Non-prototypical cars from various manufacturers (or importers)

Calzephyr Nov 16, 2015

  1. Charlie Vlk

    Charlie Vlk February 5, 2023 In Memoriam

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    Because of detail differences between cars of the same class on a particular railroad even an model of that car can be a "Foobie" because the brake wheel, door, roof or other appliances are different.
    Can you imagine the number of products that would have to be made if exact models of every class and subclass of every car for every railroad were produced?!!!! The knowledge necessary to make such selections (both from the consumer and manufacturer viewpoint) would be mind blowing!
    I agree that the least manufacturers should do is make paint and road number choices that match the Protoype of the model....this was not always the case and it was maddening!
    Isn't nice when a "Foobie" has to be pulled off the layout because the stand-in has been replaced by an exact model??
    Charlie Vlk
     
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  2. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    I can understand trying to get the maximum return on the investments used to create the dies for a new model but in some cases they never release it in the correct version. Con Cor produced a pretty good model of a Budd built 10-6 sleeper and then gave the ones painted for Santa Fe all the wrong names. Any names in the "Pine" series would have been fine, however, they were all named in the "Palm" series. All the Palm 10-6s on the Santa Fe were built by ACF. And then there is the exact model of the Budd built Navajo, a Santa Fe Round Tail End Observation Car built for the first streamlined Super Chief. They gave it some other name, I don't remember what but it was probably from the Vista series.
     
  3. umtrr-author

    umtrr-author TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks, Joe, but I can hardly take credit for starting this. I also try to be reasonable, and let modelers decide what to do with the information I can find. That's in contrast to some of the blanket condemnation of which I'm aware.

    I wish I could remember where I saw the post-- I think it was here, a while ago, that started with: "I have not seen this model, but it is crap..." It was laugh out loud funny, but it was also quite accurate.
     
  4. oldrk

    oldrk TrainBoard Supporter

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    As an avid C&O guy I have tried to own one of every N scale C&O model ever made. I remember buying the ConCor PA1 only to find out the C&O never had one. I felt deceived! Oh well... ConCor cornered the market on this practice.
     
  5. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I wonder what their sales are like today, versus forty years ago? Back then we grabbed anything and everything. These days folks are a lot more thoughtful with their purchases.
     
  6. bremner

    bremner Staff Member

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    Um....they announced a U50 in 2012.....
     
  7. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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  8. bumthum

    bumthum TrainBoard Member

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    I'm willing to go with the "close enough" approach. A recent example would be Bachmann's B&M NE caboose, which is steel. All of my research shows that B&M's NE cabooses (cabeese) were second hand and probably wooden so, technically speaking, the Bachmann caboose isn't correct for B&M. Still, I needed another caboose and the Bachmann one was "close enough", after all... I doubt anyone will make a RTR wooden NE caboose when steel examples are readily available.

    Going back in time, I've highlighted some early N scale B&M foobies on my blog. Except for the boxcars (which often have the wrong road numbers) very little of the early B&M stuff was prototypical. I collect early B&M stuff so that isn't a turn-off, but things like B&M blue-dipped longitudinal hoppers certainly make it clear that manufacturers were milking their tooling for everything it was worth.
     
  9. glennac

    glennac TrainBoard Member

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    Randy, any chance you're thinking of "Puye"?
     
  10. oldrk

    oldrk TrainBoard Supporter

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    Bachmann has a C&O plug door boxcar they have made for fifty years. It has a silver door. The C&O had plug door boxcars with yellow doors. Never a silver door. Still drives me crazy!
     
  11. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    They actually had that model years ago. There was a discussion of it here, not too long ago, wondering what was happening with this supposed new release.
     
  12. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    Yeah, that was it. It got removed so fast I forgot what it was.
     
  13. glennac

    glennac TrainBoard Member

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    Except, consistent with this thread topic, that wasn't a "foobie" though, right? I see it listed in actual Super Chief consists, and use to own the Con-Cor car myself before I sold it to a fellow in CO.
     
  14. Thomas Davis

    Thomas Davis TrainBoard Member

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    "And then there is the exact model of the Budd built Navajo, a Santa Fe Round Tail End Observation Car built for the first streamlined Super Chief. They gave it some other name,"

    Puye. Which reminds me, I have a small decaling project to get to this weekend. And then they produced it in all 25 (or whatever it is) roadnames they produce in their "Budd" series. The one that really ticked me off was the baggage car that was widely advertised as ATSF (not sure if Con Cor was responsible for that, or some of the retailers), and which I pre-ordered several of, that turned out to be a Zephyr. And it is about 2 feet short of the M&R sides, so I could not even fix it that way. And is there ANY prototype, anywhere, for that 70' RPO? Why do that, when they could have produced a reasonably accurate Baggage-Mail?

    All I really ask of manufacturers (and many are doing this nowadays, but there are some glaring exceptions) is that they tell me what the prototype of the car is. Then I can make the call on whether it is close enough for me in whatever road they offer it. Maybe an asterisk if the paint scheme is an anachronism- ATSF map on a mechanical reefer, or some such. Two ** if it is fantasy- green ATSF stock cars or smoothside GN cars painted for the Valley Flyer. Would be a great help if manufacturers who have been around for a while would publish prototypes of their early cars- even if they made compromises in the old days.

    Russell- that diner of yours, when a photo of it appeared years ago, inspired me to try something similar. My first attempts were unsuccessful, but I've been happily chopping up old Con-cor and Rivarossi cars ever since. My personal favorite was this- CIMG0777.JPG

    Chopped up 2 diners and used the vestibulesfrom a couple of combines (I used the baggage ends of the combines to make a baggage car). Lettering was from the decals you (IIRC) made up for Roberto's heavyweight chair cars, which M&R announced a couple weeks after I started gluing the parts for this together. It is a foobie- spacing on the windows is off, and it is several feet longer than the prototype, but happened to end up fitting the length of a RR roof.
     
  15. Kenneth L. Anthony

    Kenneth L. Anthony TrainBoard Member

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    Foobier than thou. I wanted SOMETHING that looked "something like" a Santa Fe mixed-train combine, and I knew (?) that most Santa Fe heavyweight coaches had long broad windows rather than the narrow paired windows seen on so many N scale coach models. I used a Bachmann "shorty", cut the posts between paired windows to make them long, added a bit of Plastruct channel at the top to suggest covered-over transom windows.
    [​IMG]
    Only later, after cobbling this shorty, did I learn that the early Atlas-Rivarossi heavyweight combine from ca.1970, marketed as part of a set to provide combination baggage and coach service for a heavyweight train, was actually pretty close to the rider coaches used on the ATSF "Fast Mail" and to ONE (1, count them, "one") ATSF mixed-train coach-baggage-caboose.
     

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