Evans 4780

[sirenwerks]

I'm hoping for N scale too, especially an Erie Western car. But MTL already has an Evans 4780 Covered hopper  so I'm concerned they won't do it. OR, is it an Evans 4700 car that MTL did. Either way there probably isn't much different between a 4700 and 4780.

Whichever MTL did, they did it with a cast on roofwalk. Blech! Two steps back...

[asarge]

Whichever MTL did, they did it with a cast on roofwalk. Blech! Two steps back...

Not neccessarily such a big deal to me. It's a pretty nice car.

Isn't that the Erie Western herald in the PDF ad?  That's HO, and the people on the MFCL list have been complaining the last few days about the colors in the paintscheme being inaccurate.

You mean Erie Western is only allowed to HO.  ;D

Seriously though, one of the stripes in the ad is either Brown or a brownish olive drab. I would hope it's only the lighting in the ad. The stripe in question was more of a pea green and the two stripes may have been a little farther apart.

[ljudice]

I agree, I thought the MTL car was nice. The moulded roofwalk is not half as noticable as on the Atlas Thrall car IMHO...

[Denver Road Doug]

I agree, I thought the MTL car was nice. The moulded roofwalk is not half as noticable as on the Atlas Thrall car IMHO...

Atlas should be embarassed by their Thrall roofwalks.  They would have sold 10x the cars if they'd made 'em look closer to something like the PM/RC roofwalks.  I know they're Trainman with the goal to be a good "value", but jeez that's a big screwup IMHO.

Regarding the MTL car, well it has good points but moulding on the roofwalk was not cool, since nothing can easily be done to improve them now.  If EXR does the Evans car, I'll probably buy them and probably won't ever buy another MTL.  But, I can think of a few dozen cars I'd rather EXR do (including some they've done in HO) instead of the Evans.  The 4427 would be a good one...just saw a Walthers Cargill/TLDX 4427 go for $20 on eBay, still with Rapidos. (two of them, actually!)

[cv_acr]

Here's a couple ex-Erie Western cars that show the green colour, definately not the olive colour on the ad. PDF:

http://freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/search.pl?car_type=covhop&marks=ERES&display=full

[Nato]

  It would appear that the hopper car competing against Balma gets metal wheels the gons not competing do not. I purchased an elusive SP gon at at train show last weekend. The seller was "Hobby Stop" located in Orem, Utah. Do a net search see if you can find them or get their phone number. I do not have address or phone off hand. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[Denver Road Doug]

I just got a response back from EXR.  They said that ALL cars from here on out will have metal wheels.  My assumption is that they are relying on a "press issue" excuse, but the advertisement also showed their gons, with metal wheels.  To be fair, the MSRP on the gons was lower to reflect the difference in wheels compared to the 4000's.  I think they just got a little overzealous with their ads and needed to clean out the last of their plastic wheel bin before committing whole hog to metal wheels.  I'm not sure I even care since they're apparently not using FVM wheelsets but I'll probably just deal with whatever they use in the short term.  Regardless, they did respond in an appropriate manner and I appreciate that.

Hopefully they won't be going head to head with BLMA on anything else anyway.

[ljudice]

There's also something slightly gawky - hard to describe about the MTL Evans....   Reminds me of the PM/RC FMC 4700 (???) which also seemed a little bit off?

I'd definitely look at an alternative...

[pfs]

So the MTL Evans is difficult to change out the roof walk ? (and is there a roof walk available?)


What else is off on the car? (assume ride height)

[asarge]

Atlas should be embarassed by their Thrall roofwalks.  They would have sold 10x the cars if they'd made 'em look closer to something like the PM/RC roofwalks.  I know they're Trainman with the goal to be a good "value", but jeez that's a big screwup IMHO.

I have to disagree with you on that one Doug. It's adequate given the price of the car. And in an operating train it doesn't matter a whole lot anyway. Yeah it would be nice to have but I don't know if it would sell a lot more at a higher price.

[ai5629]

If you guys will remember, there was a post about a month or two ago in regards to Traincat making etched metal running boards / roofwalks for the Atlas Trainman Thrall cars and the Atlas Trainman three bay ACF 3560 center flows.  This should help to improve the appearance of these cars.  Thanks.

Jeff

[Denver Road Doug]

I have to disagree with you on that one Doug. It's adequate given the price of the car. And in an operating train it doesn't matter a whole lot anyway. Yeah it would be nice to have but I don't know if it would sell a lot more at a higher price.

I will concede that I don't know enough about the business of making freight cars to understand why it would cost more to make the plastic roofwalks thinner although I certainly could see it being possible simply from the standpoint of parts breaking during the manufacturing process.  But they are considerably thicker than any tooling I've seen, maybe even close to twice as thick as the 20 year old Precision Master tooling...I think they're even worse than older 2nd gen Atlas stuff.

I'm certainly ok with differing opinions though...I'll just say that I would have bough AT LEAST a dozen, including all the GLC and BN offerings, if not for the roofwalks.  I'm glad people are enjoying the cars and I'm glad Atlas made them....I just won't be buying any.   

[bbussey]

Where is it stated that the EXR Evans car will be released in N?

[asarge]

It hasn;t been stated in any scale if I remember the add. We're just hoping that maybe it is. Unfortunately I think you are right that it's an HO car.

[Ian MacMillan]

Where is it stated that the EXR Evans car will be released in N?

SmokeandMirrorsAproxRail doesn't state. They are hoping their booth hottie with glasses will distract you from that fact....