Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper I ordered one of the Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleepers and picked it up today. On the plus side, it is smooth sided and has silver trucks. The paint job is very good with the lettering centered on the letterboards. The decals include the names "Cascade Brim" and Cascade Ravine". The shadowline painting is represented by gray stripes, no tapering of color within the stripes. The upper band has 5 stripes where the prototype had 4; the lower band has 8 stripes where the prototype had 7. From a distance the effect of the stripes is acceptable. The model has diaphrams around the door, whereas the prototype had full width diaphrams. An interior is included, cast in beige plastic. One must apply the name decals and grab irons. The model is a good effort altogether, but is not a perfect representation of the prototype.
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Just another little chapter in the "continuing story"...Which makes me ask the musical question:"Why wouldn't a model maufacturer who goes to the trouble of releasing a model, just go ahead, do a little research and GET IT RIGHT??!! Tom
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Well,Tom, at least it seems that most manufacturers are in the same leaky boat. I just purchased a set of #1 scale " Texas Special " cars by Mikes Train House. The New Braunfels car is spelled " New Branfals". I e-mailed MTH about this, and they said something was mis-comunicated and they apologized, but no offer to make it right. Oh, well, I have to send my E-8 to the paint shop, we'll just tack the coach on the back end as well! Later, Dan
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Dan--I just saw an "S" scale Texas Special model in "Model Railroad News" and it was incorrect! It had Katy E-8's (instead of E-7's) decorated with stainless steel fluting and Texas star on the nose. Beautiful, but not correct. And Lionel now has a magnificient "O" Texas Special that has a fantasy baggage-coach combine car in the set. And the IHC Texas Special HO cars are laughable... Tom PS: I'm still mad about the Con-Cor N scale Texas Special sets from the 1980's!
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Hi Tom, I just saw a set of the IHC cars at last weekends train show. They were the regular " Frisco " passenger cars, but did not look that great. I thought my " home grown" versions were OK at arms length, but I think now that they are great!! Maybe I should finish them anyway. HO is just too hard for me now, with my eyes what they are. That, plus my HUGE fingers that get in the way, 1/29 is just a whole lot easier! Later, Dan
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Howdy, The hobby shop called to tell me the new Walthers Pennsy Frisco cars were in. I picked them up this afternoon, and they look nice. I'll take some photos and post them tomorrow. The shadow fluting looks, good too. It looks like they acheived the look by painting a light grey background and silver strips on top. Have fun, mike
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Hi Tom, Ya, tomorrow I have to cut some more wood for the boiler, so while I'm out, I'll set out my Frisco goodies on my track and snap a few. As soon as the film gets back from the soup, I will post them. Yes, I still use the antique 35mm format- I just can't spend any money on a digital when my Cannon is still alive! I have to get to my in-laws house to borrow their air brush so the paint shop can get busy!! Later, Dan
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Mike I'm just a little less enthusiastic about the shadowlining on the Walthers PRR (Meteor) Pullman. The shadowlining appears to have been achieved at least in part by lightly scoring the sides and in so doing has produced a result that is almost "too good". No shadowlined prototype would have ever been confused with a true fluted-side car, even at a considerable distance. With the Walthers model you are almost left wondering whether it is a not-very-good job of fluting or a too-good job of shadowlining. Don't anyone get me wrong, it's a nice model and I am very happy to have it. It really just points out the difficulty of reproducing shadowlining in HO. Gordon
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Howdy, The three foot rule works for me. It is a tough technique to perfect, but Walthers came pretty close. I had to look several times to tell it was not really corrugated. Here are a few photos of the model. Please forgive the photography. I am just learning to use a new digital SLR. Know, what can we do with these cars beside let them run on Pennsy trains... Best, mike
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Photos look great, Mike. And you are right with the 3 foot rule. Lets see, in 1/29 that would be 9 or 10 feet??!! Later, Dan
