I received the Kadee March 9 issue of Kadee News today. In it is a color pic of their soon to be released Frisco 50t AAR 2-bay offset side hopper car. It looks really great - almost too perfect, as most Kadee's do. I really like the Kadee coal load - different looking than any of the other available loads. Should be coming along soon! I still need to communicate with them to see what made them (finally!) change their mind and do this car in Frisco colors. I wonder if it will have the correct Enterprise door locks. Those were one of Kadee's earlier hangups I think. Ken
Ken, You're right about the Entreprise door locks as being the hang-up, but because the Santa fe had them as well. Well they had to do those. If you notice the next months scheduled release from them is a ATSF scheme. Nick
This afternoon I had a chance to talk with Kadee about their soon to be released HO 2-bay AAR offset-side hopper car. I asked them about the use of Enterprise hopper door locks on it, which caused them a concern about doing a Frisco hopper in the past, and if those would be separate pieces that perhaps could be marketed as detail parts. Here is a summary of what they said: "The Frisco hopper did have Enterprise locks, but they were Enterprise Type D locks, a bit different from the more common standard Enterprise locks." (Does anyone know the difference? Any pics?) "We decided to make a compromise and use our common Enterprise locks for the Frisco car rather than tool up a new door and chute assembly. We also made a compromise on the upcoming ATSF hopper that used Keystone door locks." (I'm surprised to hear Kadee is making compromises - to date they have been sticklers for details like this on their HO RTR cars.) "The door locks are molded on the hopper chute and doors, and are not a separate piece that can be sold separately." We also talked about the possibilities of doing additional versions of this car in the red oxide with white outline coonskin colors, and in the black with white outline coonskin colors. They sounded interested, and indicated again that Frisco cars have been good sellers for Kadee and they would "try" to keep more Frisco cars in their future scheduling. Good! FYI. Ken
Here is the pic from the Kadee website of their new HO Frisco 2-bay 50t AAR offset-side hopper, SLSF 90601, Kadee item #7038. Nice! How many of you are planning to order one or more? Ken
Here it is and is every bit as good as advertised! It does have a shop date of 11-66 and there is a black box in the lower right hand corner with lettering so small that I can't read all of it except to see the letters ATSF at the bottom. It mave have been repacked by them.
I received my two Kadee #7038 Frisco AAR 2-bay offset hoppers today, SLSF 90601, and agree with Bob's comments above. It is a terrific model, like most Kadee's, almost too perfect. I hate to weather these things. The underside slope sheet detail is great. Painting close to perfect - BTW, the repack stencil Bob refers to indicates an AT&N repacking, 1969, not ATSF. There also is a 1988 (I think) repair note at SN. Cool. The hopper door locks are still a mystery to me. Does anybody have any pics of the Wine, Enterprise and other types of common hopper door locks? Ken
On prototype freight trains, once in a while, you could see brand new freight cars. Your Kadees could be some of those, just in service from the factory and never hauled any fright. They wouldn't be weathered... Tom
meteor910 wrote: "Does anybody have any pics of the Wine, Enterprise and other types of common hopper door locks?" There is an article available on-line from Railmodel Journal July 2006 that discusses the Kadee 1935 A.A.R. Standard 50-Ton Hopper. I've attached part of an illustration from the article that shows the Enterprise and Wine locks. Source: http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/43/3069/july-2006-page-13. The issue is 68 pages with this article pp 11-17. Hope this is within the permissible limits of "brief portions in a review" and helpful, as I have no expertise at all re hoppers and door locks.
Tom - Trouble is, all the dates on the car (repack, repair) reflect a car long in service, at least on this car. Still, I choose to leave 'em pristine. They are too pretty to mess up! Ken
Yeah, you could run them new except it's got that Nov '66 shop date and then that vertical "bar code" do-dad which wasn't officially adopted into service until ~ 1970. As decals for those (failed) car reader markings are available separately, I wish Kadee had left it off. Guess , with a little TLC, you can remove it.
A question for the group ..... Now that Kadee has done this car (SLSF 90601), finally!, I want to go pack at them and push for other Frisco 2-bay AAR hoppers, but in other paint schemes. I'm thinking of the car in the red oxide with white lettering and coonskin, or the car in black with white lettering and coonskin. Which would you prefer? Of course, we will need to come up with pics of the car in question, as Kadee will not do a car withour a good pic of it to base their lettering and equipment detail on. Ken
The Enterprise Rail Appliance Co. was bought by a division of Miner Enterprises Inc. about 1968, and they still apparently offer the Type D and Type F locks. See their website: http://www.minerent.com/AboutUs.asp There are several more Trainlife / Railmodel Journal articles, for example: http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/268/19975/december-2000-page-13 "Enterprise offered two styles of locks, one of which was a simple door latch installed on the center of each hopper door. The Enterprise Type-D door lock was more complex. Each set of doors was tied together with steel angle. Using a steel bar for leverage, the operator inserted the bar in the Type-D mecha nism and opened a set of doors in one motion." Here is an illustration from Western Safety showing operation of the Wine and the Enterprise Type D locks http://www.westernsafety.com/aldon2010/aldon2010pg5.html
I give up..almost...went shopping for this car and can't find it anywhere except direct from Kadee. Can somebody off-forum send me a hot tip? Buck Dean JAX
Buck: Several of us buy our Kadee cars from Sylvia at Trackside Emporium in Chama, NM. The link is: http://www.rollinstock.com/kadee_ho.htm This is no secret as it has been posted publicly before. There are other dealers referenced including them on the right hand side of the Kadee home page.
