Class One announced Thrall 86s

[fr8kar]

Thanks for setting the record straight, David.

[champagnetrail]

Aug 28, 2023 3:28:43 GMT -8 drolsen said:

Aug 27, 2023 19:17:31 GMT -8 champagnetrail said:

I'm glad to see Class One doing a highly detailed version of a Thrall "type 4" car. I had wished that Scale Trains had chosen this version for their "rivet counter" model, but maybe some day Scale Trains will do another version of their "type 1" car without the running board and with the lowered brake appliances.

ScaleTrains has apparently tooled, or at least designed, all the possible body variations of these Thrall cars, so I’m guessing we’ll see that converted low brake gear version eventually. Of course, the obvious question is how long it will be between subsequent runs of these cars. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another run close on the heels of this one, given that the first release cars represent prototypes with a very brief lifespan in their as-delivered configuration.

Class One has chosen the "Good Track Road" lettering for the GTW cars. Does anyone know when that first appeared? That might post-date them beyond the EL era. The Class One artwork has no COTS stencil and no ACI tag and a return address to the PC at Detroit. The cars that appear in the EL wheel reports appear to be assigned to either Chicago Stamping or Buffalo Stamping.

The GTW scheme represents cars from GTW series 306075-306179 built 11-68 to 12-68 by Thrall Car, Job 438G. They were delivered with silver (aluminum?) doors and the plain GT logo (no “Good Track Road” lettering). Looking through photos on Fallen Flags, it appears that the Good Track Road slogan appears in the mid-1970s. I found a 60’ boxcar wearing the slogan in 1975, but two others cars still without it in 1976 and 1977.

Unfortunately, the current GTW artwork is a bit of a mess. The odd offset car number, shifted to the right under the GTW reporting marks, seems to be a one-off or very rare lettering variation. All cars (including the car number on their sample) had the numbers left justified / even with the reporting marks. Another modeler found only one example of a car on Fallen Flags with the offset numbers. The biggest issue is that the Good Track Road track and slogan are way too close to the bottom of the large GT logo. Looks very strange, and I’m not sure how that happened. There are other problems too with the size and placement of a lot do the lettering, plus the large yellow label to the left of the doors, which doesn’t appear on any of the car numbers I’ve looked at from that series. It appears that they may have picked a unique car to base their artwork off of. I hope they’re able to clean it up, as I’m a big fan of the GTW scheme on 86’ boxcars and can definitely use them for my era and locale. I’ll be holding out for ScaleTrains to offer this scheme in the meantime.

Dave

Dave...

Thanks for the additional info on the GTW cars.  Do you have car assignments for that group?

I can't help but wonder if Class One has the correct assignments for the cars they are showing in the artwork, but they deserve the benefit of the doubt.  By 1975, though, I'm fairly certain ATSF 36537 was assigned to the D&H at Green Island NY and not the PC at Detroit.  Assignments change, I get that, but I prefer lettering accuracy when paying a premium price.

As for the Scale Trains, if they tool up a "type 1" car with the lowered brake appliances and cut-down ladders, I'd bite.  But I don't want to buy one of the "as-delivered" cars and then muck it up trying to make the changes myself.

One more comment...one wishes that Class One had chosen the P-S model instead, so we could get a more detailed version than the Walthers model.  With more road names.  To this day, Walthers still hasn't released that model in half the schemes they could have.

-pat

[snootie3257]

one wishes that Class One had chosen the P-S model instead, so we could get a more detailed version than the Walthers model.  With more road names.  To this day, Walthers still hasn't released that model in half the schemes they could have.

-pat





I couldn’t agree more with this statement!
Steve

[Mr. Trainiac]

Class One posted a video showing the Thrall 86' boxcars:


The website says Delivery 2023/2024, but the 'shipping' icon hasn't been filled in yet, just 'in production'. Judging by other model shipment timeframes, maybe we see these in 2 or 3 months? If they are posting teaser videos of finished models, they have to be close to shipping the production models.

