Walthers has released the next run of their smooth side and fluted side coaches and as Pssenger Train Nut (Fanzee) I have been quite impressed with mine which arrived today. First off let me say the cars even with smooth sides are based on an NYC car so they are not exact for other roads like L&N,IC,MP,N&W,but are close enough for me. I have mixed feelings of the cars coming with the obligatory decal sheet that was missing from the early first run of the sleeping car. Why don't they do like the other manufacturers, offer say four car numbers,Con Cor has done this for along time also IM and Rapido of Canada if I recall has (six?) numbers or names on their cars.Now I will have to get out my various reference books to get correct numbers for the different roads I recieved. The Illinois Central car looks wonderful, they even researched the fact that most (not all) IC lightweight cars had brown trucks (not black) and the Walthers car has brown trucks and couplers. Many years ago I devalued my Con Cor Collector Panama Limited set by painting the truck side frames brown. The Mo Pac car is wonderful,paint matches Con Cor's later application, which having seen this scheme in Denver several times looks correct to me. The cars are lettered "The Eagle" on the letter board with small MP initials at the car ends. The L&N car nicely matches the paint on my Con Cor cars,and now I have a long enough train to run with my two Life Like old scheme E-7 diesels. The N&W cars are nicely painted, I have only seen N&W cars on a couple of N.R.H.S. excursion trips which featured the 611 J and the Class A lokies. The Tuscan Color used reciently and now by NS might be different than original color. Anyway the shade that Walthers has used looks far better that the overly red color used by Con Cor and on a BLW Special run by Con Cor. There is more of a brownish tint which I think looks good. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.
