Hi Michael; Well, the F3s cover four "big roads", two western and two eastern. I think it's great they try to cover a few smaller roads (and both CNJ and SBD were class 1 and pretty well known in their home areas). Also, both are "new" schemes to S, so I'm actually pleased to see them in the first run. I may buy dummy's to put the shells over the SHS drives of the engines I bought to strip and repaint.
The PS covered hoppers were SHS first freight car. We can hope that they might do some upgrading, but MTH still is testing the market so they may not want to invest too much yet. I do agree that wire hand grabs would be nice. Then again, I don't really need more of these cars, nor any ore cars. The boxcars are SHS USRA rebuilt cars, so to be fully correct they could only be lettered for ACL or Frisco, all others had different heights and other features. As it is, they have been lettered for AAR or PS-1 schemes, all larger cars. The SHS rebuilt is also arguably the least satisfactory of their freight cars for a number of reasons. Beyond that, it is hard to say how accurate the catalog renditions are. I prefer to remain cautiously optimistic. Pieter Roos Sent from my iPhone On Apr 18, 2013, at 6:35 PM, "Michael" <[email protected]> wrote: > Here is my perspective on the MTH catalog. Being a scale modeler I have a > lot to say about this. First lets take a look at the F3's. Could they have > gone with a few more obscure paint schemes. Seaboard and Central of New > jersey! Seriously! I understand the whole east coast thing, but come on! > Second I'm going to have to look into this a bit more, but the Santa Fe > scheme looks all wrong. I didn't think the warbonet went that far back onto > the carbody. Also where the hell is the undecorated offering for these! Who > offers dummy units now a days? I find this very weird. For the most part > they look ok as models, but I was really expecting a lot more from them. > > I like the 2 bay PS-2 cars. Nice to see basically 8 car numbers available. > However, these don't look to be that much "improved" over what SHS did. I'm > not even sure if they are painted. Looks like just grey plastic to me. I > will be purchasing some Milwaukee Road and DT&I cars from these, but I hope > they have more coming in the future. > > The ore cars, oh my god! First of all, anyone who is into ore hauling > railroads at all should know this and be disgusted. These are "Minnesota" > cars! Not "Michigan" cars! The Milwaukee Road, CNW, and SOO didn't have ANY > of this style car. Not sure about the CP and CN, but this to me is a lack of > research and the whole "screw it, they'll buy anything, they're all idiots" > mentality when it comes to a manufacturing perspective. > > As for both boxcar offerings, they look to be toys. To me I don't see the > appeal of these cars at all. Now I don't model that era, so maybe that's it, > but to me these look to be nothing but glorified, out of proportion models. > I'm sure that I might be wrong, but they just don't look right to me. Too > squatty or something. > > I think that I will be limiting my MTH purchases, after seeing all of this. > I know I won't be purchasing any trucks from them that's for sure. I'll > stick with my Smoky Mountain Model Works ones! I really am disappointed that > the SW1200 didn't come out with these. Now there's a model I could use a > couple of! > > Just my two cents > Michael Ostertag > Green Bay, WI > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > >
