As discussed before, modern autoracks are hard to find. I understand that Walthers made them and quit, I could be wrong. Now I see Atlas, Intermountain and Scale Trains are getting into the autorack business and all are "pre-order". I wonder who will be the first to have their products available for sale and when. I wonder if Walthers will do a re-issue.
willy6 Now I see Atlas, Intermountain and Scale Trains are getting into the autorack business and all are "pre-order". I wonder who will be the first to have their products available for sale and when. I wonder if Walthers will do a re-issue. Add Quote to your Post
That's pretty much the way things work now days, pre-order. If you want them, pre-order them.
Mike.
My You Tube
you can usually find a few availible on the major auction sites. Not sure you would want to pay the price..but as they say "supply & demand"
Which particular 'modern autoracks' are you talking about?.....the singles or doubles?? What distinguishes modern?I have some of both types, and may have too many, once I unpack things for my new layout in a few months.
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
I believe modern refers to 89 foot enclosed auto racks.
Joe Staten Island West
Walthers has indeed ran enclosed autorack models before, but they are beginning to get to be tough to find. I have not seen anything about a rerun as of now.
Intermountain has released them before, and is now running a preorder for more schemes and numbers.
ScaleTrains is the new option for them.
Atlas had ran the articulated sets before, and has announced a non-articulated run.
As was mentioned, preorder is the new standard, with the old "make it and pray it sells" not getting used very much at all anymore. Outside of the preorder, you takes your chances on availability and price.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
The ScaleTrains and Atlas (both producing the same model, go figure) upcoming racks are VERY modern cars, new within the last 5 years or so.
Atlas also produced a twin-unit Thrall articulated rack that was built around 2000 or so, and these mix freely with standard bi-levels.
The old Walthers car represents a typical design in service through the 1980s to today. Intermountain has been doing a similar car for a few years now, but with see-through etched side panels vs. Walther's solid plastic. (This comes with quite a price bump though.)
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
I saw the Scaletrains.com auto racks at Trainfest November in Milwaukee. They are beautiful and as are all ST seem to be extremely detailed. While the same car as what Atlas has coming out IMO the ST will get here before Atlas. Pre-orders don't bother me as with ST pre-orders there is no money exchanged and you may always cancel that order. You definitely can find many of the sold out items on the ST site at LHS that carry their line, the same with Rapido.
Tom
The upcoming Scaletrains models seem to have nice detail but I'm not sure they have see-through panels. I have 4 of them on pre-order. But the InterMountain models are still the only ones with opening doors.
Martin 4
15 regular racks & 1 articulated
I purchased a number of these on a auction site. Found that the BOTTOM portion of the cars coupler pocket which were only secured with 1 screw, always gave me a problem. Anyway..the newer versions have 2 screws installed up by the coupler and so far these have beed trouble free. Check for 3 screws under coupler pocket and you should be good to go!