One good news; Walthers tends to be behind in their releases so I can get all my grabs installed on the first couple cars before the next couple arrive, etc.

All well and good to mention the other passenger cars brands, but they have not seen fit to model any true UP cars and I am one of those who cares. One way to look at the price issue is that if you’re willing to wait a year all of these will be in the Walthers sale flyer for $40 or less.

By the way - trivia to help with touch up on the grabs, a lot of these UP cars had plated grabs on the sides, so they don’t need to be painted.

Gary

25

All good point here. I want to note that Walther’s heavyweights produced couple years ago with installed grab irons and multi-color interior has msrp of around $40 and can be had for about $25 on sale. It does appear as Walther’s just wants bigger profit, but why downgrade features?

However, I’m still really glad that Walther’s produces these train sets, besides MTH planned passenger sets, I’m not aware of any other company that makes such complete car sets as Walther’s - so my hat off to them. The only thing that I don’t like is Walther’s doesn’t carry any replacement parts, either for cars or locos - they either have to send another unit, cannibalize one for parts or tell me that they only cover items under warranty that were bought new through them, but will make exception this one time! [%-)]That irked me, but hopefully it’s not something they actually enforce.

26

In the bright light of another morning, I wanted to clarify my position on my original post. I like Walthers passenger cars. I believe they are well engineered and executed. I merely choose not to buy them anymore and have to install (insanely small) grab irons when there are alternatives.

As Sheldon stated, its about how we define value in the buy process.

27

Here is one for the UP experts. I recall Rio Grande obtained an Ex UP diner and used it on the Rio Grande Zephyr in 1982. The Riverossi diner appeared to be a good match for the UP diner used by Rio Grande, but of course is the old Riverossi model which is fairly bare bones etc. I looked at the list of UP cars announced by Walthers and did not see a flat top diner in the line up. I was really hoping Walthers would offer the diner because it woudl be a higher quality alternative for me to use. Not only that but Walthers often re-issues passenger cars in later re-paints after the initial prototype run has been shipped.

28

I surely was not complaining, just explaining why I don’t buy them. And that main reason is in my first post - I don’t model those roads.

And the other brands/choices I have made cover both my freelance road and the prototype roads I model just fine for my purposes.

If I was going to complain, in addition to my thoughts on the diaphrams and coupling set up, I would complain about limted production marketing and undecorated versions only offered in one of the several versions of each car. So I guess when its all said and done, there is a list of little reasons Walthers has not sold me any of these cars - no one big reason.

I too think its a great product, dispite any short commings I have commented on, just not a great product I need or want.

Sheldon

29

For those of you mentioning prototypical cars not being available in the roads you want try looking into brass car sides and Union Station Products (primarily speaking of streamlined cars). I myself model Santa Fe passenger equipment, and was really dissappointed with the Walther’s Super Chief release (I guess they didn’t research the train very well before they released it). I filled in the gaps of the Palm 10/6 and the Regal 4/4/2 sleepers using brass car sides:

Although not painted and detailed yet, here is the Budd baggage/dorm for the Sunset Limited that I don’t believe is otherwise available unless you wan’t to buy a brass car (same as the Regal sleeper above):

The stuff is out there in options other than imported brass models. They may take a little bit more work than the convenience of a “RTR” Walthers or Rapido passenger car, but well worth it!!

30

I’m not a Santa Fe modeler but I am curious, what was lacking in the Walthers Santa Fe passenger cars. How were they so poorly researched?

31

Mark, is that why you looked so cyanotic at Rick Fortin’s? And here I thought it was just a case of the “blues”. [swg]

For those of you who blanch at what Walthers charges, the list price of a 75-CS-1 is $550 as is the 72-CB-2.

Now that Mark is allowing himself to breathe again, I’m sure we all wish him well as his complexion returns to normal.

Andre

32

The Super Chief that Walther’s released was supposed to be based on the train as it would have appeared with the final configuration and new equipment post 1951. The Budd “Pine” 10/6 sleeper was correct for this (and was released as a part of this set), but the PS “Hotevilla” 4/4/2 sleeper released with this set was not correct (although they included “Regal” decals with the car). That left a major gap in the accuracy of this release.

The additional sleepers that should have been available with this set should have been the PS “Regal” 4/4/2 sleepers, the ACF “Regal” 4/4/2 sleepers, and the ACF “Palm” 10/6 sleepers.

If I recall correctly, the numbering of the Athearn Genesis F7s released as a part of this “set” would have been inaccurate for the era as well.

With all that being said, I am eternally grateful for Walther’s releasing an accurate “Pine” 10/6 sleeper, PS 600 series diner, and PS 500 series dome (Pleasure Dome). Prior to that release, I was having to use strips of Evergreen 2020 to continue the roof corrugation to just above the windows on the first 10/6 Budd sleepers that Walther’s released. I was also trying to do something with the Con Cor diner and dome (which is based on the 600 series diner and 500 series dome), but just couldn’t get them looking as nice as I would have liked to.

I would assume that they were trying to us