Amtrak Pacific Parlour?

[jmlaboda - RIP]

"...replaced it with flat plate."

Ah... no, the flat plate is under the corrugation.

[randgust]

Wow, Jerry, if we were closer that would make a great bar bet, right up there with the cast vs. welded F-unit noses.

Because somewhere, buried, in the piles and piles of stored engineering drawings in my office is the structural drawings of the Budd El Cap carbodies that we got from Beech Grove back in '94 as we were trying to open up the coaches to the same window configuration as the lounges and were trying to determine if they were framed identically in the roof (they were).   That would answer that one for sure.    I've also been all over the coaches (but not the lounges) when there were at Illinois Transit Assembly when they had side sill cracks - which is why Amtrak retired them as fast as they did (but they could be fixed for a price).  I never was there when they took off the upper corrugations for anything to prove that one way or the other.  I've had regular Budd coaches apart and there's nothing under the side corrugations but frame members and sometimes some very nasty electrolysis.

So I don't think there was a dual layer up there....but I can't prove it either!     I'm always astounded by the people that I run into on the forums that I suddenly discover I've bumped into elsewhere and never knew it as pro railroaders that really CAN prove it, so I'll defer!

[NorsemanJack]

I ended up decaling up a couple Kato Pullmans for Amtrak Phase I, bitty white window stripes and all.  There's a support group for that level of behavior, I've been clean for almost a year and 'out of the box' doesn't look as bad to me as it used to.

Good for you buddy!  You can't kill OCD by refusing to feed it, but you can weaken it some.   

[Sokramiketes]

And here's the way it was factory delivered.  Look closely at the letterboard/stripe area.  Huh!
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~cwhung/amhilounge-1.JPG

Uh... no.  That is a photoshop monstrosity.  I thought you were a Santa Fe guy!

And again, I'm not blaming Kato for the decision not to make tooling changes.  I contend that even over corrugations, pad printing would be a better, sharper end product.

I stopped by the hobby shop to look at the Amtrak version of the El Capitan.  It was also inkjet printed... 

[randgust]

Here, feel better now?   
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3339910

The shot I really like - in color - is the original El Cap brochure  showing that letterboard area is apparently only on Flikr and unpastable.   I've got one somewhere as well as what's in various books.
That shot above may have even been the source of the photoshop paste, but it does prove that you can't have it both ways, you either have it right for the El Cap or right for Amtrak, but there's significant sheathing and letterboard modifications in the middle. 

As far as for dot-matrix vs pad-print, there was a thread somewhere with some really good comparisons on MT cars that made the point rather well on print clarity in favor of pad..but....  Show me a pad-printed result on silver corrugation of a broad stripe like that that gets it smoother and I'll buy into your concept, even if the real problem is that it should really be on a flat surface so it's kind of a no-win either way.   It is noticeable that the blue color on the original letterboard area is dead-smooth and even compared to the corrugation result.

The red and white striping on mine is more consistent that what I'm seeing in these photos, but the blue over silver has one noticeable streak on one side only on the corrugations.  Other than that, mine has no flaws I can see

Meanwhile...market says that one's currently at auction at $162.50 with another 7 hours, another at $71 and another at $36, so me thinks that money is talking pretty loud here toward the final product.

Here's a 1974 coach shot of the Phase 1 (which I think is what Kato is trying to do with the early Amtrak set?) and in this variance, it really is painted over the corrugations:
Lounge - in phase 1 - with painted corrugations:  http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=290308
Coach:  http://www.hebners.net/amtrak/amtHILEV/amt9946.jpg
Kato:  http://www.katousa.com/N/AMT-ElCap/pics/9928.jpg

[Sokramiketes]

Here, feel better now?   
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3339910

The shot I really like - in color - is the original El Cap brochure  showing that letterboard area is apparently only on Flikr and unpastable.   I've got one somewhere as well as what's in various books.
That shot above may have even been the source of the photoshop paste, but it does prove that you can't have it both ways, you either have it right for the El Cap or right for Amtrak, but there's significant sheathing and letterboard modifications in the middle. 

As far as for dot-matrix vs pad-print, there was a thread somewhere with some really good comparisons on MT cars that made the point rather well on print clarity in favor of pad..but....  Show me a pad-printed result on silver corrugation of a broad stripe like that that gets it smoother and I'll buy into your concept, even if the real problem is that it should really be on a flat surface so it's kind of a no-win either way.   It is noticeable that the blue color on the original letterboard area is dead-smooth and even compared to the corrugation result.

