MTH 8 Car Passenger Set

[scoobydo]

Well I finally gave my son his new train set. An MTH SP Daylight and the Southern Pacific Lines Version of the 8 car Passenger set also from MTH.
I have had both of these ever since they came out, but have been waiting to give to my son. (I have a ton of trains I buy and then gift to him on special occasions, birthdays, Christmas and such)

The engine is great. We already have the Freedom Paint Scheme version and this was identical with some different cab chatter. This was the Original 4449 that came out from the 2008v3 catalog, not the newer one due to come out from the 2010V3 cat.)

All I can say is WOW. The cars looked great from the box, but once we took them out today and put them on our layout, you could really appreciate them.
I have some Athearn Genesis SP Passenger Cars and some Walthers UP City cars and I definitely prefer these overall.
The diaphragms are great, I couldn't believe the detail. They collapse and look very real. It will be interesting to see how the paint holds up on these as they look to be a rubber material.
The undercarriage was very detailed.
The only gripes are the same that Espeefan pointed out with the antennae wire. Very thin and flimsy. One is already starting to look warped. Should not be a problem as a little CA should fix that.
Another gripe is that on the undercarriage side, you can see the side walls are not painted. Looks to be the original ABS plastic with no paint.
I might hit these up with a little engine black to clean it up.

The price per car comes out to about $55 per car which is about the same as the Walthers versions, but these came with lights.
No flickering at all as the cars come with capacitors. When you shut off the power to your layout, they stay one until the caps drain.

Overall, I could not be happier. I am defintely thinking of picking up the N&W versions for our J Class Engine.

 

[Espeefan]

I hope he likes it. I used some CA debonder to loosen the antenna wire and re-glued one end. Then I pulled it tight with a pair of needlenose pliers and applied a drop of CA to each post to keep it tight. I painted the wires black.

I did not buy the MTH GS-4 though. There are several accuracy problems with it, and I already had several brass models available, but that's me, I'm fussy about such things. I'm modeling the train as it would have appeared in 1939 or so (before the GS-4s )

I also bought four of the articulated coaches which gives me the equivalent of a 16 car train. It looks awesome on the layout!

PS, you'll like the Powhatan Arrow set. A friend bought one, and has it on our layout. Nice looking!

 

[scoobydo]

Great, Thanks.
I was actually thinking of painting them black as well.
My son is into MTH. When he was three, he would make us play that informational DVD that came with his starter daylight bantam set. To this day he still watches it. It reminds me of a cheesy 1980's informative video. It just goes over the products and how to work with DCS and such.
He is 6 now and has it in his head that MTH is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Oh, well. I figure he is 6 and and if he stays with it, he will eventually go to other brands.
However, those cars are the nicest I have seen.

 

[Artieiii]

I have 2 of those cars (could not afford the 8 car set). I happened to pick the chair cars without the antenna wires on top. These are by far the nicest cars I own.
-Art