After several years of being announced... and one badly painted run of the coaches a couple years ago... The much awaited and ballyhoo'd new versions of these cars appear to be arriving this month. The first one is going to be the 'Triple Diner" set which will be done in both Daylight and Sunset versions. I'm hoping someone will give us a review/heads-up on these cars... so if you've got them please let us know how well (or not) these cars have been done by CCS/IMRC. Pictures showing color, interiors, lighting, etc... etc.. would be nice too. Thanks...
Wow... a whole day and not a single response... that can't be very good. Obviously not a very good omen for this product. Hmmmm????
You always give good reviews... Excellent... let us know how it compares to the Kato Morning Daylight version. Thanks Bob!
Probably going to continue in this case too... Taking a close look at the BLW website photos... they seem to indicate these cars DO NOT have the interiors... ergo... they probably do not have the lighting or removeable roof either. That would really make them far inferior to the Kato cars... and in fact... not consistant with the advertising that ALL new releases would have those improvements stated above. That would be a real killer for these models and would likely be another thing hobbyist would pick-on about Intermountain. The only difference these cars would versus the Kato version... are the 'larger windows' typical of Shasta Daylight & Sunset cars. I ordered one anyway from BLW just to confirm my fears... On a happier note... the recent IMRC/CCS 6-6-4 and 4-4-2 sleepers are very nice.
Speaking of which, they also make a smoothsided Rock Island in the Golden State livery. I have been so tempted to buy a couple of these and another every so often to build a complete Golden State consist. The only thing that has been keeping me from that, was they are expensive, and I have not known anyone that had one to show me, or tell me if they are worth the money. My other alternative is re-paint a few Kato smoothsides. I already have many Con Cors, and even a handfull of Golden State colored con cors, but just been wanting katos, or these to run with all my other Kato rock island re lettered super chiefs. Anyone have any themed of these cars with close ups and comments on their value for the money-ness?
Tudor, I would really like to put together a GS consist as well. Regarding the IMRC cars...you mean the sleepers, correct? And, didn't the RI sleepers have fluted sides, while the SP sleepers have the smoothsides? Does IMRC have it backwards?
To be honest, me, not being a rivit counter, don't know exactly. I try to be as correct as I can, but it don't always work out that way. I typically am ok with it, if it at least "could have been" that way. But, that said, Much of the RI passenger cars were corrigated stainless cars, but they did have smoothsides, also in the Golden State colors.. I like to run mixed consists with different types of cars, because that is how many road, especially Rock Island did. Very seldom did their cars match. They tended to use whatever they have available. In their hayday, they did try to make "pretty" trains, but got complacent as time went on. I will dig up some pictures I have of their smoothside Golden State cars. Con Cor years ago did the red/silver colors for the Golden State, and I have a set of 8 of those, but in the SP names, but I redecaled them to RI. I also have a project that has been benched for awhile that I hope to finish someday, and that is a mixed consist with both corrigated, smoothside, and heavyweight RI "Shorty" consist. I am re-painting vintage Arnolds budd shorties, vintage Bachmann Heavyweight shorties, and kit bashed Con Cor 85"ers that I had shortened to 60'. Somewhere on here, I have some pictures of one of the Con Cor kit bashes if you are interested in seeing that. And, I forgot to address, yes, I am refering to the IM sleepers. Nice looking cars from the picures I see, just still reluctant to gack up nearly $40 a pop..
Here is one of the Golden State "Shawty" project. I can't find any of the smoothside GS cars. I thought I had some pictures, I still think I do, but apparently archived somewhere. I will keep looking. But in the meantime, here is one that I want to make sooner or later as well. It is a heavyweight, with a modified roof section. RI had a bunch of these cars. the one on the left is a re-painted Arnold shorty budd. The one on the right, is a shortened Con Cor 85"er. this is one of many RI had that were simply modified, and updated heavyweights.. Here is my current GS cars. All factory painted Con-Cor. These were originally SP lettered, but I re-lettered them RI. The Locomotion curtesy of a Life Like DL-109.
Well... It appears to be official now. Charlie Vlk responded to my post on the Atlas Forum and stated that the tooling of the Triple Diner is the original version (same as their former kits.. he said). Too late to re-tool and don't expect a revised re-run. He stated that these are a different prototype to the Kato Triple Diner... so its not duplication to get one. Still... I really like the improvements to the interiors that Intermountain/Centralia did with their 6-6-4 and 4-4-2 sleepers and am disappointed that the Triple Diner didn't get the same treatment. Hopefully the rest of the Shasta cars from IMRC/CCS will have the updated tooling. Here's some photos I just took of the 6-6-4 and 4-4-2 sleepers ... I think they're very nice Lighting effects:
On the SP Sunset the Scarlet paint color on the Walters, Intermountain and Rapido cars all seem to be different shades. Mixing the different makes into a single consist may look a bit odd. I was hoping to make up a Sunset train using all three manufacturers. I wonder if the Golden State cars match any better.
Not many other choices... Other than ConCor... I believe there are no others. I'll have to dig around for the ConCor cars I have to compare them to the IMRC/CCS colors. Remember that in the real world... rarely were the colors consistant... specially as the equipement got older and shopped at different times. Still... as master of my model railroad world... I prefer everything to look like its brand new and all cars look exactly the same...
Different shades of color is prototypical. I had a great uncle who ran the Baltimore & Ohio paint shop. He used to laugh about all of the folks in model railroading who would argue about paint shades. The only time that the shade was identical is when the cars were painted out of the same can. So the variations you see are accidentally correct. And as a parting shot on paint, guess how many B&O cars were painted with Ford Midnight Blue auto paint? Yes they did use auto paint if they ran out. The answer is a lot more than 3 or 4 ........
Not my era or railroad, but if they were, I would buy one, they are sharp on the outside, good clean lines of paint ( from what I can see from the photo's) and N scale interiors are only noticaeable to those looking for them.... Good job intermountain...
