I like my Walthers Budd and Pullman Standard streamliners! For me it was a big step up from the Con-Cor and Rivorossi streamliners of the 80s.
Of course they are slightly more finnicky.
I’ve had to adjust the coupler height on some of my cars. Easy fix with shims.
The electrical pickup contact strips (for lighting) just below the body that touch the truck screws sometimes may be bowed, which can cause the body to sit up a little higher than normal. For this just push the strips upwards slightly with a flat blade screwdriver, however, don’t over do it as they must still touch the top of the screws if you have the Walthers lighting kit installed.
You may hear some squealing coming from the trucks. Lubricate the truck’s journals! Easy to do by loosening 2 of the top screws on one side of the trucks and the wheel/axles will slip out. Many suggestions have been posted on this forum. I’ve found that “MOLY MAGIC” (Molybdenum) is an excellent, durable type of lubricant that comes in a tube. I purchased mine at my LHS several years ago and it’s still nearly full. It’s a paste mixture that includes graphite which is excellent for electrical conductivity of the lighting kits. You just squeeze a small dab into each journal. It won’t ooze ouf like a number of other lubricants do.
I have over 25 of the Walthers cars - specifically Illinois Central lightweights & heavyweights and Santa Fe “Super Chief” cars, and a couple other ATSF cars.
As discussed in a few previous postings, these really nice cars do have a couple of “problems” with them, but they are (in my case) easily worked out.
In example, I have never had to oil the axles/journals on other cars, but found the instructions for the Walthers cars to suggest this. I did, and it greatly improved the “rollability”.
I also had some derailments, especially going around a 27 inch curve. The cars are supposed to do 24 inch radius, but some do not. I ended up trimming a bit of running gear on two cars, and that corrected the problem.
There are also some cars with stuck diaghrams, and I’ve heard of a few with coupler and truck binding - but I did not experience this.
In summary, these are really nice cars, but they do need to be “lubed and tuned” before they hit the layout. And, IMHO, if your curves are less than 26 inches, I would probably only buy one at a time to assure you can get them to work on your layout.
Bottom line…Would I buy them again??? Absolutely YES !!!
I’d say that with your 30" and 32" radii that you shouldn’t have problems with the Walthers cars. I’ve got two passenger trains made up of Walthers streamline and heavyweight cars and for the most part they’ve been pretty trouble free. Right now I’m collecting their “City” series of passenger cars and they’re just fine.
One thing you might want to check is that sometimes the trucks are screwed on a little too tight from the factory. Also, you might want to check that the screw heads on the tops of the truck side-frames don’t have burrs that can catch on the metal lighting connector on the bottom of the car. I’ve had to file burrs off of several of the screw-heads.
I’d replace the Walthers couplers with Kadees just as a matter of course. The factory installed couplers have a thinner shank than the Kadees and tend to ‘droop’. Replacement is very easy. I use the Kadee #5’s, and they work perfectly.
Other than that and lubing the wheels, the cars are pretty trouble free. But as the other posters have said, I wouldn’t use them on anything under a 26" radius
The only negative has been installing grab irons which gets tedious. I uderstand the UP “City” cars have that done at the factory. Heavyweights have the handrails installed at the doors.
Mine work fine of my 30" and 32" curves.
I like teh Rapdio HO cars ttoo, but they do not have a wide slection.
I’d encourage lubing the Walthers cars too. (Says a guy who hasn’t done his…) There’s an article in a recetn MRR about NOT having free-rolling, to not have to chase a train down a hill. This is nice, but the Walthers are too stiff, they can;t be pulled in as many as other cars of the same weght and looser wheels can. And if your running a flat layout, then hills don’t matter anyway.
Well that explains why it’s been taking me so much tweaking to make them work on my layout…two of my curves have a 22" radius! But for $7 apiece at a train show, I couldn’t pass them up… [8D]
My only real complaints is that I’m planning on modeling MoPac in East Texas ca.1959,and while Walthers makes Passenger Cars for MP,theyr’e in Jenks Blue,not Eagle Blue and Gray!!
Also,while I have nothing against the Hiawatha;City of Wherever;Empire Builder;Super Chief and 20th Century Ltd.;I’d love to see The Texas Special(Katy/Frisco) or Sunset Limited;maybe a generic MP Eagle for a change!!!