The red and white striping on mine is more consistent that what I'm seeing in these photos, but the blue over silver has one noticeable streak on one side only on the corrugations.  Other than that, mine has no flaws I can see

Meanwhile...market says that one's currently at auction at $162.50 with another 7 hours, another at $71 and another at $36, so me thinks that money is talking pretty loud here toward the final product.

Here's a 1974 coach shot of the Phase 1 (which I think is what Kato is trying to do with the early Amtrak set?) and in this variance, it really is painted over the corrugations:
Lounge - in phase 1 - with painted corrugations:  http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=290308
Coach:  http://www.hebners.net/amtrak/amtHILEV/amt9946.jpg
Kato:  http://www.katousa.com/N/AMT-ElCap/pics/9928.jpg

Kato has painted/printed over corrugations on many cars.  Maybe not a full side of corrugations, but even flat passenger cars have detail.  The Pennsy Budd 21-roomettes, the UP Budd 10-6, and even the Amtrak Superliners come to mind as in this photo where the stripers go over a body seam flawlessly:



And I'm not sure what the eBay pricing says.  Money flew out of my pocket for a unique passenger car as well.  I counted on Kato's past quality, and was only disappointed when I had it in hand. 

[Ike the BN Freak]

The Amtrak Anniversary train has the last few cars on board.  Bought one today, it looks ok, not amazing.  However I plan on having it in a train and just roll by and 90% of people won't notice the "inkjet" printing.

[peteski]

Received my car today. The decorations are printed via inkjet... over corrugations... Which just makes the whole thing look strangely patterned and fuzzy. 

It kinda sucks.   

The fuzzy inkjet decoration Kato uses is nothing new.  They used this method when the stripes are over corrugated areas of the cars.  I mentioned this in https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28938.msg307999#msg307999  That was the thread I started about not being to thrilled about MTL using inkjet printing for fully decorating sides of their reefers.

Photo from the linked message which shows pad-printed vs. inkjet printed Amtrak decoration.

[Ike the BN Freak]

The fuzzy inkjet decoration Kato uses is nothing new.  They used this method when the stripes are over corrugated areas of the cars.

But the question I still have is, for someone viewing the car on a layout at a normal viewing distance, is it really that noticeable?

I understand for upclose model photography its easy to see.  But who views a layout trains at less than 3 inches from their eyes?

[mcjaco]

^ From the pictures, I'd say this paint job is not up to par with their normal runs.  If that makes sense.  So, yes, I think it would be noticable.

[Philip H]

Peteski,
Not to rain on your normally well informed parade, but comparing pad printing on a flat surface with some rivet detail to inkjet on a flutted surface doesn't really make your point.  I would think inkjet would look better on flat surface anyway, your MTL experiences and photos not withstanding.

[peteski]

Peteski,
Not to rain on your normally well informed parade, but comparing pad printing on a flat surface with some rivet detail to inkjet on a flutted surface doesn't really make your point.  I would think inkjet would look better on flat surface anyway, your MTL experiences and photos not withstanding.

That photo was taken from a thread where I was showing my disappointment in the fact that some companies started using inkjet printing instead of pad printing on N scale models. That photo simply shows the difference in appearance of those printing methods. It was comparing Kato's Amtrak Phase III stripes printed using each method. 

I suspect that Kato uses inkjet printing for stripes which run along corrugated areas of the car because the fear that pad printing would not reliably deposit ink in the valleys of the corrugation.  THis is strictly a guess on my part.

As far as being able to notice the fuzziness of the inkjet printing from further away, I do notice that something is odd about the inkjet printed stripes from some distance.  The fuzziness is not readily apparent from lets say 3 feet away. But the stripes exhibit a strange shininess and they almost sparkle. This seems to be due to the fact that the ink is very glossy and the thickly applied raster (stripped) texture reflects and scatters the light much more than a flat thin layer of pad printed paint would.

[Ike the BN Freak]

^ From the pictures, I'd say this paint job is not up to par with their normal runs.  If that makes sense.  So, yes, I think it would be noticable.

I have one in front of me, and from a "normal" viewing distance, it looks ok, in my opinion, the stripes have a bit of a "fuzz" to them.  Its not a show winning model by any stretch of the imagination, however I also plan on sticking it in the middle of my train and off it goes...

As Peteski mentioned, you do notice that there is something up with the stripes, however the rest of my superliners are all phase II and III, so being they are different, I hope it takes away from the noticeable ness of the fuzzy stripes.  Maybe if it bothers me enough, I'll get the decals from microscale and redo the car.  But until that day, I'll let it be.

[John]

are there decals that could be put over the top of the poor printing?

[Sokramiketes]

are there decals that could be put over the top of the poor printing?

I think anything placed over the top is just going to take on the lumpy texture of the printing.  There's a distinct pattern.