First off, I have a set, it is great. I expect to run the wheels off of it. However, in another thread it is mentioned as being 100% accurate. It is not. First; they used the same undercarriage for the 10-6 that they had previously released. Unfortunately, the location of battery boxes, water fill caps etc were different for these first built sleepers compared to the later built sleepers that Kato previously modeled. The car body is done correctly, but if you turn it over, the water tank fill caps do not line up with the pipes and virtually none of the other machinery is located in the correct place. When nearly everything else is new, I do not understand why they did not make a correct undercarriage. It is especially galling that, as a result, the Concor 10-6 undercarriage is actually more accurate. Second; The set is touted as being how the train looked when it first appeared in 1949. There were six 16 section sleepers built for the train. Apparently this was not enough, because one more was built in 1952. And just like the 10-6 sleepers, the later car had the machinery and water tank arranged differently compared to the original six. Kato has modeled the 1952 car perfectly (but put a 1949 name on it), not the 1949 car. And again they used the original 10-6 sleeper underframe which isn't right for either the '49 car or the '52 car. Third; the vents on the diner are not correct. I have found a photo of a CZ diner taken about 20 years later, that almost matches Kato's but it is not how the cars looked in 1949. Fourth; the dome, dorm, lounge car model has a vent in the blank wall of the buffet. This was not an as-built feature, but was something added at some later date. Fifth; the bar-buffet under the dome in the dome obs. had a glass wall adjacent to the hallway, except that from the last chair adjacent to the doorway, to the doorway (about 3') was a normal full height wall. The Kato model does not have this short section of full height wall. This is easier to fix than the Concor version which has a full height wall the entire lenth of the room. It was no fun cutting this out of mine. My retorical question is; if I could find these things why couldn't Kato? I would think an international conglomerate would have more access to info than I would. Using the wrong undercarriage is somewhat understandable (how many people would notice), except that there are other areas of the train where they could have used their existing tooling but instead went that extra mile to do it right (for example they changed the way of lighting the cars and thus made an all new interior for the dome coaches when the existing interior would have still worked.). It's just not consistent.
Larry - I think "100% accurate" is somewhat subjective. Obviously, no model will ever be an exact scale replication of the original. I am just absolutely delighted that Kato did such a fine job on these.
Lima did some Australian passenger cars in HO and there were several noticable flaws including a standard underframe cast for 3 different cars. I don't thing there are many mainstream manufacturers who aim for the serious market so passing of a few small flaws here and there to most would not seem a big deal
Larry, for those who will receive this set as a Christmas present, you may just have become "The Grinch who stole Christmas"! While much of what you say may be correct, a half century later it is often impossible to determine exactly when modifications were made to any particular piece of railroad equipment, so Kato's sources may have differing information than your sources. Or were you in charge of maintaining the train for the Western Pacific, Rio Grande or Burlington?
Gentlemen- This is what gives this hobby appeal to people on all ends of the spectrum. Personally, I don't give a fat rat's @#$ if the vents on the dining car are not correct. I just want something that will stay on the tracks. I can, though, very much appreciate the desire of someone for such detail. Mr. LLC- Certainly, an international conglomerate. You, even in Albuquerque, must have heard of Kato, the Green Hornet's little pal ( I think) who is currently living in British Columbia.
While I thank Larry for his insight, certainly there must have been equipment modifications. I still absolutely appreciate the high level of detail Kato built into these models. And while we're at it, new tooling for eight new car styles!
That's IT... I've had all I can take with all of these inaccuracies... all of my CZ sets are going into the trash bin today. Just kidding... the inaccuracies are okay with me... but I'd rather think that they got it right as they advertised.
