Are these trains good in your opinion?? How do they rate compared to Lionel??
Will they run on Fastrack?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Weaver-Grand-Trunk-Western-AAR-Box-Car-L-J_W0QQitemZ350031938769QQihZ022QQcategoryZ19148QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Thanx for your time,
CS
Hi Cs,
I don't have many Weaver cars, or any Fast Track, I don't know why they wouldn't be fine on Fast Track, my Weavers run fine on Real Trax. I Really Like Weaver's PS-2 Covered Hoppers, I do have several of those, and buy them when ever the price is right.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
CS, to answer a complicated question in a nutshell, Williams Trains are mostly reproductions of postwar Lionel types of trains. Most are semi-scale or approximately close to full scale with a few exceptions like the better detailed Alco and the Dash-8's. Though most of the larger Williams locos lack the detail of their current Lionel/MTH counterparts, they also lack the electronics and thus the higher prices. Williams box cars are slightly larger than Lionel 6464's, but the 4-bay hopper, gondola, tank car and NE-5 caboose are right on par with postwar Lionel.
Williams locos are basically bullet proof reliable runners. Simple outside, simple inside. Since you are new, Williams is now owned by Bachmann so new stuff might be a little harder to find right now until the dust settles.
Weaver (with 3 curious exceptions) makes full 0-scale trains with detail to match. Most will look out of place with smaller, less detailed postwar Lionel cars. The 3 exceptions are the woodside reefer, the outside braced box car and the steel-side box car. These 3 cars are from the former Crown Model Products tooling - and though they are full scale, they are modeled after smaller sized cars - and thus look just fine with postwar semi-scale Lionel cars. Your e-bay link CS, is to one of these kinds of cars. The woodisde reefer is pretty popular and has been made in some very attractive paint schemes that are now hard to find. They're out there, just not for sale.
I will note many older Weaver cars come with a plastic truck that many dislike. I personally think it's the best plastic truck out there and have no trouble with them. The current Weaver cars now come with die-cast trucks, hence their higher list prices.
These are both good brands... just depends on what kind of trains (semi or full-scale) and layout you are going to have.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
I now have 4 Williams locomotives and several freight cars, and I love every one of them. They run perfectly well on FasTrack. All of mine are reproductions of Lionel post war items. I have one Weaver box car, and it's taller than all my other box cars.
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Both make a good product but you should be aware of things about the older models when dealing on ebay.
Many of the older Weaver cars are lightweight, have plastic trucks, and don't track as well as Lionel and MTH. You could order them with plastic trucks or diecast and buy seperate sale weights for them. The plastic couplers are a bit on the cheesy side. Weaver has beefed the cars up in recent years and made improvements to them. The car you linked appears to be an older model and my eyes can't tell if the trucks are plastic or metal. As Jumijo pointed out, the PS-1 boxcars are rather large but the AAR boxcars are not as tall (the real cars are this way).
Older Williams engines have no flywheels, underated reverse boards, and thick glossy paint that just doesn't look right in many cases. The electronic horns were a lot to be desired. Williams saw vast improvements around the mid to late 90's when they came out with they toned down the paint, came out with the True Blast 2 horn and six amp reverse boards, and added flywheels. Recent models run silky smooth, pull stumps, and the horn sounds sweet. Many Williams cars are made from old Kusan tooling or mock postwar Lionel and are scale down a little. They are weighted good and come with diecast trucks.
Both work fine on Lionel Fastrack but the longer cars such as Weaver's 57 ft mech reefer are a bit overwhelming on 036 curves.
William's E-7's are scale and reasonably detailed, not as much as current MTH/Lionel, but not as complicated/finicy/fragile either. Williams also has a very nice scale sized GG-1 as well as a traditional sized unit. No where near as detailed as Lionel's or MTH's, no where near as complicated or finicky either.
As others have pointed out, Weaver rolling stock is scale but is often substantially lighter in weight and much more fragile than any of the other vendors products. These were often sold to two rail scale enthusiasts but you can swap out the two rail plastic trucks for three rail diecast. This will weight the car down and help with tracking.
Bob Keller
Good point Bob.
Guess I was thinking more about one of the most popular of the Williams locos, their GP-9. But even without your complete listing here, most of the Williams diesels don't look out of place on a detail level with more traditionally detailed trains, be it the GP-9 or the Dash-9. That's always been an observation of reviews, even in CTT - that the Williams diesels have a suitable level of detail without looking too plain but without being fragile either.
The only big factor with some of those locos, as John Long pointed out, is the length of some of those locos and how silly (or not) they'll look on tight curves.
