Class One announced Thrall 86s

[edwardsutorik]

Apr 20, 2024 0:17:23 GMT -8 grabirons said:

I'm sure the cars were repainted at least once in their lives, so let's not go Rapido on them, Edward.

I examined this series of cars (GTW 306075-306179) over on rrpicture archives. I found 12 cars in what I will call original paint, 3 cars in GTW repaint (missing the track and slogan under the GT), and some CN repaints.

Of the 12 cars, all had matching graphics, so they are either in original paint, or some were carefully repainted to match original paint. There is NO WAY there aren't at least SOME original paints in this batch of 12.


None of those cars match the sample photos above:

The model does not justify the reporting mark and road number to the left
On the model, the letters in the railroad name are spaced far too far apart
On the model, the track is way too close to the GT
On the model, the slogan lettering is too bold (thick)


I'm not sure your assertion that "...the cars were repainted at least once in their lives..." is correct. SOME were, I found. And those were as I noted above.

I found NO samples that had the observed discrepancies.


I urge you to do a deeper dive than I did, and find a match to the model in a prototype photo. That should actually be three, however, since Class One produced three matching models.


Just like Rapido, I will add.



Ed

[waverly5]

Apr 19, 2024 8:40:10 GMT -8 richardthomasatal said:

Like the company or other pictures and videos are inaccurate.  There's videos, reports and photos everywhere.  There have been for some weeks including here on this thread BEFORE your comment saying you need more information.  Did you miss all that? 

Thanks for making the effort to post the pics arandall70 and for your ad hoc GT version review, Ed.
To my original point, I prefer photos over videos and PDF renderings prior to purchasing.
Awaiting my EL, PRR, and PC. We shall see.

[Baikal]

Apr 19, 2024 19:35:14 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Thanks for the photos.

It looks like one of the crossover platforms is upside down, based on the end-shape.

And the eyelets for the crossover grab look WAY too big.


Not too bad, but the lettering is a DISASTER. It is REALLY REALLY poorly done.

Compare model pix with below:


www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1020964



Class One is using up their lives. This is not good.


Ed

I'm sure I can find several fonts on my computer that are closer to the prototype.

[grahamline]

Our ops group had a number of trailer flats with the sheared steel weights installed. Some had the weights installed curved-side up, some with it down. There were constant complaints about the "trailer train decouples all the time." No wonder.
A prior car foreman tried to correct heights by installing overset couplers on some and underset couplers on others. Looked like cooked spaghetti going down the road. Did you know that the Athearn trailers, with the road-tire axles pressed tightly together, won't settle over the outside of the rub rails? They tilt. Whole train was a comedy.
The crew disassembled the cars and tried to roll and hammer the weights flat but the damage was done. Most of the plastic shells had taken on a permanent curve, so they were stripped of usable parts and trashed. The steel weights wanted to curve, too.
The Athearn and Atlas replacements were assembled more carefully and now we can restage the string of cars by backing it around a 33" radius reverse loop.
Brass bar sill sounds like a good way to weight our OTTX equipment flats and bulkhead flats.

Apr 19, 2024 15:33:07 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

I figure the Athearn 85' flat uses the same sheet steel weight as it did half a century ago.

And I figure if the weight is bent, the car is bent.

Might want to straighten the weight and see.

On the one I worked on (half a century ago), I replaced the centersill with a square brass bar--1/4", I think. The car is pretty much straight and unbendable, now. And nicely weighted.


Ed

[DaYooper]

Apr 20, 2024 5:48:23 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

None of those cars match the sample photos above:

The model does not justify the reporting mark and road number to the left
On the model, the letters in the railroad name are spaced far too far apart
On the model, the track is way too close to the GT
On the model, the slogan lettering is too bold (thick)

Here are a few other obvious differences between the model and the photo:

The data block on the left end of the car starts on the edge of the first set of weld lines not the middle of the second panel
The logo block on the right is far to far to close to the end. Look at the rust streak from the end of the door track.
While maybe asking too much, the pull loop also appear to be in the wrong location for these cars

HOWEVER, look at this photo from the Fallen Flags website:



While not matching the model either, it is clearly much different than photo of 306126. Even the number is offset like the model.

And here is another paint scheme from Fallen Flags by Dennis Schmidt:



It appears there are a lot of different paint variations for this series of GTW cars so maybe Class One has an actual example for the layout they used on their models. I just wish more manufactures would post the actual photo they used to develop the artwork. Tangent does this and they've sold me many freight cars I might have otherwise passed on because there was a era appropriate photo of an actual car matching the scheme they used on the model.

