Walthers heavyweights

[MRTerry]

We just received our first samples of the new Walthers 12-1 heavyweight sleepers, and they look very nice. We'll have a photo in the December issue, but we won't have a review in until January (believe it or not, December has already gone to press!). The paint and lettering is first-rate, the cars scale out well, and the multicolor interior is excellent. Another new feature (for Walthers) is the McHenry semi-scale couplers.
We'll have more info in the magazine soon, but I thought you all might enjoy a sneak preview.
Terry

[twhite]

Thanks for the preview. Just saw some photographs of the cars and I'm really disappointed that Walthers chose the "Royal Gorge/Ski-Train" paint job for the Rio Grande pullmans. I was hoping for standard Pullman green pre-war colors, not the same thing that Athearn and Rivarossi have been doing for years. Looks like if I need a model of the "Exposition Flyer," or the "Scenic Limited" I'll have to go with Branchline undec and some decals. Nuts!

[cjcrescent]

Interesting that Walthers is getting back into the heavyweight division. I remember building their old heavyweights and what fun they were. I have seen some of these old kits at shows with very premium prices and one dealer even sported a sign that said , "These kits are not for Weinies"!

[orsonroy]

How do the new Walthers heavies compare to the Branchline heavies? Disregarding the fact that one is RTR and the other is a detailed kit, of course!

[MRTerry]

Ray,
You've described the differences between the Walthers and Branchline cars pretty well - the Walthers cars are RTR, and the Branchline cars are kits.
I haven't built a Branchline sleeper yet, but I have built a few NYC coaches, and they build into a nice car. The kits also give the builder a lot of options, so it has been easy for me to make some simple mods to the windows and add air conditioning. They're not "shake the box" kits, though - the parts are very nicely done, but some are fragile because they're near scale size.

The Walthers cars are essentially ready to go right out of the box. All they need are decals. If you wanted to modify them, you'd need to disassemble them (not impossible, but a little bit tricky) and then rebuild them with the details you want, but I don't see many guys doing that. I think most model railroaders will be happy with them as delivered.

Both manufacturers have introduced very nicely detailed and accurately scaled models. The Walthers cars will probably have a more general appeal, and guys who are hard-core kitbuilders or want to add very specific details will tend to go for the Branchline kits. It's hard to go wrong with either choice, though, because both are way ahead of any mass-produced heavyweight cars we had. And I'll never have to build heavyweights out of my collection of old Walthers metal car sides and milled wood roof sections!

Thanks for reading MR,
Terry

[orsonroy]

Thanks for the info, Tony! I've built one of the Branchline coaches myself, and while they do produce fantastic models, I really don't reli***he thought of building an entire fleet of the things (it took me a week of evenings!). I'd rather invest the time superdetailing steam and building resin freight cars, considering passenger trains really play second (or third) fiddle to everything else moving on my layout!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info on the heavyweights.