EXR 4427 close up shot. Not for the weak.

[unittrain]

I have a BN and a Santa Fe I didnt notice the flash I'll have to check, but I did notice the roof on my Santa Fe needs glued as it fell off!!  But all in all they are really nice cars.

[DKS]

There are even more flaws than noted so far.



In addition to the flashing on the corner of the body, the terrible paint on the roofwalk, roofwalk mount mismatch, and flash on the brake wheel, there's also paint chipped off the edge of the roofwalk, to the left; a big ol' sprue remnant on the brakewheel; flash or paint filling in two openings on the brakewheel; not to mention the flash continues down the corner post. That's sure one gruesome-looking model, and a big departure from what they show on their website.
 

[Puddington]

So, is this a "one off" that QC punted the ball on or is this a larger, more wide spread problem....? Anyone else got one ?

[DKS]

Hmmm... looks like their Photoshop boys missed one car. Check out the funky paint on the roofwalk:
 

[Brakie]

Guys,I'm sorry but,at $24.95 a pop that's inexcusable.

[SirTainly]

This is very much the trend for a good portion of the stuff I've bought lately. Crappy painting, poor assembly, glue galore, sprue/flashing and broken parts, I'm getting rather tired of buying something them having to fix it straight away, only to have a finished model that at best looks like I hand built it. If I'm going to end up with a product that looks like that, I'll accept I have to build it myself, and thus expect a price point that reflects that I'm buying a kit.

[kalbert]

and thus expect a price point that reflects that I'm buying a kit.

I'm all for kits. It's not hard to stick a brake wheel, roof walk, and trucks on. Paint it please, but I can put it together. I guess I could paint it if I had to. I wonder how much a hopper would cost if it was molded in the US and sold as a kit instead of molded and assembled in China and shipped here.

[DKS]

I wonder how much a hopper would cost if it was molded in the US and sold as a kit instead of molded and assembled in China and shipped here.

Probably a lot more, and not all due to domestic labor. Kits are notoriously hard to sell, which means the volume won't be there to keep the unit cost down.

[TrainCat2]

I wonder how much a hopper would cost if it was molded in the US and sold as a kit instead of molded and assembled in China and shipped here.

Probably a lot more, and not all due to domestic labor. Kits are notoriously hard to sell, which means the volume won't be there to keep the unit cost down.

Just ask Intermountain. They gave up on their kits to become RTR only.

[GonzoCRFan]

Did these guys ever fess up on the Conrail screw-up?

If you're referring to their poor excuse for a Conrail logo, the story they fed me was they used pictures of a certain class of Conrail boxcar that DID have an incorrect logo on the prototype and used it to generate ALL their Conrail logo artwork.

[Brakie]

If you're referring to their poor excuse for a Conrail logo, the story they fed me was they used pictures of a certain class of Conrail boxcar that DID have an incorrect logo on the prototype and used it to generate ALL their Conrail logo artwork.

Inexcusable..There are umpteen thousands of CR freight car pictures available that requires nothing more then a simple Google search and click.

[hegstad1]

Let's go back :



I get the argument though.  

I can't imagine how difficult it is for a company to deal with quality control with a factory half-way around the globe.

[Brakie]

Andrew,That was a very nice car in its day and still IMHO a contender against some brands like the train set LL and Bachmann.

Come to think of of it a little fixing with a newer running board and knuckle couplers.

[lashedup]

Well I ordered a couple of these cars, so I'll take some pics when I get them.

[James Costello]

I just checked out my few cars - a mix of ATSF, BN and DRGW.

My cars exhibit the same roofwalk mount mismatch as shown (all cars) and some minor examples of the paint issues on the roofwalk. The cars sit rather snug into the plastic cradle which has also resulted in some "sheen" on those corners exposed.

All in all, my cars don't look anywhere near as bad as Jason's example and to be honest, if I didn't know what to look for, I probably wouldn't have noticed the paint issues on the roofwalk (I'm hoping they'll scrape off with a knife). To the naked eye, the cars look pretty good and are a welcome addition to the fleet. Some body mounts, new trucks and some weathering and I think they'll look perfectly acceptable.