Walthers: Why create a "foobie" when you didn't have to ?

[Puddington]

Ok; Now I admit to being only an average "protonut" when it comes to my trains - I like accurate, but readily run foobies when they are available and I don't have a ready made proto alternative so this isn't 'rivet counting"........

Walthers recent release of their smoothside 10-6 sleepers and subsequent release of the corrugated side 10-6 sleepers was another welcome addition to the N scale passenger car world. Yep; many of the cars don't exactly meet the PS plan of the livery they were painted for; a window or two are wrong.... big deal; unless you want to go brass side, live with it I say.......

But this confuses the H-E Double Hockey sticks out of me.......

Walthers released a corrugated side 10-6 in Canadian National colours...... Yes; CN had 10-6 sleepers.... in smoothside - in fact they bought a few ex NYC 10-6's in 1965; the "River" series ( Skenna River; Riviere du Loup... etc) These are a very close match for the Walthers 10-6.....as Walthers did the NYC 10-6...... but Walthers did not release a Canadian National smoothside............

Walthers DID release a corrugated side 10-6 sleeper in the infamous "black and corrugated" scheme - (a black band with a white CN worm as the only livery - yuck) The only issue being that the Canadian National never had a 10-6 in this livery....or car type; they had six ex B&M and B&A corrugated sleeper cars that were 6-6-4's.... not really too close to a 10-6 at all... These were the "Green" series (Green Harbour, Greenwald etc....)

What makes this really funny was the fact that Walthers provided decals for an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SERIES OF CARS ALTOGETHER......... They provided decals for the ex FEC smoothside 10-6 cars in the "Grand" series.... yep; I said "smoothside"......

So let's recap - Walthers made a foobie corrugated side; gave it smoothside names and ignored the fact that they did some of the very NYC cars that could well have been the ones that CN bought and used; and that they were smoothside..........

Why would you not do basic research; oh, I forgot; they did; they got obscure car names like "Grand Codroy River" and made decals.....Hey; I own the Morning Sun guide; I own a copy of Gay Lepsky's Companion to CNR Passenger Equipment and I figured this out in less than five minutes...maybe Walthers should think about this.....?

I'm not against a foobie when that's as good as we can do; but someone has to explain to me why you would ignore your own "damn near correct car" and make a "not even close car".......or maybe I'm missing the point..... :-\

Walther's......... what the H-E-Double Hockey sticks were you thinking   ??????????????

[ljudice]

Perhaps they outsourced their N-scale research department to MicroTrains???

[Nato]

  The Names on the decal sheets were far from correct for a number of the roads offered and then there was the issue of getting the decal sheets. Some cars came without them ,dealers were promissed them later,BLW that I ordered cars from never got any later. Luckely I have Micro Scale Sheets to do most of the roads I ordered. Rio Grande is the only one lacking, years ago Northeast did them. I named my UP cars in Western Series which were not 10-6 cars as UP had no smooth side 10-6's but the Walthers model looks enough like these cars to satisfi me, also Rio Grande cars were fluted side, Walthers could have done their corrugated car in Grande not the Smooth side. Pickey Pickey I know as we really need all the N Scale passenger cars we can get. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[Bob Bufkin]

The 10-6's are nice looking and great running cars.  However, when Kato released their BWL, the height between the Walthers and Kato cars are quite noticeable.  My understanding was that basically the smoothsides were both the same for Walters and Kato. 

Luckily I did receive my decals and they match the PRR cars.  Still have 2 sheets I didn't even need to use.

[Puddington]

Nate/Bob: Don't get me wrong - I'm a card carrying member of the "More N scale passenger car club" and appreciate any and all passenger equipment I can get - even a wrong car can be turned into a "right car" for another road. I just can't understand making such a nice model as the 10-6 ( they really are fantatstic models) in both smooth and corrugated sides and then making such a rookie mistake.... baffles me.

[Mark5]

But this confuses the H-E Double Hockey sticks out of me.......

This is Walthers we're talking about right? :

I'm in the "why didn't they release these in the roads that actually had them" camp ...

These roads had the specific 10-6 smoothside plan they tooled up:

PRR - YES - Walthers did it.
L&N - NO Walthers did not do it (but they did do one in Corrugated - don't know if L&N actually had that)
RF&P - NO - Walthers did not do it.
N&W - NO Walthers did not do it.

I like Walthers structure kits though. ;D

Mark

[sirenwerks]

Foobies happen.

[asarge]

The L&N cars Walthers did were specific to their contribution on the Crescent as they carried the train in to New orleans for quite awhile.

You are not going to get 10-6's specific to every plan released unfortunately. At least not by the same company. My C&O's are nice but a later scheme. Doesn;t bother me much.

Walthers did say they would release the cars with decals to put on but when they originally came out the cars didn't have decals. I'd be willing to bet they forgot about their promise and after a bunch of people called them about it, they got somebody to just pick names off the HO decals they alread had the artwork for.

[Puddington]

The plot thickens........

Further research (maybe Walthers should pay me to do this) shows a minor series of Corrugated 10-6's being bought by CN in 1966 - these were ex NKP "200 City" series cars. They were, indeed corrugated side cars, but had full skirts. They were part of the second CN "River" series (Riverdale)....

But my original point still is valid - why provide an unskirted version; why provide names for smoothside cars instead of proper names ?

.....or am I tilting at the Walthers Windmill...........? ;D

[Puddington]

Now I'm really confused and may have to say I'm sorry to Walthers......maybe not...

Even more research shows a picture of CN 2131 Grand Codroy River a 10-6 sleeper wearing the smoothsode livery of grey and black with the red noodle - it claims to be ex FEC "Argentina".... the picture is of a smoothside car... Yet in the same book (Gay Lepsky's Companion to CNR Passenger Equipment) it shows a diagram of the same car clearly showing fluting on the top and bottom.......

The same book shows two different "versions" of the same car - is it possible that they removed fluting from an FEC car - does anyone have a picture of the FEC car "Argentina"...

Ok; my head hurts... this is a hobby right ? :-\

[wm3798]

"Two wrongs don't make a right... but three do..."

-Deteriorata

[asarge]

Ok; my head hurts... this is a hobby right ?

Just sit back and enjoy. Rule 1 applies.  Let ljudice worry about it. After all he is busy making false announcements. No need to join him in the electroshock treatments. ;D

[bobcat]

Ok; my head hurts... this is a hobby right ?

No need to join him in the electroshock treatments. ;D

Did he start them already?

[Walkercolt]

Walther's is carrying on a long N-scale tradition on passenger cars. Paint any car in any paint scheme any railroad ever used on anything. This causes frustration and depression. The cure for frustration and depression is Valium. I've got some football-sized Valiums for sale cheap.....

[jmlaboda - RIP]

Gee, has no one considered the idea that CN might not have taken the corrugation off of the cars right away, operating some with the corrugation in place to cover the operations that they were specifically purchased for?

Finding car photos from the 60s when a lot of these sales took place is nearly impossible but I will bet that they didn't just park these cars until they finally got around to refirbishing them and removing the corrugation.  I'd be willing to bet that many of the cars were pressed into service with further work being done later.

Besides... we are talking about Walthers here.  When was the last time they tried to do something (other than a steam model) even halfway right?