Aztek … I have the ConCor set for the Texas Special and it looks good even though the cars are not exactly the same as was on the real train. I use PA1’s painted in the orininal paint sceme. As for MoPac, I recall Rivarossi had some lettered for “Colroado Eagle”, You said blue and gray, but I think these were blue and white. A Sunset Limited could be assembled using mostly Walthers Budd SP cars.
Also, earlier the discussion was on lublicating the axles on Waltehrs cars. I think a P2K E unit could pull many of them without bothering to lubricate the car axles.
For those of you with tighter curves, you can install the longer shank couplers. Of course you’ll see a gap between the diaphrams, but that’s the sacrifice you’d have to make. One trick that you can do that won’t make the gap so obvious is to use the long set shank #46 coupler on the “front” of each car, while keeping number the #5 coupler on the “rear” of each car. When the train is coupled together, with the cars facing in the correct direction, there should be no problem negotiating 22 inch radius curves.
Although, prototypically, it might not be realistic it’s understandable as a number of us that model passenger trains are limited by the space offered by our layout rooms.
I don’t like their diaphrams. They leave unsightly gaps between the cars which destroy the desired effect. I don’t have any of the Walthers cars but do have several Branchline heavyweight Pullmans with the same issue. I installed American Limited Models on those cars to fix the problem.
My opinion is for the price range of the Walthers cars, their diaphragms are hokey - and as mentioned still don’t touch. I paint mine with thinned silver so their crude appearance is not as glaring. All previous comments are on point.
That’s a good point and something to consider. Given my mix of “shorty” passenger cars, the Con-Cor uglies, etc., the Walthers passenger cars my look out of place !
All of you see quite pleased so I am going to buy several since most of them are currently on sale at Walthers for less than half price. I will put on Kadee couplers and lube the wheelsets.
A few of things to watch for on the Walthers cars…I’ve only had these things come up on a couple of cars, and they were fairly easy to correct, but they were major impediments to good operation.
Wheel gauge. I had three cars turn out to be “narrow gauge” by almost 1/16"!
Tight sideframes. I had to correct a problem on a few cars (C&NW P/S Commuter cars, specifically) where the sideframes were too tight on the axles, contributing to the narrow gauge effect. These had to be reamed out using one of the “truck tuner” tools. And yes, it worked fine, even on the metal sideframes.
Trucks catching on side skirts. I had two of the Super Chief cars (diner and dorm-lounge, if I recall) that had this problem. I didn’t remove any material from the trucks themselves, but shaved down the inside of the skirting to fix this.
Trucks screwed too tightly. The fix for this was pretty straightforward, but once I backed the screws out a bit, they wanted to KEEP coming out, so a little loctite was needed. Now they work beautifully.
Contact plates causing car to ride up too high. In my case, I simply removed them, since I decided not to light the cars. Most of my running will be in daytime conditions anyway, so lighting really isn’t an issue. Once I did remove them, I had to bevel the edges of the holes where they once were to prevent the sideframe screws from catching on the cast-on bolster.
The Walthers cars are fantastic, but they do sometimes require a little tweaking. But then again, what doesn’t? [:)]
I had a few issues with my Walthers double deck commuter cars – some did not track through curves at all and it turns out there was a sort of foil around the bolster – for electrical contact I guess – that had bunched up and was interfering with the trucks. A couple of seconds work with a Qtip addressed the issue 100%
More immediately to your issues, when I was planning my layout I knew I liked the look of consistent track centers from tangents through the curve, and I settled on 2 inch track centers. So I assembled a test track where I had old cheap brass flex track, and had 40" 38" 36", 34" 32" and 30" curves in concentric curves all with 2 inch centers.
What I found is that below 36 inches it seemed possible that if I had two trains passing each other on my double track main the overhang on one car could possible nick the other train. So I settled on a 38" minimum for the inside curve just to be safe. I suggest a similar test because I am not sure about a double track main with passenger trains passing each other on curves with 30" and 32" with 2 inch centers between them, assuming that is what you intended.
That test track experiment is fascinating to me. When I first set up my current layout, the guys at the LHS sold me two 85’ box cars and told me to test them running in opposite directions on my double mainline set at 30" and 32" radius curves. With 2" centers between the two tracks, the 85’ box cars brushed against each other, so I set the two tracks 2 1/4 inches apart.
A little clarification on the prototype length of the cars. The cars are actually 80 feet not 85. There weren’t very many passenger cars 85 feet in length. The vast majority were 77-80 feet in length.