VERY nice, Martyn Did you paint the models? - the paint is very sharp on the colour seperations. Just a bit too modern for my 1951 layout, though
No, factory painted, haven't had time at the moment to get into the building & detailing like I was. The F40 and the RTA liveried gallery car need some paint touchups unfortunately, there are bits where Kato's printing process hasn't worked well, on the F40 pic above around the tail lights is one bit, but on the brown stripes on the sides there are a couple more. On the RTA gallery car one of the stipes is wobbly when you look close and they bleed around the ends, which is a bit dissapointing, as they managed to get incredibly sharp colour separations on the CNW painted cars. This is the RTA 6 window and CNW 4 window coach for comparison: I think that's all fixable, and in terms of what's under the paint it's all Kato's usual super-crisp toolwork, and super-smooth drive The 'road specific' shell differences between this and the Amtrak version are excellent, this comes with nose tail lights that light when the loco is in push mode, but the rear platform, nose, pilots & pilot detail and many other parts are specific to the road Ref 'too modern', the CB&Q bought gallery cars in 1950, the CNW followed in 1955...doesn't miss by much!
Good to hear they do the road specific details Does look very well detailed also. The cab handrail needs to be straightened a little
You know, I was born an raised in the Chicago and not once did I ever see an F40 in that RTA paintscheme. I remember vaguly some old F-units in it, but not the F40s. They were always in the Red and Blue Metra Scheme. I never bothered to check what the paintscheme's history was.
Alan, yeah I need to sort out a couple of those long handrails, they bent slightly fitting them and now I can't get them to sit straight Yoho, it was definately the 'as delivered' scheme for I think both Metra's batches of the standard shape F40, but I guess Metra must have changed their scheme sometime mid-late 80's? I think the winnebago's got delivered in Metra paint.
I've been intrigued enough by this question to do a Search and I'm coming up with nothing. I have found that Metra became the operating name some time in the eighties, so that's probably when the paint was changed. I've also found that the Northwestern lines (the tracks I lived closest to.) had some of the best commuter equipment pre-RTA (which I kinda knew) which explains why they ran E and F units longer. Thus, why I didn't see so many F40s in the mid 80s while playing little league.
