Received the eight-car set today after getting a tip that a few had reached some dealers. I've only been waiting two plus years for these, and rather impatiently.
MTH has no shortage of detractors, but they seem to be making better products here and there. These cars are an example, in my opinion. I took them out of the box and ran them without having to fix anything. They roll very well and needed no coupler adjustments, although I removed the plastic couplers to make room for Kadees after the first tests. The paint is very good. The detail is good, especially the car ends and diaphragms, an area often neglected on equally expensive cars. The lighting all works well.
They come with the couplers mounted for radii down to 22 inches, but there is a second position for 46 inch or greater radii. Likewise a second set of holes to connect the articulated diner/lounge set. The diaphragms are in contact in tIhis mode, and the consist looks great. I tried these on my 35 inch radii and almost got by; the diner set was OK. but several other cars would sometimes derail. I worked with some short-shank couplers, and came up with an almost-touching compromise. The flexible full-body diaphragms are very well designed, and I believe i can improve the close-coupling some more. Right now, the gap between cars is a sixteenth inch.
I like this set quite well. For the record, I have no connection with MTH.
Hal
Thanks for the review, I have been watching these with hopeful anticipation.
MTH has it's issues as all others do as well. So many seem to forget that with their unwavering brand loyalty. I think I will be picking up a set of these as this is the last of the cars I "need" to make my setup of the SP circa 1950's in Texas complete. I know that these represent the ones that ran in California but my grandparents have pictures of them taking the daylight from Houston to LA. My grandfather worked on the SP for 45+ years in the Englewood yard in Houston.
Pictures of them in operation would be great. ;) please
San Dimas Southern slideshow
[URL=http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e103/hdtvnut/IMG_0968t.jpg]
Here is an attempt at a full pic: my layout is in work and the room is cramped.
Wow, really impressive.
Do you have any pictures in dark so we can see the interior lighting. Is it on all the time? I noticed that drum head looks to be lighted in the last pictures, but not the overhead round light in the roof of the observation car.
TexasSP I know that these represent the ones that ran in California but my grandparents have pictures of them taking the daylight from Houston to LA.
I know that these represent the ones that ran in California but my grandparents have pictures of them taking the daylight from Houston to LA.
Are you sure that you didn´t mean the Sunset Limited or Argonaut? Because both trains ran from Houston to LA, but never had Daylight paint on. However, there were 2 other SP trains running between Dallas and Houston, the Sunbeam and the Hustler, and they looked like their californian companions, since they also had the same Daylight paint scheme.
I just received the 60004 and 60005 articulated chair car sets and added them to the consist. A problem arose with the close coupling because of the single stirrups located at doorways. With the chair-chair pairs, some cars end up having these stirrups facing each other, and since they project some, they tend to catch coming out of curves and cause derailments. Had to move the baggage car stirrups back some.
The MTH 60001 (only one I could get) carsets mistakenly have features from both 1939 and 1950. I changed car letterboards from "Southern Pacific" to " Southern Pacific Lines" to match my tender lettering, presence of skirts on all cars, and style of observation car tail-light. I'll change the light to white and and add a DCC decoder so it lights during backing only, as per prototype before 1949.
I also changed all wire antennas from .010 to tempered .015, because it was difficult to get the wavy originals to look decent.
Things are in good shape now. If only those seated figures would get here!
First as someone who has been willing to point out the short comings of MTH in the past, Let me say these cars look very, very nice. And I am impressed that someone has finally made a high end plastic passenger car with a correct close coupling option designed in.
From what I have seen so far, in general, I am much more impressed with MTH rolling stock than I am with their locos. My biggest complaint is still the lack of DC versions since I don't use DCC and have no interest in sound or smoke.
Now all they need do is actually make something I have a use for on my layout and they might finally get some money from me.
But since I don't model the SP and I'm not a "collector", I'm still waiting for something, anything from them that fits my plain, boring, everyday, 1954 in the Mid Atlantic theme.
Sheldon
[Quote]
"...I like this set quite well. For the record, I have no connection with MTH."
I've had my 8 car set , that articulated chair car set and the single chair car for a few weeks now and I'm so pleased with the whole train.