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper I ordered and received two of these a few days ago. I was hoping they might be used for other Meteor or TS cars. I have never cut out and replaced windows on a car, and don't even know if it's a reasonable thing to try. I did build one brass side kit in the past, but that was quite a chore, and probably best viewed from 30 feet, not 3! I note that if you run your fingernail across the fluting you can actually feel the lines. Giving a scribed feel, as previously mentioned. With your eyes closed, it might feel like a bad fluting job, but I think they look nice, at least to my inexperienced eye. I also note the letterboards are pretty long. How much trouble would that be to shorten? Jim
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper I received my sleeper yesterday and almost ripped the box apart to get to it. Overall it looks very nice. Not sure it is 100% accurate but I would certainly settle for 80-90%. Life is too short. I thought the trucks looked great although, again, I will have to check them against photos when they come available. Has anyone tried to run their sleeper yet? Wonder how it tracks. One initial criticism is the loosy-goosy coupler pocket. Holy cow, that thing is going to get fixed before I put it on the back of a passenger train. Not super excited about the Kadee #5s now that the #58s are out. I may try mine out tonight after the repair shop works on the coupler pockets. All in all, I am pretty happy with my sleeper. Maybe I need another one . . . . Ship IT on the Frisco! Rick
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Howdy, I haven't had a chance to run them yet, maybe I'll take three of them to the club and see how they track. Best, mike
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Last night, I tried my Pennsy sleeper out on the track and found the coupler height fine along with the wheel gauge. Unfortunatley, it did not roll all that freely. It rolled only about a foot with a gentle push. Not bad but not as good as any car retrofitted with Intermountain wheels. I coupled it to an Overland TS MKT sleeper and it stood up well. The paint was a duller than the stainless steel on the MKT sleeper which is expected since the PRR car was painted silver. The grooves/striping on the car didn't bother me and I liked it even though I stood closer than three feet. We may need a "one foot rule." The trucks compared favorably too although the Walthers trucks appear to be a scale foot or two longer than the Overland trucks. Maybe they are both right so if anyone knows, inform us all. I am far from expert but this thing is going to run on my layout. Ship IT on the Frisco! Rick
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Rick: Have you tried an HO Truck tuner that Micro Mark sells. I have one and it has really made a great difference in the way most of my frieght equipment rolls. I am not sure but Doc's Caboose may even stock these. If you do not have one I would highly recommend one. Bob
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper I agree with Bob. I also have one of the MicroMark truck "tuners" and it does a great job on plastic truck sideframes. Makes them roll much better. Well worth the minor cost of the gadget. Sometimes the sideframe crimps down on the points of the wheelset axle too much as well. You might have to bend the sideframes out a bit to make the wheelset fit in there a bit looser. I've found that Kadee wheelsets are a bit more prone to this problem than are P2K's or Intermountain's. The Kadee axle must be a smidge longer point-to-point. Ken
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Continuing the discussion on the Walthers PRR sleepers, I coupled one up to Overland sleeper Meremec River and I think the Walthers car looks good. I did not expect the PRR car to be as reflective given that it is a painted car vs a stainless steel car. The reds used by each company were slightly different but certainly acceptable given that the prototypes were most likely built by different firms. I am still curious about the different sizes of the trucks. Maybe this is prototypical. If not, I am ok with the flaw. Next step is to get the handrails and decals on the car. Does anyone have access to prototype photos? Ship IT on the Frisco! Rick
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Re trucks: Sort of the same problem as Kato N scale trucks. The Kato trucks (passenger cars and E-units) look oversized to me. But maybe the Walthers trucks are only noticeable when parked side by side with another more true to scale car. I guess we're lucky just to have such a car... Tom
Re: Walthers Pennsylvania "Meteor" Sleeper Looks pretty good, Rick. Wish I had an answer on the trucks - how far off are they size-wise? Makes me consider moving my era up from 1943, but I should finish the nice HWT Pullman green coach that's the Columbia Coach Shop. Thanks for posting the photos,
