Walthers says "Just buy a new Shell"?


Charles Smiley said:
I just bought two SP wood hacks from Walthers. Both had very stiff couplers with the screws mashed down. Both had trucks that popped apart. I replace all trucks and couplers as a habit anyhow.

But it's stuff like this that will discourage new hobbyists and hurt Walthers and us in the long run.

These were normally $39, and on sale for $16. So I think I got my money's worth here. They do look nice and they really made a good effort to model a specific caboose.

I'd say that with all the RTR cars I've bought nearly all suffer with stiff couplers or ones that droop so much that they catch in turnout frogs and the like. This isn't just a Walthers problem.
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I buy a lot of Athearn RTR cars which are dumbed-down Genesis (etched metal details, all metal grabs, full brake rigging, etc except no coupler cut levers). They cost me either $12.49 or $13.49 each depending on the model and when they are on sale at walthers for half price. All I have to do is replace the couplers and they're good to go.

Atlas makes good tank cars, but the details are molded plastic - still better than Walthers though.

Walthers tank cars come underweight, have horrible wheels, and have grabs that you need to drill, install and paint yourself.

Atlas and Walthers tank cars usually go for $20 each, $17 each if you're lucky.

The Athearn tank cars have etched metal grates, wire grabs, wire piping, and proper weight. All for $12.49. You can't beat that.

About the coupler droop issue. I've found that the couplers only droop on Walthers cars that have the swing arm to allow the car to run on tighter curves.

Stay away from the cars that have this swing arm. If you tighten the coupler pocket lid, the arm won't swing, and the coupler won't move. If you loosen the screws enough for the swing arm to swing freely, the coupler will droop.

Also, some Walthers cars (such as their 60' box cars) have oversized coupler mounting posts so that the kadee brass centering springs don't fit unless you file down the post or use whisker shank couplers.

And with Walthers' passenger cars... don't get me started on those. Those thing have really bad quality control, drooping couplers, horrible trucks, inadequate weight, etc.
 
I just opened four of the C-30 Cabeese that I have in stock and found all but one coupler moves freely. One truck on one is tight. I Have not yet checked the weight. The body detail is very nice. Paint is nice. Undercarrage is a little sparse.
Now if you want really nice out of the box then I can sell you some exact rail. They are beautiful cars and have Kadee installed with nice trucks and wonderfull detail. But they do cost a little more.
I do not yet carry the athearn line and my personal athearn collection is from the 80s. So I am not well versed on the new products. I know I have a train store so I better get on it.

By the way I must say that I really like this forum. I have been looking around and just really feel comfortable here! Thanks to the Boss.
 
Quote:"About the coupler droop issue. I've found that the couplers only droop on Walthers cars that have the swing arm to allow the car to run on tighter curves."

Well I only buy the "upscale" cars since I burned out on replacing molded-on grabs & ladders in the 80s. :D

I bought a 4-pack of Red Caboose 10,000-gal tank cars with those non-Kadee couplers and not one of them had free and non-drooping couplers. Don't get me wrong - I think Red Caboose brand makes some of the finest models.

But they ALL suffer from what I call the real "China-Syndrome" -- aka erratic Quality Control. Notice that your packs of Kadee couplers say "made in USA". Ever see a quality problem with them? Maybe once in a blue-moon if at all.

As an electronic engineer that had his designs built in China I can tell you that they will cheat, cut corners, slack off and substitute materials and parts behind your back to shave sub-pennies. It's almost like a unrelenting game with them. And that's at a plant my US employer owned! So imagine what it's like for a small company contracting work out to a China-owned company.

Having stuff built in Japan (long ago) presented no problems. To some extent the same is true with Free-China (oops, I mean Taiwan).

China can actually produce some fine work - when they want to. But you have to watch the "pot" or the design-integrity will soon drift away.

The problem is that: if your competiton has stuff made in China, you eventually have to do the same. Or you will be non-competitive in pricing. You can position yourself as a nitche-premium-price company but that has its limitations.

I could write a book on dealing with this nonsense in my industry when I was designing video and high-end audio equipment.
 