I haven't experienced any problems at all and the lighting is the best I've seen on a running model -MTH uses a Capacitor set up on each car that stores energy for the LEDs -this eliminates flickering and allows the lighting to stay on constant even at a stop as long as track power is present.
The only modification i've made was to replace the antenna wire with a tempered steel .005 equivalent, primered and airbrushed satin black to match the original.
If the Powhatten Arrow cars are as nice as this, I'm going to be a very happy camper running them behind the J.
HF1
Yeah, HF 1, the lighting hold circuit is good. It does feel weird to me to pick up a car and have it stay lighted but fading in my hand for about 90 seconds.
I've done , in addition to the antenna wires, the following:
Changed the MTH coupler covers and McHenry cheapo couplers to KD 47's with KD draft boxes. Tapped the close-coupled holes to mount the boxes there. Found that this was too close for some car diaphragms on my 35 inch radii. Took a small round file and enlongated the KD holes slightly to get the right spacing (no effect on coupler operation).
Found two other minor problems causing derailments. One was, as I said, protruding stirrups facing each other pushing each other sideways on curves. Not a factor until chair-chair pairs are added. The other was that some diaphragms have a slight lip of the bellows protruding past the plate which needs to be trimmed off smooth so it won't hook on the other plate. If you don't plan to close-couple, you won't likely have these problems.
The brightness of the interior LED's, which look fine with room lights on, is high enough that they shine through the car walls in the dark. So I'll either try painting the interior walls with opaque paint or cut back the LED intensities with larger dropping resistors. I already took these steps on a BLI observation car with good results, and installed a decoder for the tail-light, so will do likewise for the MTH.
The 80-60001 set is supposed to be 1950's era, but have pre-war details except for the letterboards. Hence I changed 24 letterboards to match (don't want to hear the word "decal" again for awhile).
I plan on purchasing these car set in a couple of weeks. I have 24" radius curves, will the KD #5 or #26 (long shank) work? Do I have to replace the draft boxes?
Also, I plan on putting passengers and painting the interior, is the roof easily removed? It's nice they have a good LED lighting system, I sure wish Walthers would start offering factory installed lighting.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
Michael, if you hate plastic couplers like I do, replace them with KD "underset" #47's or whisker 147's. The undersets are required to give you the right height. You need to use the KD draft boxes also, as neither KD will work in the MTH half-box. No modification to the car is needed to change the boxes.
With 24" radii, you probably will have to mount the boxes in the same outer hole the original boxes use. However, if you want to try for closer coupling, you might consider drilling holes half-way between the two holes provided on two mating cars and see if they derail.
Can't say about taking the cars apart as I'm still waiting for my figures, but there are directions with them for disassembly.
Thanks Hal. I think I'll get the #47s, as I don't like the whiskers. I'll probably just use the same location as the MTH couplers and see how they run.
No issues with the artic SPL car that I bought last month. Finally got to take it down to La Mesa Club this week and test it on the 48" curves with the rest of my mixed HW passenger train... Walthers paired window chair, Athearn Gen. Chair, some MDC head end cars, and 3 Walthers HW Pullmans. Ran fine at factory weight. I did modify the gauge of the wheels to comply with the NMRA gauge and the club specs for sub RP-25 contour wheels. This was a bit involved as the trucks had to be "tweaked" to allow the wheels to be wider gauge and the axles to be longer as a result. This is a "club modification", I don't think that most people will have to go to this level if your cars are having no issue.
The couplers we moved to the "inner holes" per MTH instructions, steam lines were rather well glued in. I was able to just bend the 2nd one out of the way to move the screw and box.
On the 48" curves the cars do slightly "yawn" (about 1/16") with the full width diaphragms at the articulated end even at the closest pin hole setting. As I only have that one car at the moment, I can't try coupling a second car with that diaphragm onto the one I have.
Overall, I think this car meets my expectation. It's not totally to the club's standards, but I did go to a friend's house and layout within 20 minutes of buying it and tested it there on the track and 30" curves to my satisfaction that it would be a good performer.
I can't wait to see the full set in SP, and get it setup to run!
