These are my opinions and not apparently those of others. I have four, out of those four three had couplers that hung so low I could not run them without pulling the couplers apart and reassembling them correctly, it seemed like the parts of the draft gear box do not fit together, they couldn't possibly have been inspected by IM. The window glass is glued into the openings from the outside which, IMHO, looks awful, I'll be popping them out and redoing the windows with Micro-Scale Kristal Kleer. The most glaring thing however, is that the red used is way too dark and brown in color to represent Santa Fe's Indian Red, to my eyes it is not close to any photos of the cars in Santa Fe Waycars by Stephen Priest. Having said all that, the detailing is excellent as is the paint and lettering apart from the pseudo Indian Red, and they are the only model of the rebuilt CE-1 we have. I'm glad to have them, I'm just a bit disappointed in them after IM's usual long wait to get them.
I have all of them and none came with the coupler sag issue. Detailing is excellent! As for the color, i remember what my uncle once said.... "All this commotion over paint is just silly. We never had the exact same shade of paint even in the same batch from the suppliers. And sometimes, when we ran out of dark blue, we went down to the Ford dealer and bought some" He managed a paint shop for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for 35 years. I have his log books and I see many trips to the auto dealers and even mix recipes that they used when they ran out of the "real" stuff.
I could accept the color more as a variation in paint batches or weathering if I could find a few photos that looked like it.
Im with Westfalen, I love the cabooses, but they missed the color by quite a bit. Should have been a bright red. I have some photos of cabooses in the 80's that looked similar, weathered, but for the most part, Santa Fe was a railroad that ran on alot of pride and kept it's equipment clean. Most cabooses and even there engines were always more on the cleaner then normal side. I have 4 of the cabooses, and all 4 of mine have couplers that hang low.
That was my only complaint on checking them out too. The red is a bit too dark. But some weathing, and the old paint fading technique would lighten it up. It's a really gorgeous model.
I have 2, I can see the color difference but it's not too much of an issue for me. I feel the details are on par with the Athearn bay window.
I have one of these cabs. I like mine, but I'm not a Sante Fe expert (where's Verne when you need him??). These give me great hope that the future Athearn WP bay windows will be awesome.
Just a little too modern for my 1957 layout, comparing the pics in Warbonnet 1Q2010 with Caboose Cars of the Santa Fe Rwy by Ellison. May be great for you.
What I need is about 20 of the original version way cars Intermountain did in HO, in mineral red. Or chartreuse if necessary, I can always repaint, as long as I get the right prototype to work with.. Frank, are you listening???? Please?????????? Otto
Heres a look at the IM color and one I custom did. (IM on right, mine on left.) Mine also took a dive off the layout and broke the end ladder and chipped a section off the roof.
But Jerry...the IM looks to match the boxcar color almost exactly...unless its the angle of the pic and lighting. But...I have to agree...SF red is RED...not RUST !! JMO .
One has to wonder...why with all the talk on colors...and all the modelers agreeing that suchandsuch paint is the correct color...why a manufacturer cant get it right ! I mean...everyones monitor color is most likely different then someone elses. The manufacturer may be looking at a caboose color off of a pic on the internet. Do they match up the color based on that? Why not research the forums and add up the correct color to what the major consensus is? Floquil # ????? Testors # ????? Etc Etc. Surely the modelers KNOW what color is correct !! Manufactures...use the correct paint color on new releases...its really not rocket science !!...JMO .
I have read somewhere long ago that the correct original color looks quite different on such a small model. So a specific allowance has to be made for it to give the correct impression at the end. Thus I think it is really better to ask experienced modelers, instead of just going after the paint info provided by the paint shop of the prototype RR..
Here is an IM caboose with the last run of the Atlas extended vision caboose. It also highlights my other point about the window glass glued in from the outside, I much prefer the painted aluminium windows frames on the Atlas car.
