Intermountain vs Red Caboose

Hi All,

I am looking to purchase about 20 - 4750 CF 3-Bay Covered Hopper. As I have no experience with either Intermountain or Red caboose can you give me some ideal as to the quality of detail of these two companies products

Thanks

 

I have some from each company, and the Intermountain cars are a much better product (anybody know where I can get some CSX ones?). It is quite obvious when they are side by side. The Red Caboose is pretty good as well, and if you are going to run a unit train, would be fine at a lower cost.

Imtn are $18-20 per car ($14 for a kit)
RC are $14-15 per car ($19 w/MTL couplers)

Not all road names are available in kits, and not all of them come with MTL couplers. Prices are based on MSRP

 

Dwayne, Corey is right in his appaisal.

The Intermountain cars are better in detail with etched walkways and finer end detail than the Red Caboose cars but, if you but the IM kits, are more fiddley to put together (more user added parts).

The RC cars are rejigged Precision Masters cars with bottom hatches added.
There may be a few of these PM cars floating around the hobby stores still and I know there are quite a few sitting in a hobby store in Sydney, Australia that have a retail price of around AU$16 a piece.
I'm certain you could swing a deal with them on the number you require. They've been there a while.

 

I believe Pacific Western Rail( www.pacific-western-rail.com/ ) has a special run of CSX hoppers available including Chessie System hoppers re-stenciled for CSX. Be warned though, I am not a big fan of the way PWRS has done business in the past and for that reason, so far I have passed on these. I haven't made up my mind yet if I want to do business with them for these or wait until IM gets around to do them later on.

Bob

 

IM did these, I have 2 of the 8 numbers from their run, got them from N Scale Supply, but they couldn't get the other 6 (and IM had em out of stock too). PWRS is also sold out on their CSX 4750s.

 

PWRS has the ACF 4650 covered hopper listed as a future release on their website. This run includes 7 different 3 packs of Chessie variants(4 CSX re-stencil, C&O. B&O and WM) and two 3 packs of CSX.

Bob

 

Sort of a separate question but does anyone have any experience with LBF rolling stock?

 

Harran,

I finally broke down and called PWRS about the 4650 CSX hoppers. The CSX tan are due in March with the CSX re-stenciled Chessie due in May. They are also releasing in the fall, CSX tan 2 bay ACFs.

Grennshirt,

I have 36 LBF Coalporters and I am happy with them except for the loads that they come with, I changed them. They do come equipped with MTs and thus track nicely. I also have 4 of their 50' Hi Cube boxcars and other than being too shiny, are also nice.

Bob

 

Thanks, but I was looking for 4750s, they don't use the 4650s in phosphate service (which is what I am modeling for). The 4650s tend to be for grain.

 

I like to thank all that reply.

An it looks like I am going with IMR

Thanks Again All

 

FYI, the intermountain website (www.intermountain-railway.com) under NEWS now lists future freight car projects.

As for PWRS, they have some excellent stuff, but I do not understand the justification for their pricing. Many of the roadnames they have done have come out later from Intermountain, BLW and others, so you might want to wait if you are put off by their prices.