Jason Hill
hdtvnut Received the eight-car set today after getting a tip that a few had reached some dealers. I've only been waiting two plus years for these, and rather impatiently. MTH has no shortage of detractors, but they seem to be making better products here and there. These cars are an example, in my opinion. I took them out of the box and ran them without having to fix anything. They roll very well and needed no coupler adjustments, although I removed the plastic couplers to make room for Kadees after the first tests. The paint is very good. The detail is good, especially the car ends and diaphragms, an area often neglected on equally expensive cars. The lighting all works well. They come with the couplers mounted for radii down to 22 inches, but there is a second position for 46 inch or greater radii. Likewise a second set of holes to connect the articulated diner/lounge set. The diaphragms are in contact in tIhis mode, and the consist looks great. I tried these on my 35 inch radii and almost got by; the diner set was OK. but several other cars would sometimes derail. I worked with some short-shank couplers, and came up with an almost-touching compromise. The flexible full-body diaphragms are very well designed, and I believe i can improve the close-coupling some more. Right now, the gap between cars is a sixteenth inch. I like this set quite well. For the record, I have no connection with MTH. Hal
I agree on your comments on the overall quality of the MTH set and how they roll very well. I got the basic set along with four of the articulated coach cars and two of the single cars to have an eighteen car train. The lighting is done very well since the cars have a soft glow instead of the bright look for most HO passenger cars. The lighting inside takes a little time to get to come on when they are first placed on the track as they have to charge up the capacitors in the cars. They stay on after the power is turned off and this feature keeps the light from flickering as the train is moving. The cars are available and represent the Daylight train in all of its glory during the steam era. The rear observation roof light needed a red LED or lens which I installed.
They are a bargain compared to any brass cars if you need a Daylight train.
CZ
They're good looking, smooth rolling and make for a nice train. I purchased the 8-car basic set plus an articulated coach. Someone mentioned the plastic couplers on the cars--mine are metal and didn't need to be replaced with Kadee's (which was a surprise!).
Since MTH stated that close-coupled the train would need about a 48" radius, I performed an experiment and only adjusted ONE coupler on each car. It brought the cars closer together, but still allows me to operate the train on a 36" radius. The articulated cars work just fine on 36" with the pins at the 'close' position. At least mine do.
In looking at them, they seem to be constructed almost exactly like the first run of the BLI "California Zephyr" cars. I wonder if the same manufacturer released both sets?
But the MTH train should make a great many of we SP fans very happy. I sure like mine!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I grabbed two articulated pairs 57-60. While I like the cars, the diaghram spacing is atrocious. I'll try adjusting one coupler, buit I run mostly PV trains in Modern, so that means the other end will end up wonky. Seems like a better way coulda been dune for the diaghrams to get a happier medium. 22 and 46jsut seem like two polar ends of the spectrum.
I do need to adjust my couplers though, I had fits with them uncoupling, shouldn't be a surpise though the couplers are out of NMRA height spec, their engiens aren't compliant either. :P
-Morgan
So, are any of the cars available individually?
Duckdogger, I believe only the introductory car, 80-60012 chair car, was ever available separately. You could get the articulated pairs, then the eight-car set.
Re: spacing; I finally ended up using the close-spaced holes on all couplers. Where I had a derailment problem, I found it was because the diaphragm plates where catching on each other due to some overhanging flashing of the bellows material. A sanding stick fixed that. And I have near-contact spacing which survives 35" radii.
I reworked the car lighting so that I could either run them full on, or subdued. I placed magnetic reed switches in each car, so a wave of a wand does the trick. They look better in the dark subdued, partly because the light doesn't also come thru the car body. I did additional black painting in the observation car because of leakage.
The rear light was white in the early days, and was used for backing into platforms. So I put in a decoder that does that. Also changed the letterboards to "Southern Pacific Lines".
I found that replacing the couplers with #5's in KD draft boxes resulted in them being too low, so all are now #47's.
Anyway, they look good and work well. Wish I could say the same for the BLI GS-4 I bought to compare to my MTH. The BLI had no power due to an open gearbox cover, then would derail due to a bad fourth driver set (wide). Got a new one and now am looking for a short that occurs on left turns. And wishing they had done a better job on the chuff soundfile, which is a @&^% mess.