I was wondering who out there has any Walthers Trainline locomotives, and , if so, what do you think of it?
I have a Walthers Trainline GP-15, which I painted in Safe Handling Rail Inc. livery( Conrail blue with SHRI name and "open hand"logo, unit #1507). This loco is a top quality piece! It ran smooth as silk straight out of the box, from a crawl to full throttle! I was also impressed with it’s detail, as I spent an hour or so taking photos of the real SHRI GP-15 #1507 for fine detailing, they did thier homework on it.[:D]This was the BEST $34.95 locomotive I’ve ever bought[:D]!!! Tell me what you think of yours!
IMO with limited experience they are a middle of the road loco.
I got lucky and bot two of their first run F40PH a few years back and they had a second run not too long ago.
I’m not up to speed on their warranty .
I bought a FA1 a few years ago myself. It’s quiet, decent runner & hauls what I need it too.
I’d buy another, especially since I only paid $35 Canadian for it.
Gordon
I bought a Rock island FA-1 and a red/silver BNSF B40-8, both at sale prices, these being two roads I model. The FA-1 looked better, being a simpler prototype. I felt the B40-8 (and a “Pepsi Can” Amtrak B32-8WH that I bought at full price) were well detailed mouldings but the painting was oversimplified, and there were no road numbers in the number boxes, for example. The later (“Northeast Direct”(?)) B32-8WH did have lettered number boards, and looked a lot better for that alone. But I can fix the number boards and maybe paint the side window frames silver. Some friends suggested I should get the Kato B40-8, but it cost more than three times what I paid, so it all depends on what you think is value.
I don’t think the Walthers F40s are as good as the Bachmann “Spectrum” units, but I bought those before the Walthers units were available locally anyway.
But the Walthers units run well (if not spectacularly well).
Peter
I have a GO F40PH and a FA-1 that I custom painted. I think the engineering on the units was above average, not quite what Kato or P2K makes but I am quite pleased with it. They are reasonably quiet, pull as well as any of them, and are almost as smooth as my best runners.
I find the detail somewhere between Athearn Blue Box and P1K, which is also something that I think is very solid. The F40 had some, but not too many, add on parts and the paint was well done. The FA-1 had a few add ons but the major problem I had was the lack of see-through grills, this was fixed by an article in MR awhile ago about how to add the detail with paint.
I think the Trainline’s strongest point is price. I believe that the locomotives are among the best deals in the industry right now. Walthers has, very wisely, kept prices low, appealing both to the seasoned vets and those just starting out.
I can tell you I would pick a Walthers F40 over a Spectrum one any day and if I ever need any more switchers I’d be very inclined to buy one of the GP-15s or the GP-9Ms which are even cheaper.
They run well and are reliable, but are severely lacking in detail
I have bought 3 Trainline CSX dash 8’s that were equiped with MRC decoders and I think they are great models. A little bit of detailing and they blend right in with my Proto and Athearn RTR’s.
I have one of their F40s in Amtrak Phase 5 livery, and plan to buy another two or three as and when I can afford to (or when my LHS has the ones I want in stock). It’s a superb loco, Quiet, smooth, powerful and heavy, also has great detailing compared to Athearn locos for not much more money. Now I just need another Amtrak one, a Metrolink one, and maybe a Metra example…
I sense that there is quite a bit of variability in the Walthers locomotives from one prototype to another. I’ve only bought one - the GP9 from their TrainLine brand. I was sceptical at the time, but at that time it was the only HO GP9 except Athearn, and there was a great special on the undecorated version in the Walthers direct-mail flyer. Its by far the lowest-quality diesel I’ve ever bought and was a lesson to me to stick to Atlas, Kato, Stewart, Life-Like (Proto 2K only) and (a notch down but still pretty good, and has some unusal prototypes) Bachmann Spectrum. After checking out the GP9’s inaccuracies, listing what I would need to do to bring the detail to a barely acceptable level, and test-running it (thus realizing that I would also have to re-power it), it went back in the box and has remained there ever since. I need to unload it on E-Bay.
On the other hand, I’ve heard folks at my LHS say they are very pleased (but none of them have actually bought a GP9).
Indeed. They are built for running. Personally, I don’t own any, but I’ve seen their GP-15 and -8-40B running emdless. They are like slighly smoother Athearns units. Detail one up, and you’ve one bad machine.
I’ve got two of the GP15s. They are solid runners and pretty good looking. I stripped, repainted and detailed one so far for my home road, Maritime. The only complaint I had with it was the soldered pickups on the trucks. When I was installing the decoder, two of the wires had to be resoldered. Other than that …I’ve been satisified. Not the best, but far from the worst.
They make a damn good F40-PH!
I agree that they run good I have the GP15 and 8-40b and they are a good unit to super detail but I had the same problem with both of them. They both went out of gauge.
The wheel moved out of gauge because the sliped on the plastic inslators, I carfully put a small amount of CA glue on them and it cured the problem. I do not know if this is a frequent problem or I was just unlucky. The fix was easy so it was not a big problem.
Walthers has also imported a couple of other diesel-electric models; the EMD SW1 and FM H-10/12-44 switchers, these are top notch, comparable to Atlas Alco S series switchers.
When Model Rectifier Corporation first tried to get into the DCC market, they sold a Walthers Trainline E-7 with their decoder pre-installed. I was just getting into DCC then, too, so I made the mistake of purchasing the MRC locomotive and 5 of their decoders. The decoder in the locomotive was bad, and 4 out of 5 extra decoders were bad, so the only good decoder out of the batch wound up in the locomotive.
Detail on the Trainline was non-existent back then – what couldn’t be cast on was simply not there. Running qualities, maybe because of the lousy decoder, was nothing to brag about, either.
Today, it sits in a storage cabinet untouched, and will probably never be ran again because it looks too plain.
Chalk another one up to cheap Chinese manufacturing, because both the locomotive and decoders come from there.
FA-1
i was very impressed when i got my first trainline GP15. i never thought the thing would run as nice as it did. yes, they lack details but at least they cast on the places where you can drill to add grabs. the handrails are a bit thick, but i can live with that.
one good thing, they offer the only correct plastic F40PH. i have one Metra and 2 Amtrak and i love them all. you can get them all pretty cheap and if you add a few small details, you end up with an excellent locomotive.