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diburning said:
And with Walthers' passenger cars... don't get me started on those. Those thing have really bad quality control, drooping couplers, horrible trucks, inadequate weight, etc.
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What sort of radius are you running them around? I have a boatload of these and have never had a problem with them. I have heard of some having to have the trucks removed, and the screws loosened and re-squared, but by and large, if you use the 24" minimum radius they recommend, they run pretty trouble free. (if your trackwork is good)

I also have never heard of a passenger train that didn't require some sort of tuning to the layout it is going to operate on. I have had to do this, especially when mixing car brands, or mixing in brass cars with plastic ones in a train. It's the 85 ft length that gets you. Problems that don't show up in 40 or 50 ft freight cars are magnified as the car length increases.
 
The Walthers amfleets and horizon (comet) coaches have horrible trucks and not-so-great wheels. The coupler pockets are on swing-arms and have issues where overtightening would lock up the coupler, or loosening it to allow it to swing also allows it to droop.

The Walthers Empire Builder cars have trucks mounted off-center so that the outer axle, and the middle axle sits on the track while the two axles closest to the center of the car just floats there and catches turnouts. Athearn's heavyweights have the same problem.

As to the Proto cracked axle gears problem, I read on another forum, that Walthers gave a canned response to Model Railroader magazine saying that Life-Like, before the Walthers buyout had sent out enough enough gears to replace at least half of the cracked axle gears on all of the engines that life-like produced.

It turns out that Life-Like was sending out entire nickle-silver wheelsets that people were taking advantage of to swap into their Athearn blue box engines. Some "repair shops", genuine or not had ordered a ton of the axles claiming that they were to use them in the repair business.

When Walthers bought out Life-Like, they continued to replace the gears. After Walthers sent out more gearsets than Life-Like made for locomotives (Walthers knows how many locomotives Life-Like made, and how many gear sets Life-Like sent out) Walthers stopped the free gear replacement and now demands a receipt because of the prior abuse. Because of a few bad apples, Walthers was forced to do this.

Now it would have been nice if Walthers came forward and told us before we all got pissed off at them. To me, Walthers releasing that statement years later after the fact DOES NOT redeem their bad customer service and quality control.
 
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Funny thing about Walthers passenger cars is that half of those I bought perform nicely out of the box, the other half are horrible out of the box. This applies equally to lightweight and heavyweight cars of various types. The lightweights with 4 wheel trucks have accidently run through 18" radius curves without incident, although I wouldn't recommend it on a regular basis, while the heavyweights with 6 wheel trucks, have issues with 32" radius superelevated curves with spiral easements.

My solution to the pre Walthers P2k geeps is to rebuild them with parts stripped from unbuilt BB kits.

If I had a choice, I would not buy stuff manufactured in China.......maybe when they switch over to India which has lower base wages, the quality will improve.
 
Once the lifelike PK2 series loco's came out I jumped right in and bought many . SD7, GP18, Alco FA's and B's GP-20 and E-8's . I always had problems with the drive shafts which are just like BB Athearns so I used Athearn shafts because the PK2 snap on shaft to the ball would open up CHeap Plastic , then the axle gears would split . The thin cheap handrails would warp of break and then I noticed the shells were so thin that looking at the FA's you could see the sides had waves in them. I didn't like the plastic grabs and lift rings either so I sold them all . Atlas made less detail but ran better . Now EVERY THING is Made in China even Athearn and getting parts is an abomination . Kato and Atlas and Bowser /Stewart still offer some parts , Athearn not so much now it's Horizon .

I will still take any BB Athearn and detail it the way I want or older Atlas yellow box. I did have some made in China Atlas and liked the add on grabs and frame mount couplers . Now it's all so expensive RTR that I can't even think about buying anything new , they priced me out of the hobby .

At least with PK 2 loco's you can interchange trucks and motors and gears and side frames with Athearn parts yet can't get much from Athearn now days . Athearn BB used to add more loco's and never did much limited runs so you could always get on and if the shells hood was to wide RPP shells could be used in many cases even though they lacked detail they could be refined.

Athearn should have kept the BB as an option then if one wanted RTR or Genesis then go with that . But hell no can't have that.

I liked Bachman Spectrum GP30's and baby train masters ran well not expensive yet the paint was way to think so I'd get undec .

