InterMountain has provided several Centralia Car Shops passenger car kits as built-up models. More of what's coming has now been divulged... 6552 Pullman Standard 6-6-4 Sleeper -- Southern Pacific "Lark" 6700 Baggage Car -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" 6710 46 Seat Coach -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" 6720 48 Seat Coach -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" 6730 38 Seat Coach -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" 6740 3 Unit Diner -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" 6750 Tavern Car -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" 6760 Observation Car -- Southern Pacific "Shasta Daylight" Other 6-6-4's have already been pre-announced, as well as the reruns of Pennsy P85 coaches. No ETA's. Most SRP's will be $39.95. Please, more PRR stuff!!!
I bought the PRR coach and it is a piece of very overpriced junk. $40 for a car that doesn't have partitions at the bathrooms is outrageous. And the way it is glued together, you can't do much about it. I was able to knock the end doors out (only because they were glued on backwards) and was able to get a piece of card stock into each end so you could not see clear thru the car where the bathrooms are, but it was like trying to build a boat in a bottle. And doing anything about the lack of any seat backs in the windows or lighting is totally out of the question. I certainly won't buy any more. I hope they don't do any more PRR because then no one will duplicate them with decent models. Personally I don't understand why IM would lend their name to these ripoffs.
I've found that the glue used to attach the floor is very brittle. It is possible to carefully pry the floor out of the bottom of the car without causing massive damage. Just run a knife blade around the edge where it meets the sides, and then carefully pry it out from one end towards the other with a small screwdriver. Intermountain and Centralia are working to improve these cars as compared to the first release. The recent ATSF cars had shades in them which atleast helped a little in the lack of interior issue.
The Shasta Daylight would be a nice set of passenger cars to get, but, the past Centralia Shops cars have had a bad rap and perhaps for good reason. The lack of interiors is really a bit of a put-off when one considers that the MSRP is $40.00 ($30.00 discounted) It's still going to be a nice set.. but interirors is a must. to justify the sale price.
I agree, interiors would be nice. When first announced (PRR P85's) interiors were mentioned. Somewhere along the line they were dropped. Heck, with interiors, they would likely have supported a $50 SRP. The HO cars had an SRP of $60 and I sold tons of them!
Wow... JB... $60 for one car!!! Even as nice as they would be... I'd have to think about it many times over before putting that much money on a non-motorized model. Even the Kato Cal Zephyr set is only going to be $22.70/car SRP. I know IMRC/Centralia will probably be much better detailed & probably more prototypically accurate than Kato's cars...but... 3X SRP is painfully high for most modelers. It hurts thinking about it.... Good thing IRMC/Centralia wasn't the one doing the Cal Zephyr set... I'd have to kill myself... cause I probably wouldn't buy it and then regret it.
Let's think about the pricing on the Centralia cars a bit..... Comparing them to Kato (or Bachmann or Model Power or ConCor) isn't a fair contest. Kato has tooled 16 cars in their history so far. The smoothsides (7 cars) have had limited production runs, most of which were painted for "close but no cigar" railroads. The Budd cars (8 car types) have had only one production run and also had "close" paint jobs. DesPlaines Hobbies (aka Centralia via InterMountain) are doing numerous cars which are correct for the paint jobs presented.... to the point that they will soon have both pre and post war versions of two popular car types.. the 6-6-4 and 4-4-2 Pullman. I don't have a count but they have correct sides for well over a dozen cars and more are on the way. Yes, there were some tooling errors on the P85 and there is a learning curve in getting the assembly to where we as customers want it.... but I think you will see each run get progressively better. IMHO the $40 msrp is reasonable (especially when I look at the piles of unbuilt kits in my workshop!). If you want Kato cars buy them when and if they are available and live with the prototype compromises. ConCor cars often have good paint jobs, Bachmann's full dome is a decent car for the price and Model Power's copies of Lima and MiniTrix cars are economically priced. Wheels of Time makes a great bilevel commuter coach and may offer further products in the future. But right now Centralia has the most aggressive program with the largest selection of prototypes. Charlie Vlk Railroad Model Resources
If you think $60 SRP is a lot, wait until the Athabasca ready-to-run cars are announced. Their kits are $47.95 alone. (The RtR cars were alluded to several months ago in one of the N scale mailing lists. They are still a ways out.)
I have 3 of the ATSF Intermountain passenger cars and they donot have the problems that the first run had. They also have the green shades as was previously mentioned in this thread which is a nice detailing touch.