Overall, I think they will mix in well with the Tangent cars. The paint and printing look good. The draft gear even has stencils on the faceplate. I also like how they used brass for the corner steps, Steven made sure to point that out in the video. They mention pool stencils in the video, saying how they reproduced the pool each car was assigned to. I wish they listed the pool on the website, so you knew what service they were assigned to before you ordered the car. Tangent made the specialized BRO pool cars, and that was clearly explained in the name of the model. If they are making the effort to highlight it in the video, shouldn't the specific pools be listed in the product features?

The one detail that caught my eye I didn't like was the crossover platform. They tried to make the stamped edges like the prototype and give the platform more relief, but it just ends up looking rounded and warped. Like Scaletrains, they are also painting the wheel faces, although I like the color Scaletrains used on the AC4400 more than the Class One color.

Overall these look like pretty good models. Competition with Scaletrains for Thrall boxcars is less than ideal, but it would be cool to see a side-by-side comparision when both of these models are released.

[cpr4200]

GTW's "The Good Track Road" slogan was a dig at Penn Central's condition and so predated Conrail. By how much I'm not sure.

[markfj]

Mr. Trainiac wrote; “I also like how they used brass for the corner steps, Steven made sure to point that out in the video.”

It would be nice if some day soon they offer those steps for sale separately. We could always use another supplier for quality steps and stirrups. 

Thanks, Mark

[Mr. Trainiac]

Feb 24, 2024 4:27:41 GMT -8 markfj said:

Mr. Trainiac wrote; “I also like how they used brass for the corner steps, Steven made sure to point that out in the video.”

It would be nice if some day soon they offer those steps for sale separately. We could always use another supplier for quality steps and stirrups. 

Thanks, Mark

I think it's worth noting that these are side-mount stirrups. A lot of the brass strirrups like those from A-line are bottom mount, where you drill into the underside of the side sill. We don't have a lot of good brass side-mount stirrups. Most of them are plastic so they mold the rivet detail into them.

It looks like Class One was able to add those details to a metal stirrup; they don't look molded into the carbody. Maybe they are cast? However they did it, this is a pretty cool innovation, and something that was usually limited to brass imports. Precision Scale has offered similar cast brass stirrups in the past, but they are pretty expensive if you can find them on eBay.

[lvrr325]

FWIW, Scaletrains announced the same auto rack not long after Atlas. Atlas made some deal to swap spots in production to get theirs out roughly 7 months after announced instead of the typical 18, allowing the first run of them to arrive at least a month before Scaletrains. Unfortunately it was split, with part of one roadname and all of another coming later, resulting in a sales dud at least online. But otherwise the ploy worked and all of the ones that arrived first sold through.

With all the stuff out there that begs to be modeled I don't know how these companies can all pick the same cars to do. Locomotives I can kind of see, you want to make the ones people want most, but there's dozens of different freight cars to pick from that no one has made in HO yet - or it's been done on an AHM level, like the Flexi-Flo, so a $50-ish high detailed RTR model makes sense for guys to buy versus the time and work involved to bring even a $5 AHM car up to a modern standard. (see the post on the clamshell coil car)

[gevohogger]

Feb 23, 2024 20:30:17 GMT -8 cpr4200 said:

GTW's "The Good Track Road" slogan was a dig at Penn Central's condition and so predated Conrail. By how much I'm not sure.

Two or three years if I remember right.  If anyone can track down the old issue of Trains Magazine that shows a photo, we can narrow it down further.

[cemr5396]

did they ever revise the artwork on these cars? I remember the original stuff being pretty bad.

Likewise, the artwork they have shown for the recently announced ARI 5200 hoppers is also terrible. This may be a running theme with this company.

[Colin 't Hart]

Feb 27, 2024 5:04:43 GMT -8 gevohogger said:

Feb 23, 2024 20:30:17 GMT -8 cpr4200 said:

GTW's "The Good Track Road" slogan was a dig at Penn Central's condition and so predated Conrail. By how much I'm not sure.

Two or three years if I remember right.  If anyone can track down the old issue of Trains Magazine that shows a photo, we can narrow it down further.

Which issue?