I never minded detailing and painting that was most of the fun or kitbashing was fun for me . I never minded Athearn stanctions just used .015 brass handrails and learned to bend them . I liked the old Atlas GP7's metal chassis and frame /walkways and smooth running like the RS-1 and S-1 and S-2 . Still have enough old BB Athearns to finish up and have Train Minature FA's and B's and a old Lionel GP-30 riding on a Athearn GP35 frame . I'm happy , just need some Athearn BB power trucks and a few six axle trucks .
 
blues90 said:
....Now it's all so expensive RTR that I can't even think about buying anything new , they priced me out of the hobby....
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I'm NOT picking on "Blues90" here..... I'm picking on all of you as a group that keep talking about being priced out of the market. What CENTURY are you guys living in???

Here's my view on it: I just picked up a 1990 issue of Model Railroad Craftsman magazine and found an advertisement for an Athearn BB SD-40 for $25. Using an Internet-based dollar adjustment tool, $1.00 in 1990 had the same buying power as $1.85 in 2014. (That's about right. The Toyota Celica GTS I bought in 1983 was $12k. A similarly equipped vehicle is $25k.)

So that $25 BB Athearn SD-40 would be about $46.

OK so here's what do you get with an 1990's model Athearn BB locomotive:

  • DC only
  • Crappy low speed performance
  • Loud, noisy open-frame motors
  • Decent drawbar pull
  • Cast metal side frames with low resolution detail
  • A box full of metal non-scale handrails that have to be painted and applied by the buyer
  • Incandescent bulbs that dim with voltage, and will burn out
  • Low resolution detail shell
  • No interior cab details


I just bought an MTH SD-70ACe for $153 and got the following:

  • Full DCC
  • Sounds including horn, bell, startup, brakes, air, couplers
  • DCC Couple/Decouple Control
  • Awesome low speed performance
  • Outstanding drawbar pull
  • Plastic sideframes that look like real ones shrunk down
  • Handrails that are scale in appearance, painted, and applied to the shell and are made from durable plastic
  • LED lighting that changes with direction, never dims (unless programmed to), and LEDs that never need replacement
  • Operating ditch lights
  • High resolution detail all over the shell that rivals brass engines of yesteryear
  • Interior detail


OK, so the MTH loco is a bit over the top..... similar to about spending $80 back in '90. But look what you get with the MTH compared to the Athearn BB. There's no comparison.

But nobody is forcing you to buy an MTH product, so let's look at Bachmann, considered to be on the low-end by many. I picked up a Bachmann Erie GP7 for $60:

  • Full DCC
  • No Sound
  • Awesome low speed performance
  • Great drawbar pull
  • Plastic sideframes that look like real ones shrunk down
  • Handrails that are scale in appearance, painted, and applied to the shell and are made from durable plastic
  • LED lighting that changes with direction, never dims (unless programmed to), and LEDs that never need replacement
  • High resolution detail all over the shell that rivals brass engines of yesteryear
  • No interior detail

Adjust that to 1990 dollars and you are at $32.

So why all of the belly-aching about being priced out of the market? You can get BB locomotives at shows for $5 to $10 in 2013 dollars because of the state of the hobby. Install a decoder for $15 and LEDs for $3 and you are good to go, it's easy to do. Things are so much better in this hobby now than before. I see no reason whatsoever to complain about prices.

--Jon
 
So far as models and "customer service" are are concerned...I have Bachmann and Athearn Engines and Rolling Stock and I have had to deal with Athearn, Bachmann and Atlas customer service.

My personal experience findings:

Bachmann -

still waiting for a response to a request for information from a month ago.
poor quality engines and rolling stock compared to other manufacturers, based on value for money.

Atlas -

Arrogant customer support that is slow in responding (Jim Miller)
Adopt the typical "everyone is wrong but them" attitude
Incapable of answering what should have been a very easy question regarding one of their products

Athearn -

New rolling stock $20 - $25, solidly made and packed
Prompt and decisive customer service that answers the questions asked.

My conclusions:

Will never deal with Bachmann or Atlas again. Will stick with Athearn engines and rolling stock until they give me a reason not to.

At the end of the day though NO company is terribly concerned about the consumer, it is all about the company and how much they can "lure" out of the customers.

