Intermountain V Athearn & Atlas


G

gabby

Bob Hayes
Am thinking of getting some Intermountain freight cars. How do they compare to the RTR Athearn and Atlas. Havn't seen any Intermountain so I can't compare.
 
Intermountain is porbably the top of the line when it comes to details and paint jobs. Compared to the price of an Athearn Genesis and Atlas Gold line, they offer a mcuh better level of detail for just a few more dollars. I will warn you that the Intermountain kits, although cheaper, are not easy to assemble.
 
Inter Mountain's cars are great,I have had them before and they are as good as Athearn RTR and Atlas,also Bowser makes good freight cars as does Accurail, Branchline Trains,Kato,Walthers,Kadee.
 
A friend gave me 3 Intermountain kits about 6 months ago & I worked on 1 of them for the whole 6 months. gave the other 2 away. Never do that again & I thought I was a good kit builder. There were a lot of mistakes on my part just working on the 1 kit. I gave that 1 away about a week ago & he is going to fix all my goof-ups. I'm sticking to RTR rolling stock from now on.
 
thanks for the responces gang. I might give a few of them a go. I will definately steering away from the kits though as they would probably come out as if I did them with my feet.

UP2CS that was another concern I had in that by the time I get them here they work out rather expensive cause of the postage.
 
Ah, yes, I see you are from Down Under. Any chance ther's an importer of North American models in Austrailia that you can deal with? The web site says they have dealers in 14 countries so maybe Australia is on the list.
 
Jim I don't know. I am going to get onto their site and have a look. Even if there is it is sometimes cheaper (for us here) to deal direct with the US especially when the almighty dollar is up.
 
I like the Athearn Genisis and Atlas cars for detail as well, the Intermountain cars details really only pay off if you have a car on its back as a scrap load IMHO.
I'm with Larry on the buildability.
 
gabby said:
Jim I don't know. I am going to get onto their site and have a look. Even if there is it is sometimes cheaper (for us here) to deal direct with the US especially when the almighty dollar is up.
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If you don't have to have the latest and greatest, you can get closeouts from a hobby shop, or pre-owned equipment. Also, you haven't specified if you are looking into HO or N scale equipment. The Athearn, Roundhouse, and others' HO kits are pretty easy to go together, though the Proto 2000 kits are every bit a pain as the Intermountain kits to assemble.
 
Bob, I'd hold off on anything you want from the US for at least a few weeeks as the dollar is really starting to plunge. I've been shorting the Euro against the dollar since the dollar was the best looking horse in the glue factory. Other currencies, including the Aussie dollar are starting rise against the dollar and I got out of my short Euro position the other day. I think you'll see a fall in dollar denominated prices over the next month.
 
Terry another pensioner moment. I was thinking of the HO side of things. From what I have read here I'll stear away from the kits.

Jim our dollar is starting to get a bit of beef on it now against your dollar. Me and my mate are hoping that it goes up a bit higher yet.
 
I'm probably the lone vote that Intermountain is a "no-go".

I have eliminated the majority of my IM fleet due to inaccuracies. IM will take a car and put any random paint and number scheme on it. Their Rock Island 4750 covered hoppers were released in the blue 1975 Rock paint scheme but were stenciled in the 1973 gray Rock Island road numbers. Some numbers were just complete fantasies and were never used on RI or ROCK equipment. The IM 2 bay covered hoppers for the Rock Island didn't even have the correct body, hatches, or gates.

The new Athearn equipment is prototypically accurate, even down to the hatch's on certain road numbers. I am no fan at all of the Athearn RTR locomotives but their freight card seem to be spot on.

This may not matter for some but for the cost that IM commands you'd think that they could do better for prototypical modelers.

Jacob
 
The IM trucks & wheels seem to be very free rolling, more so than the others. While they may not be prototypically accurate the fact you can pick up some IM equipment for $11-$18 new is pretty strong.
 
A lot of modelers seem to like the IM self leveling trucks. I've yet to see anything that rolls as well as P2K trucks and wheels though. Even the new ExactRail wheel sets don't roll near as nice as P2K.
 
I will say that I've got 4 of the smaller Corn Syrup tanks (two by Atlas Masterline, two by Intermountain) and the detail is better on the Atlas (uncoupling lever and brake and drain detail). The Atlas ones also had regular coupler boxes, so regular 119s fit. The IM cars (just the tanks) use those Accumax couplers like Athearn Genesis did, requiring a special Kadee coupler replacement.

There's a new Railbox in my local store which detail is really nice.
 
I really like the IM cars and Accurail kits are nice and Athearn has really nice cars as well. I guess it all depends on what you like to do as a modeler. I enjoy building the kits and really like the idea I can add details to the kits as I build them so I'm a fan of the IM kits as well as others. I've been building the kits because you can't a better car for the price with nice details. I've heard others talk about the inaccuracies of the IM cars before but for me they are good looking models and as far as paint color and decals I don't mind they are off because I usually repaint the cars myself.
Dave
 
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