Ryan

[kangaroose]

Ryan
There are only two mfgers that provide proto pics of the car they produce, the other is Moloco.
Nick

Apr 20, 2024 10:47:21 GMT -8 DaYooper said:

Apr 20, 2024 5:48:23 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

None of those cars match the sample photos above:

The model does not justify the reporting mark and road number to the left
On the model, the letters in the railroad name are spaced far too far apart
On the model, the track is way too close to the GT
On the model, the slogan lettering is too bold (thick)

Here are a few other obvious differences between the model and the photo:

The data block on the left end of the car starts on the edge of the first set of weld lines not the middle of the second panel
The logo block on the right is far to far to close to the end. Look at the rust streak from the end of the door track.
While maybe asking too much, the pull loop also appear to be in the wrong location for these cars

HOWEVER, look at this photo from the Fallen Flags website:



While not matching the model either, it is clearly much different than photo of 306126. Even the number is offset like the model.

And here is another paint scheme from Fallen Flags by Dennis Schmidt:



It appears there are a lot of different paint variations for this series of GTW cars so maybe Class One has an actual example for the layout they used on their models. I just wish more manufactures would post the actual photo they used to develop the artwork. Tangent does this and they've sold me many freight cars I might have otherwise passed on because there was a era appropriate photo of an actual car matching the scheme they used on the model.

Ryan

[edwardsutorik]

Here's a picture of the Class One version of GTW 306132:

classonemodelworks.com/cdn/shop/files/GTW-_-View_1245x700.png?v=1709758211

Here's a picture of the prototype:

www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=810881


As they used to say: "compare and contrast".


And, yes, there are some variations between cars. But none seem to have that funky lettering style for the road name, and none have that narrow gap between the herald and the track graphic.





Ed

[DaYooper]

Apr 20, 2024 12:31:48 GMT -8 kangaroose said:

Ryan
There are only two mfgers that provide proto pics of the car they produce, the other is Moloco.
Nick

Yup. And just like David, your willingness to provide photos has sold me many a model I might have otherwise passed up.

Ryan

[riogrande]

Apr 20, 2024 14:05:19 GMT -8 DaYooper said:

Apr 20, 2024 12:31:48 GMT -8 kangaroose said:

Ryan
There are only two mfgers that provide proto pics of the car they produce, the other is Moloco.
Nick

Yup. And just like David, your willingness to provide photos has sold me many a model I might have otherwise passed up.

Ryan

Indeed, but they haven't produced any Thrall 86' auto box cars.

[arandall70]

I just noticed that the ties in the "Good Track" logo are offset to the bottom until the track is directly above the second "o" in good.

I saw a comparison on Facebook of the Class I Chessie System/B&O Thrall 8-door car against Tangent's Greenville 8-door. Of course there were likely some differences but you would expect the lettering and colors to be similar. The Class I car has more of a pale yellow and a direct comparison shows how poor the artwork is. Most of the larger lettering is too bold and most all of the smaller lettering is not the correct font. Looks like they mailed it in.

As mentioned, it would be nice to have a photo or some info as to where the artwork was derived from. Even if they just had a picture of one car and used it for the other two numbers, saying "lettering based off of photo of ABCD 123456 from 1/1/XXXX" would help. I am sure if that was released early enough in the process modelers could produce photos of the cars or reasonable alternatives.

I don't expect to return or sell my three cars, but the more I look at them and review the photos the less impressive they are. I am glad ScaleTrains is doing the repainted GTW 127xxx cars that are much more prominent in the remaining modern day 86' boxcar fleet.

[five83]

It will be interesting to see how the new ARI 5200 covered hoppers turn out, especially with the metal under frame……

[edwardsutorik]

For the GTW and the BN cars, the failures in the graphics were presented for all to see.

I never really looked, because I didn't think I needed to. I assumed they took these things seriously.

I was wrong.


Ed

[schroed2]

ok...should I feel lucky now that my (german) dealer will not receive most of the cars from Class One that I pre-ordered ?

[hudsonyard]

Those graphics look like they are from an old con-cor car.

So is this 0-3 or 0-2 for clAss one?

[edwardsutorik]

I'm seeing 1-2.

The first car's (the funny looking but interesting well car) big fail, to me, is having the color of the pigmented pieces change under certain lighting. Sometimes mine match, sometimes they don't. But I don't see that "big fail" as terribly significant.

We're all pretty familiar with the next two.

I can see having a few bumps when you start up. I can also see the owners being aware of that, and being extra careful. These days, a company's reputation is pretty important. In my opinion.

