I would guess that ALL of the cars will be new retooled 100%. The old UP cars have two piece body shells with removable roofs. All the new cars in their latest named trains have one piece shells with the roofs molded into the side and ends. When they did the Cal Zephyr they retooled the Burlington dome cars in this way and did not use the old tooling from the first Budd car run. They will probably have the funky new snap on trucks too.:thumbs_down: At least that is what the rumbling from some corners of the industry are indicating.
To: Calzephyr, I did some research and came up with, they aren't 100% Union Pacific. If you look at the dome cars they are missing the gills across the roof tops. They are close enough to satisfy me. I don't know of anyone that puts out 100% accurate anything in N scale. We mostly get caricatures of the real deal. At least the toy like appearance has fallen off. Exception being the train sets designed for Christmas purchases.
sort of what I was getting at... Some of these cars may already be tooled from prior releases... so maybe only the dome cars are totally new from the ground-up. Russ mentions that there were completely retooled cars for the Calzephyr train... which I believe was 100% new tooling at that time. I don't know if any of the Super Chief, Morning Daylight, Broadway Limited, Empire Builder or El Cap cars are appropriate for the CoLA consist. Certainly none of the Calzephyr Budd cars appear to fit the CoLA consist. "Photos shown above are for representation only using the HO Scale cars recently released by Walthers. Actual Kato models may and likely will vary in some details. " We still don't know what the actual tooling is going to look like... so far we only have some vague photos... let's see if the missing 'gills?" are on the pre-production models. Rick... perhaps my comment that the CoLA has to be an 'exact replica' was being too persnickety (fussy). I agree that sometimes we have to 'look the other way' when accepting some models that are close-enough from 3' range. I really hope Kato does not get sloppy on these sets... I like to 'believe' I'm getting a pretty close replica... not a sort-of a possible replica.
This sounds like a safe choice which includes existing and new tooling, uses an existing major rail line which is no doubt popular, a train that could run years ago and today (excursions) and could be expanded upon with other variations. I could see conceivably a FEF3 shell for the GS4 platform if this issue is popular. I am interested because I find at this stage in my model railroad life, I am very interested in passenger varnish, headend cars and their locos. I currently do not have any E UP units, and now since they are coming out with an E9B powered unit, they automatically made both my wish list and "must have" lists. Hmmmmm, I wonder what color the trucks are going to be? Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Truck Color: I think UP started painting locomotive trucks "Aluminum" in 1953. Passenger cars were still gray until about 1959 before they started painting them aluminum. So for 1955, the locomotives should have aluminum trucks and the cars have gray trucks. Kato Empire Builder: This seems to be the exception to the rule as no new tooling was used. I was made up of the old smooth side UP cars from long ago. I think they got a lot of negative feed back from that and they did not sell well. I would guess they will not attempt that route again. Heck, they even made a new baggage car for the El Capitain when the one from the Super Chief would be perfectly acceptable. Therefore I place my bets on all new tooling.
The problem here is we don't have any prototype pictures of the actual set. Just a artist rendering. To hard to tell what we are getting until someone sneeks in and gets a shot or two of the actual train cars. Kato did put out a number of UP passenger cars a few years back. I was able to purchase a set off a friend of mine. From the research I did, I'd say they are pretty authentic. If they repeat this same series, touch up the domes and add the gills, I will be a happy camper. One thing I do appreciate about Kato. They do their darndest to get it right. To date no one else does it better. A proud owner of Kato equipment.
Here is the breakdown on the NCL for those of you interested. The NP passenger train where turned at the end of each run so the cars pretty much faced the same direction east or west bound. THe RPO/DORM was run with the RPO end of the car forward. The Dormitory part of the car was for the crews to sleep in when not on duty on the trip east or west. The some of the baggage car had tanks for water for the steam generators in the diesels. Dome car where run with the dome short end to the front of the train. Some cars with the NORTHERN PACIFIC where owned by the SP&S AND CB&Q they cared the Cb&Q or SP&S initals on the side ends of the cars but there painted in Lowey Colors Only the Dome cars, Travelers Rest cars, Diner, and observation cars carried the " Vista Dome North Coast Limited" Slogan with Monad. All others just carried the Monad not slogan. Okay for the break down of the cars. 400-405 Water Baggage car......85' 203-209 Baggage car...............70' 406-407 Baggage car...............70' converted to water baggage cars after a couple of the 85' cars where wrecked. 425-429 Mail/Dormitory cars......82' 325-334 Slumber coach............82' these where the stainless steel Silver cars never painted they where the LOCH name series cars 549-559 Vista Dome coach........82' Short end forward 500-517 Day/ Night coach.........82' 549-559 Vista Dome coach........82' Short end forward 588-599 Coach.......................82' 588-599 Coach.......................82' 494-499 Travelers Rest Lounge..82' 458-463 Diner.........................82' 367-372 8-6-4 Sleeper.............82' 304-314 4-4-4 Vista Dome Sleeper...82' Short end forward 350-363 8-6-3-1 Sleeper..........82' 304-314 4-4-4 Vista Dome Sleeper...82' Short end forward 390-394 4-1 Sleeper/Buffet Lounge OBSERVATION CAR.... 82' I am NOT a passenger train expert by any means neither am I an expert on what correct cars Kato has produced that would be stand ins for these or not, but I am sure someone on this list is. Best regrards Ryan
The original Kato Smoothside series were all UP prototype except for the Observation which was Pullman / SP. The "Gills" may not have been original equipment for all the Dome Coaches; there were several batches of the cars and two different builders built them to the same basic plan. I'll leave it to others to reseach the details, but I know Kato spent some time going to the UP to research this release. Charlie Vlk
I was going to say something to this effect but you beat me to it while I was at work. As well as new trains Kato have also been reissuing a lot of their Japanese prototypes with new tooling, the C62 4-6-4 and several of their diesel and electric locomotives with the D51 mikado next, the C62 is in effect a completely new model so Kato is not afraid of using new tooling even for existing models when they decide they can do it better. I've always said it's futile guessing what train Kato will do next based on what cars they already have tooling for. Using the same theory of Kato's sticking to prototype accuracy I don't think we'll see a Kato FEF3 with the train in it's present guise if it's represents a time frame when it wasn't steam hauled.