The problem is really simple if you think about it. As long as the consumer allows companies to increase prices while lowering standards and quality, the more it is going to happen. Once upon a time you could probably any "spare part for train you wanted, now look. Sooner or later, these companies are going to being making fully sealed units DC or basic DCC, and if you want to upgrade or update your unit, you'll have to buy a complete new unit. Things will get progressively worse, so long as the "consumers" allow it.
 
Jon ... I just don't look at it that way . My remarks are also not to be taken personal.

Not everyone can afford DCC for one or needs directional lighting . Not only that . Athearn used to be an American company with products that provided jobs for citizens of this country . Now they are gone forever and never to come back ie now the jobs are slave labor working in China .

I worked for Ford for over 35 years and let me add some info here. I was asked to guess in 2002 what it cost Ford to make an explorer by a ford engineer , one after built out the door of the assembly plant , well since they cost over $20,000 mid priced model I guessed $15,000 he said $7,500. Add to that the parts go to the lowest bidder = TSB's = recalls . Parts since 1980 most made in China , Korea , Mexico and on and on.

Back to BB Athearn of the 90's . Most all by then had detailed plastic side frames other than the trainmaster . Most by then had scale width hoods and all the rivets one could ask for. Open frame motors that ran well and no more cast on details just holes for you to add all the grabs and detail parts depending on just how far you wanted to go and the added scale plastic handrails .

My thoughts are this . I prefer and desire and am motivated to do my own detail work and painting and if I wanted to build a specific loco by road number I can do so . This is one reason why the numerous companies that still exist still sell detail parts . If I chose to have a better motor I have as many , that option if funds dictate .

I could stretch $153 a lot further than one loco and come out with three looking and running just as well .

I think the point is you prefer RTR and since I can only speak for myself and will only speak for myself I prefer the challenge of building my own . Nothing wrong with either way speaking strictly about personal preference within the hobby with all the Global interjection on my part left out. As far as your point of buying BB loco's at shows is not quite the same thing as a visit to your local hobby shop where not so very long ago was the norm , people got just as much enjoyment . Now the choices for people like me are flea bay or swap meets . DCC is not as simple as the acronym suggests , it takes more than just a loco equipped with it . DC is simple for those who prefer simple and works quite well as it did for decades with all the massive railroad club layouts of yesteryear.

It all boils down to preference and the wallet which by no means a wallet should dictate choice or inclusion. It reminds me of the time Lionel had an HO FA with a built in camera in the loco to see the rails from the loco's point of view which was very short lived. I just don't feel today in 2014 the average working class hero makes much more than min wage unless one so called lucked out and didn't watch their living wage job vanish like a fart in the wind. Sorry to get political here yet it is the big picture reality dictates.

It's not even a matter of envy on my part , as I said I am quite happy to have what I have , if one can afford the top of the line product one should have it.

Just to conclude . Once the newest loco fully loaded is pushed to the next stage of technology parts and service owner will end up searching through flea bay or the swap meets. Sort of reminds me of the old cell phone turned smart phone or windows 2000 turned whatever and is no longer supported.
 
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Jon:

I can't find fault with your argument as long as it applies to you! I am in the same position as Blues90; I prefer to do my own work. Why? With a layout that only measures 11X11, with an upper level and lower level single track main line on each level, why do I need DCC and all the fancy detailing? Since my trains won't exceed more than 10-11 cars-and that is pushing it-a single powered loco and a dummy are more than sufficient to do what I want on the layout. I do not want to spend money on purchasing equipment that has things on it I simply can't use! Talking about the value of a $1 in 1990 is fine, and you do make a valid point. However, the reason my salary is better now than in 1990 is the fact that I am working full-time instead of part time.

If it wasn't for the used market, I'd be out of the hobby. I can't use a $300 HO loco with all the bells and whistles because of the cost of adding all those bells and whistles to my layout. Besides, I sit in front of a computer at work for 8-9 hours a day-why do the same thing to get an HO loco all set up with addressing and all that "stuff" that DCC seems to require?

I prefer the Athearn blue box locos because of the availability of parts from the used market. How compatible will the original DCC designs of say 5 years ago be in another 5 years?

Photoman475
 
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