Walthers Mainline Boxcars

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


logandsawman

logandsawman

Northern Pacific history enthusiast
I wonder if anyone has purchased any of the recent Walthers Mainline box cars. I can't seem to find a decent image and was wondering about the details, if the stirrups are close to scale and the grabs? Also, how they perform out of the box?

Thanks, Dave
 
The ones that I've seen have larger stirrups, but good detail on the rivets and other parts. Somewhat reminds me of a "good" Athearn Blue Box model, but upgraded in details. Worth the price if building a fleet.

Greg
910-1656S.jpg
 
I have a couple of their Mainline box cars. The main reason I bought them is that they were grain box cars with the grain doors already installed lettered for the Milwaukee Road. The stirrups are oversize, similar to the old Athearn blue box cars and the grabs are cast on similar the the b/b kits. They do come with knuckle couplers. The lettering on my box car was crisp and clear. Went and weathered it and it works in just fine with my old blue box freight cars. Being the the couplers work fine, I haven't changer them over to Kadee like I usually do. If you want, I can take a photo and post it later.
 


Chet, that Milwaukee box looks remarkably good. The weathering makes it look much better than the stock Walthers catalog shots!
 


Thanks for the complements. Took about 15 seconds with an airbrush and a shot of clear flat to seal the paint. I'm lazy. laugh.gif
 
Chet, I really have to take my hat off to you with your weathering. It sounds like you have a really simple process that yeilds awesome results!
 
Chet:

Nice job on the box car weathering. What color did you air brush on the cars?

I do go to the Walther's showroom on a regular basis and when I checked my assortment of rolling stock still in their boxes, I found that I did purchase a few of the Mainline cars. In fact I brought two Walthers UP flat cars with the same number!!! A little weathering will hide the numbers.

Again nice weathering of the cars and nice staging of the cars for a photo on your layout.

Thanks.

Greg

72 degrees in Wisconsin here in March!!! A little windy, but nice in a protected area. Tomorrow trains.
 
I got a few of the new walthers mainline 40' boxcars. Echoing what others said, i would like to further comment that the decaling and painting on the cars is VERY good and i would not hesitate to add more to my fleet (which i am going to do :) ). Costs as others mentioned are similar to accurail if you take into account adding kadee couplers and metal wheelsets to the latter.
 
I picked up recent Mainline box car from Walthers - the one I bought was the upgraded 50' Evans box car which Walthers inherited from the LifeLike line. The older version had ugly gross thick stirrups but Wathers retooled them so they are thin and look quite good now. The Evan's 50' box car is a good match for the Penn Central and later repaint Conrail, as well as Western Pacific prototypes. Walthers has been upgrading a lot of their models to improve them in the past year or two.
 
Sorry I didn't get back to you Greg. The color I used was Floquil "Mud". I usually give the cars a licht dusting from the bottom. This way the trucks get taken care of at the same time. Now that Floquil is history, I havseen a mud color, but I guess any tan or buff color would work, but I would thin it down fairly good. The floquil mud was no where as opaque as normal Floquil paints. A little experimenting should get you good results. I always over sprayed with a clear flat to seal the paint.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top