I bought three Walthers Union Pacfic Passenger Cars Cities Series. I am very diappointed with my cars. Not one of them stayed on the track. My friend has 36 " radius curves. Every car drailed several times. When you pay good money for these cats. You expect them to run like gold. Monday, I am going to call Walthers and complain. I replaced the factory couplers with Kadee No. 58s. My friend suggested that I replace the metal trucks with plactic trucks. One shouldn’t have to do this. When you pay $55.00 dollars for a passenger car, they should run perfect. Is anyone else experiencing the same problems. Sometimes I wonder if Walthers test their passenger cars.Also, I am not happy with the black diaphrams. I blieve that they should be painted gray.
I just finished up getting an 8-car set for the City of San Francisco, so maybe I can be of some help.
First thing I did was replace the plastic couplers with Kadee ‘whiskers’, using a Kadee coupler height gauge to make sure there was no ‘slop’ in the couplers. Second thing I did was remove the trucks, check the heads of the Philips screws that hold the trucks together for burrs. Found burrs on several of the screw-heads that would catch on the underside of the car, and filed them down. Then I used Labelle #8 light oil in the truck journals (one drop each) to lube the wheelsets. Lubing the trucks is almost essential for good running, as we’re talking metal to metal, here. While I had the trucks off the car, I checked to make sure that all four wheels were sitting on the track evenly. Sometimes this takes some adjustment of the trucks to accomplish–fiddling around with those Philips-head screws, again. Luckily, I’ve only found this problem once or twice on the Walthers cars I’ve got, and it’s easily solved.
I then screwed the trucks back into the underframe, making sure that there was plenty of up-and-down ‘play’ in the trucks. I’ve found that some Walthers cars come ‘out of the box’ with the trucks screwed in TOO tight, and this seems to be the really Major cause of the cars derailing.
Granted, this seems like a lot of work for an “RTR” car, but I’ve learned from experience that almost anything made in China these days is going to take some fiddling around with before it’s suitable for smooth running.
I’ve got 36" radius on my Yuba River Sub (with one small section of 34"), and after ‘tweaking’, my COSF set runs very smoothly. I know that the Walthers cars are advertised for a 24" minimum radius, but that seems awfully tight for an 85’ car with body-mounted couplers, at least IMO.
I have other cars, & the truck screws (that provide electrical contact) do need a little tuning, (mine did)… After that, & a general once over they were well behaved… (Yes I ususally replace couplers too, to Kaydee Scals head ones.)
Being a hobby machinist, I can see the issues with a raw screw hed being used as an electrical contact, even a microscopic burr can lock that mechanism. I use an extremely fine file, & buff them with 800 grit wet paper.
I feel your disappointment, but I hope it is not taking you away from the hobby… (Honsestly, I don’t think I have anything box stock, I can’t leave anything alone! Weather just lube & TLC or a whole teardown & weathering onslought!)
I just ordered a Colorado Eagle through my LHS, now I wish I haven’t. I really much preferred buying a kit at a fair price and making it work properly to begin with.
If we’re paying RTR prices, then they should be READY to RUN, not RTM(ready to modify) or RTF(ready to FIX). The car is around $70, without lights. If we don’t expect better quality from Walthers and others, we won’t get it. Instead of fixing the problems, maybe we should return the stuff so they can better understand their true quality vs what they believe to be good. They can only fix what they know about.
Hey, I’ve been UNEMPLOYEED for four & a half years!!! If Walthers would contact me & had me polish truck screws, Yeah, I would, lke said I do it anyway, cuz I’m a modeler & certifies all my Lokies & rolling stock… I apologize for their errors, but we are living in a prefab world…
I really can’t remember when I got anything that didn’t need some TLC…
Serously, when was the last time you were 100% satisfied & impressed, & never had any anomoly with a product?
I can’t recall it… (Well, [oops] WAIT! yes I can: Leupold 6.5 - 20x Scopes, only the varmint rifles & rings have been minted out!) Seriously, That’s it! Everything else needs work!
Sorry you ran into problems with your new City Streamliner models. Rest assured we inspect our models during production, and we test random samples when they arrive here in Milwaukee too.
Please give our Customer Service team a call at 1-800-4TRAINS (1-800-487-2467) Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central time, and we’ll see what we can do to get you back on track!