That, and as many in other places point out, whether or not you can accept the sheet metal frames and handrails on many of the Williams diesels. Obviously the folks buying the Williams diesels don't mind and probably prefer the postwar throwback and the durabity advantage of the sheet metal handrails.
Rating Williams to Lionel is deffinately unfair to Lionel in my opion because Lionel only has the name anymore.
Williams has quality and price whipped compared to Lionel. About seven years ago I bought a brand new Lionel GP-7 that would hardly pull four quad hoppers, replaced it with a new Williams GP-9 and I was really impressed as it pulled over 16 quad hoppers with power to spare, also the Williams came with True Blast horn and bell.
Lee F.
Williams trains can certainly pull, Lee. My weakest Williams is a set of 2031 Alcos. Only one motor, and it sometimes slips when trying to pull 4 post war passenger cars. The rest of them are mules.
How are the Williams F7s? I've seen them advertised as "scale". Are they really scale sized? I'd like something comparable to the PW 2343. Were the PW locos considered scale size?
Jim, are your Alcos older production or are all Williams Alcos weak pullers? I'm looking for something to pull my PW O27 streamliners with, but I'm worried that the F3/F7 might look too big. These would probably work better with 15" cars.
don
The Williams F-7 diesel passenger set "The El Capitan" Santa Fe that I have is very nice, close to scale, but I could use another powered unit for high speed running like Amtrac does in real life, also I have added another passenger car to the consist and that might be why I need more pulling power.
The Williams 671 S-2 Pennsy(Lionel look a like) is very good for a single motor unit as it can pull about 27 post war freight cars, but you must have a rather long straight section to do this as the weight of the freight cars will derail on a curve with less than 054 radius, the 671 will keep going though! Another good Williams diesel is the GP-9 as it has two motors and can pull a lot of freight cars, also has True Blast horn & bell feature. I have a pair of Pennsy GP-9's that I added the True Blast-2 horn feature to and love the sound unit now, one is powered & one is unpowered & has the horn unit in it.
Just for info; I have used an MTH Z1000 and a Lionel current production CW-80 and a Lionel post war 275 watt ZW with my Williams locomotives and they work very well with either transformer.
dmestan wrote:How are the Williams F7s? I've seen them advertised as "scale". Are they really scale sized? I'd like something comparable to the PW 2343. Were the PW locos considered scale size?Jim, are your Alcos older production or are all Williams Alcos weak pullers? I'm looking for something to pull my PW O27 streamliners with, but I'm worried that the F3/F7 might look too big. These would probably work better with 15" cars.don
Don,
I don't know if all the 027 Alcos are weak pullers, but they might be. Williams used to advertise a second motor for them. My 4 post war cars are 2400 series 027 streamliners. The wheel slip could be due to a few things, like a slipping traction tire, wheels and trucks in need of oil, etc. Still, not great pulling power. But they are lookers and match well with the 15" cars! I love ours. I'm thinking of upgrading their sound to an electric RR Alco sound board.
weaver Engines are great and their service dept. does repairs overnight-no kidding. The weaver cars must be bought with metal trucks( most come thru that way today). Williams trueblast horns are terrible (they play a prerecorded tune and can not give forward or reverse signals. The detail on the engines is great. Buy Williams engines and get TMCC Gear from one of the many sources and install it yoursel. The sounds (chosen for your engine and the horn
sound will be swell indeed. You will have a fully functional TMCC Engine at a cash savings. The Williams Passnger Cars can't be beat! The 80' size cars will wow you.
Tom O'Pray trainsopray1@aol.com
dmestan wrote: How are the Williams F7s? I've seen them advertised as "scale". Are they really scale sized? I'd like something comparable to the PW 2343. Were the PW locos considered scale size?Jim, are your Alcos older production or are all Williams Alcos weak pullers? I'm looking for something to pull my PW O27 streamliners with, but I'm worried that the F3/F7 might look too big. These would probably work better with 15" cars.don
Williams F-7's are close to scale size but the nose profile is off and it is hard to get used to it if you're an F unit fan. Like the Lionel F-3, the Williams F-3's nose is profile is near correct.
drag bucket wrote:hi i am steve summerall i have a williams nw-2 switcher with true blast 2 cab # 6250 sume say it will pull 25 cars wate do you say
Steve!
There is no reason not to try your Williams engine with that many freight cars, passenger cars may use up the available power to light bulbs and may seem like your engine is week.
I have a Williams S2 steam loco that will pull about 27 freight cars with almost no problem, the only thing to watch out for is going around curves as long trains tend to derail on curves. My Williams GP-9's are good for number of freight cars they will pull also.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month