[gevohogger]

Feb 28, 2024 0:38:07 GMT -8 Colin 't Hart said:

Feb 27, 2024 5:04:43 GMT -8 gevohogger said:

Two or three years if I remember right.  If anyone can track down the old issue of Trains Magazine that shows a photo, we can narrow it down further.

Which issue?

I'm hoping someone here with a better memory than me (or a bigger magazine collection) will chime in. 

[packer]

Seems like they're out (or he got a pre-release). The box is sorta odd.

[riogrande]

I got my shipping notice for the 3 I ordered, or rather 2 shipping notices. I'm requesting they combine them into a single shipment and then will pay up.

I ordered the N&W hamburger, Rock Island (sold out) and the ATSF

[unittrain]

I have 7 on preorder got the email to pay can't pay as I'm getting a message that one of the cars is not in stock, try to log into my account it won't let me log in my password is saved so it has to be correct, hence try to do a password reset no email is sent try again no dice. Look at the car in question on website not sold out! It's a little crazy will have to call today. I pre-ordered early so will see.

[locochris]

The website acted like I didn't have an account, even though I did. So I had to create a new account with the same email, and the new account has no order history.

[ChessieFan1978]

Apr 11, 2024 5:19:58 GMT -8 locochris said:

The website acted like I didn't have an account, even though I did. So I had to create a new account with the same email, and the new account has no order history.

Same Here, and they won't answer emails or Facebook.

[riogrande]

I was trying to find an order history to recall which I ordered. I emailed ClassOne and here is what they responded with: "No worries! We still have your preorder. We just moved to a new website provider so orders from the old system are not visible, unfortunately.

We'll let you know as soon as they come in!"


It seems if they want us to pay them, they need to fix these issues. I'm waiting on a response to my email to them, the same one I got the above reponse from.

[simulatortrain]

Hope to see some pictures before they're all gone. I've been waiting to see how they look, hard to get a great idea of that from videos.

[riogrande]

Ok, I called their phone number and left a message. I got a call back a bit later and the guy on the phone pulled up my orders and combined them and sent me an invoice. I'm waiting to pay in two days for a new billing cycle on the plastic.

[prr 4467]

I have a pre-order with a larger internet dealer for 2 NW hamburger cars, and I have not received any pickup notice yet.

[edwardsutorik]

Apr 11, 2024 9:35:53 GMT -8 riogrande said:

I'm waiting to pay in two days for a new billing cycle on the plastic.

My roll-over date was today, so I got right on it: one BN plastics toter!

"One word: plastics"



Ed

[blhs569]

Wow... this is nice timing. I decided to go for a NW hamburger car last Sunday directly from ClassOne and paid up (was still considered a "pre-order"). Got my notice today that the order has been shipped.

[waverly5]

Waiting for some real time eyes-on feedback before I take the plunge.......
Hopefully have some guinea pigs chirping up soon.

[unittrain]

From the look of it there won't be many left if you wait unfortunately. I'll have mine it says sunday but probably will be monday.

[riogrande]

Three of the 86' footers are sold out so far (Rock Island 4 door, and DTI Short 8 door and Santa Fe 8 door. The rest are low stock except for 3.

[kangaroose]

Is it common for them not to have final model photos?

[unittrain]

Anybody else having issues with there package from Classone my tracking said attempted delivery failed and instructions left, no instructions left then it says it went from my home post office to the next town over and is available for pickup I go there they say they sent it back to my home post office pick it up there, I go there no dice!! What the heck no other shipments from anyone else have ever had these issues. Basically UPS brings the package from the destination then hands it of to USPS. Crazy.

[riogrande]

I just got my shipping notice today, but don't expect them till mid-week or so.

[five83]

Received my 2 cars on Sunday. They were shipped using UPS but arrived at my house via USPS. First time buying a Class One model and overall pleased with them. Will add much needed variety to my auto parts fleet. My only minor complaint really is that their packing isn't all that great. Models were on the bottom of the box and crumpled brown paper on top. If it was me, I would prefer packing peanuts and a layer of them on the bottom as well as on the top. Thankfully they arrived undamaged.