The best and worse of Trainfest 2012

Best and Worst of Trainfest?

Best - I got to go, using a trip from DFW to Duluth as an excuse to go via Milwaukee. Everything it was billed to be.

Worst - Only bad was the rock music coming from the kids area.

Also, had some nice chats. Best was with MRC. I went in to ask a few questions about the DCC wireless conversion pack, and they sold me one for just $140 ($329 list)

Picked up a few things from various dealers at great deals. Bought some track laying tools from JMD plastics, a vendor I didn't know and proving the worth of going to these big shows in different regions.

Of course, to me, and maybe only me, was this thread and its typical Walthers bashing. Personally, I get it. If the Ethanol plant didn't sell well in HO, why on earth would they go ahead and do it in N, which has 25% market share and would be sure to lose money? I doubt any of the mfgs can afford a loser project, much less an intentional one. I am just grateful to Walthers for what we do have - I am on my second urban themed layout, none of which I would have attempted without their WIDE VARIETY of structures. BTW, I am not against using some of their HO structures for size in N, with some mods. IF they choose NOT to do more locos I understand that, too. The field is pretty well covered anyway, and amost to the degree that Athearn and others don't do well in it because no one's mechs match exactly. You have to REALLY want a loco if it isn't Atlas or Kato in N (IM,too since their drives came from Atlas) I am glad FVM is seemingly doing well with their models.

For that matter, as to the chop nose, I am amazed its even close to a commerical possibility. Kato has sure spoiled us with those name trains that are very proto specific. BTW, Walthers did try to do the passenger car market, and those things were beautiful. Now, I did see a bunch in bargin bins later, too. But, anyone who thinks Walthers purposely discounts later to play with dealers or whatever is just wrong. Deep discounts means dissapointing sales, nothing else. They probably have a policy of cutting their losses rather than hopelessly devoting warehouse space to their losers. Probably seems like keeping pix of the girl who dumped you around to remind you of your failures.......

Sorry for the rant, but I cannot believe any of the reps would be as rude as portrayed based on my experience with them (and mine was late Sunday, when they were probably tired and cranky as they were going to get.) Hey, I enjoyed Trainfest as a special treat for me and I just don't get the complaining.

Cheers.

 

Did you guys see any layouts or just ¤¤¤¤¤ at sales reps?

 

I guess there was no word from Kato about the rumored UP F-E-F 4-8-4 and excursion train?

 

Hopefully they don't do it. Kato seems to be in bed lately with UP and I don't know why. Why can't they release something else other than another release of the CZ or some spinoff of it or another UP passenger train. I don't know about others but I am kind of getting tired of seeing the Zephyrs and UP passengers.

I was glad to see them release the Broadway Ltd, even though I am not a Pennsy guy.

 

Combined with some shapeways shells and a KATO FEF 4-8-4 it would be an easy conversion to nearly any 4-8-4. I'm not a UP modeler or fan but I could certainly use another Northern mechanism.

Randy

 

I hope they do it. Don't know what you mean about "getting tired of seeing the UP passengers" they've only made one UP train and only one run of it as well.

 

Bravo. Reverse psychology approach to getting us an FEF. Since our begging and pleading doesn't appear to get us anywhere, I will join in on this approach. I hope Kato never does an FEF3 nor re-release the GS4 War Baby. And I hope they don't follow Athearn's latest direction and lower the price of their next releases. Please don't do it.

 

"War Babies" are GS-6s.

Jason

 

Thanks...I was just going off of what was on the Kato site. Guess I should've called them wartime black. Either way, I hope Kato does not re-release them. :teeth:
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So ... what's the word on those SWs? Last I heard they were due in Oct. 28. Now Walthers doesn't list an "expected" date, and they're still listed as being out of stock.

I pre-ordered one about 1.5 years ago. If it's going to show up, great. If not, I'll do something else with the money. I don't care if it's Walthers or whoever, I think it's BS to leave customers in the dark in regards to progress toward delivery. A little honesty goes a long ways.

Jim

 

Those SW1200's looked nice. I could use some. Are the newer versions DCC friendly?

 

That's kinda the joke, Jeff. They were originally billed as "DCC ready." Later (after I ordered, of course) they were downgraded to "DCC friendly." We'll see what they are when they finally arrive.

Jim

 

The GP60s and GP20s were also on display. Right under the SW1200s.

 

A note about the Walthers N scale passenger cars; If they are all of a similar design to the N&W coaches recently put on closeout sale, they are poorly designed. The problem is that they have electrical pickup built into their trucks, which would be a good thing except for the fact that the contact plate is rigidly mounted to the floor, rather than being sprung to allow some vertical flexibility, like the contacts on a Kato or Atlas locomotive. Without allowing for some vertical travel, the cars are incapable of dealing with any super elevated track, and will derail on the transition from level to banked track. The kick in the head is that the cars don't actually have any need for the pickup, unless you install optional (if you can find them) light boards. If you don't mind running an unlighted car, you could trim off the brass contact posts, or replace the trucks with Micro-Trains passenger car trucks. However, the Micro-Trains heavyweight passenger cars are superior and sell for a much more reasonable price than Walthers. Hopefully, MTL will make some streamlined cars in the future.

As for the terms "DCC Ready" vs "DCC Friendly", in the past, DCC ready has been used to indicate the presence of a DCC socket to receive the plug of a DCC decoder. Most N scale "Drop-in" decoders are replacements for the OEM light boards, and thus eliminate the need for excess space inside the shell to accommodate an extra circuit board, wires, and plug. The replacement boards also eliminate extra wiring going to the headlights sine the lights are built into the board. The term "DCC Friendly" has been used to describe the split frame design that accepts the light board (or drop-in decoder) without extra wiring and/or soldering. Personally, I much prefer a drop-in decoder over a plug-in one anytime.

Bill in FtL

 

I didn't even bother to ask. They were packed with what I assume were folks from other scales.

I already have my GP20s so I guess I didn't notice. Shows you how long I stayed at the Walther's display.

 

Phase III Gp-9's....that means...N&W!!!!!!!!!

 

Except the steel mill did not sell well in N-Scale. Still in stock years later.

 

But the steel mill was not supported. Where were the slag pots and the torpedo cars? Walthers did them in HO but not in N scale. Also to build a respectable basic steel mill takes more than one blast furnace. These things operated in banks of multiple furnesses [usually multiples of three or four] and production was timed to allow the greatest utilization of personnel and equipment. Where I worked we had a bank of four furnesses. Each furness was tapped every eight hours so that furness #1 would be tapped at say 8:00am then 4:00 pm then 12 midnight. Then every two hours a different furness would be tapped. Every tap resulted in, depending on the furnace capacity, 150-250 tons of molten iron which would be immediately transported to the open hearth or BOF to make into steel. These things never shut down except for relining the fire brick or for labor strikes. So to assemble the kits to do a respectable steel mill in N scale would be a very expensive undertaking even with some selective compression and one would still not have the necessary slag pots and torpedo cars necessary.