Thanks for the info Ryan. A couple of those Loch series sleepers were released by Kato several years ago as part of a 'run-though' consist of 4 sleepers; IIRC, Wabash & MP roadnames were the other two in the set. Seems like the length of the cars are slightly smaller... 82' versus 85'... only a 1/4" difference in N scale. Perhaps I just assumed most lightweight passenger equipment was 85'... not like I was going to measure them and count the rivits . I'm in a funk with the NCL consist because there are a few manufacturers which have made some cars (Walthers, Rapido & CCS/Intermountain). Now I'm not sure if Kato will ever make the set and save me (and many others) the time & money to put a consist together. I really wish one of those companies that began making the individual cars would have focused on complete consists instead. Even if they didn't get the consists out all at once, they could have set-up a reasonable time frame to get the whole consist to the modelers. Now we are still less than halfway to a consist and still begging Kato to do the same model... sheesh!!!
Now if this is true, then tell why they didn't do the Empire Builder prototypical like they did the El Capitan and the Cal Zephyr????????:thumbs_down:
Like I said above, they probably won't try a stunt like that again. I guess they thought they could get away with it but it seems about everyone saw right through it and sales were poor.
On the flip side, I was encouraged that despite the fact that Kato has released muliple iterations of the incorrect UP cars, they haven't hesitated to jump back into those same waters with a prototypical offering. That should be encouraging for everyone hoping for a correct EB (myself included). I would probably skip this UP release if it wasn't for the fact that it provides an opportunity to prototypically run an ABBA set of E units. I like E units. At first I was hoping that this might lead to eventual release of some C&NW E units, but upon further research it looks like the domes weren't added until 1955, which was the same year that the Eastern route shifted to the Milwaukee Road. Oh well. On a more general note, I'm very encouraged to see that despite the economy, etc. Kato is still willing to invest in ground up, new releases of additional prototypical passenger consists. As a passenger fan, it has completely changed my buying patterns. :tb-biggrin: My wish list for the next one..... North Coast Limited 20th Century Limited with Dreyfuss Hudson (or any Hudson for that matter) Empire Builder City of New Orleans
As has been said Kato has changed their way of thinking since then but to be fair I don't think Kato ever said it was the Empire Builder. Kato as far as I know just refer to 'Great Northern Smoothside Passenger Cars', the only mention of the Empire Builder was that the cars were painted in the Empire Builder paint scheme. Ads at the time gave possible consists for the Empire Builder but I don't think it was ever labeled as such. I don't think Kato ever seriously intended the cars to be an accurate model of the Empire Builder, it was us modelers who gave them that title. True, they were not accurate for GN cars but neither are a lot of Walthers, Concor or Rapido Trains passenger cars for the paint schemes they come in.
Looking at the production photos on the Kato site it appears they are building all the new cars using the old method of tooling used on the original UP cars with separate roofs and the older screw in trucks. No foot stirrups on the ends. They use the old tooling for the coaches and dome coach only while the rest of the cars are new. This is a departure from their other train sets of late.
Because they did not deliver or advertise an Empire Builder. It was intended to be a stop-gap filler release till the tooling was ready to announce the next accurate train. Very similar to the two 4-packs of UP cars that came 2 years later with no names or numbers. All advertising using those terms were presented in quotes indicating the irony in that the train was not accurate but rather an approximation. We even posted the prototype consist info pointing out what the consist actually was at different times. None matched what Kato was offering. Even with that info at modelers' disposal these sold out quickly and sold in great numbers. Our sales were about half of the sales we had for the CZ. NOt bad for an unprototypical set whose tooling was sitting on the shelf. When we recently received a set from the earlier release on consignment half of it sold in less than 48 hours witout even being posted on our website. Most modelers don't care. In fact a common saying in the model railroading industry is that you could paint a brick in ATSF warbonnet or UP yellow and it would sell. We once saw a friend who transported his N-Track modules in a plywood crate 30" x 4'4" x 4'4" painted up in ATSF Warbonnet turn down an offer of $500 from an audience member at a show. They guy just wanted the ATSF Indianhead logo on the box and didn't even have (or want) any trains.
How is it, we sit here second guessing Kato's thoughts and purpose? Makes for a good discussion...I'll give you that. Or is it perhaps that we are trying to send a message to Kato? When I do research on passenger cars, you'd be surprised how many different types, I find operating on various passenger trains. Once the mergers got rolling there was a mix and match, repaints and all kinds of passenger cars running together. Never mind the original mix came from 5 or 6 different train car manufacturers. With regards to the UP, City Of Lost Angels, incidentally... made a stop at the City of Lost Wages. Kato has provided us with pictures and a written description. Old news, we now have pictures of the cars in consist. If you read through the car descriptions...you will find a mix of smooth side and corrugated cars. As was the real 1X1 foot scale. One thing is for sure...at this point it's to late to ask Kato to change or correct something. About this discussion...just look at all the fun we had. Grin!
Rumors persist that Kato will do the Milwaukee Road Olympian Hiawatha next potentially with Little Joe power - we'll see. Meanwhile this COLA set will allow me to build a UP Heritage Fleet set. I too would be interested in that Turbine tender! I also hope Kato keeps working through the name-train list and does the North Coast Limited. We'll see what the next few years brings. -jamie