We on this forum don't represent exactly the overall buying public. For example, Rapido has said that they don't care about our opinion, and apparently don't see the need to change as a result. They're still here, so maybe they're right.


Ed

[csxt8400]

I can empathize with a project like this if one doesnt have the best of photos to trace the artwork from. It's certainly not easy since most of this equipment is long gone. There are moments of "best guess" that crop up.

But the shortcomings are killers. I've said it before, but if someone is going to rely on fonts to do a railcar from the pre-y2k era, it's going to show. And not for the better. Once again, Tangent and Moloco understand the difference gained with intimate execution.

[edwardsutorik]

I quickly found 12 useful photos of the GTW graphics on rrpicturearchives. They could easily have checked their artwork against them. I did, and I'm not trying to sell a product.

People who are working on these kinds of graphics should be able to modify existing vector-based fonts. I did it for some decals for a GN gas-electric. And I ain't in the trade.

If you want to know if these cars lettered for YOUR favorite roads matches the prototype, just compare their graphic drawings on their website with prototype photos. That's what I did.


Ed

[lyonwonder]

I suspect the Scaletrains Thrall 86' is going to be better than the ClassOne offering in both quality and accuracy, which is why I'm keeping my pre-order with Scaletrains.

Tangent still has the best HO 86' boxcars and the Scaletrains Thrall 86' will likely equal it.

[ian]

When these were first announced, I tried to stay hopeful that the artwork was “preliminary” and we’d see changes and actual production pics.

The Conrail and Penn Central cars are a mess, along with most of the others. No responses to questions regarding the artwork on social media. It’s a shame- there are literally hundreds of photos of these cars online. Even in 1994, I would have passed on these.

[lvrr325]

Apr 19, 2024 15:26:18 GMT -8 riogrande said:

Apr 19, 2024 15:17:48 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

I was at a train show recently and a guy had quite a few athearn RTR 85' TOFC flats from 10-15 years ago for cheap which immediately caught my eye. every single one of them had a nasty warp to them.

It's a mixed bag with flat cars. I pulled out one of my RTR 85 Atlas F85B flat cars and fortunately it was pretty straight.

Some Walthers cars suffer from poorly cast parts.  I was at a show on the 7th and a guy had a 2-pack of Walthers cars.  One was fine, the other both ends were banana shaped.  Have yet to see that in an Atlas car, have heard some Athearn cars have that problem. 

A boxcar frame would show this in different ways

[drolsen]

Apr 20, 2024 17:17:15 GMT -8 arandall70 said:

I just noticed that the ties in the "Good Track" logo are offset to the bottom until the track is directly above the second "o" in good.

WOW, ugh. I can see that now in the product photo on their website. Is that how the production model looks??

A friend commented on another list that the artwork for the Chessie System paint scheme appears to have been combined from photos of a couple different prototype cars, and as a result, it doesn’t match any of them, in terms of placement of the lettering, as well as the font for much of the lettering. He said that one side of the car is missing the round EXCEEDS PLATE F marking next to the reporting marks (it was only applied to one side of the model). I think that’s how Class One has done a lot of their artwork, by mixing lettering details from different prototype photos.

I was most interested in the GTW scheme on the Thrall cars, as I’ve seen number of those in the area I’m modeling in Maryland, as well as when I lived near Detroit. I think Class One based their artwork off a book real prototype example, since it looks similar to the photo already shared above of GTW 306161. However, it looks like they picked a rare or even unique example and applied it to all the numbers they produced, rather than examining as many photos as possible and selecting the most common version of the lettering that would work for multiple car numbers. It’s a hard sell when the car number in your product photos doesn’t match the prototype photos of that number that are easily found online. As already mentioned here, ScaleTrains does it best when they post the prototype history that says their model matches this particular number series for this time period. That’s why I opted to preorder SXT’s former DTI cars in the GTW scheme.

As also mentioned, Tangent and Moloco do it best by providing the prototype photos they used to develop the artwork. And they, along with SXT, take it to the next level by offering variations in lettering placement, paint patches, and other details to match specific car numbers within a single run of a particular paint scheme.

Dave

[unittrain]

To do all that work into fine detail then just annihilate the finished product with absolutely horrendous lettering is completely stupid. I have 6 of these the B&O car shouldn't have bowling ball logo the chessie cat is slightly misplaced, the PC one I have the green looks off I got the EL which I'll have to find a picture. I got N&W and Pennsy the pennsy too and the DT&S.

[snootie3257]

I’m glad I passed on the no class model works Thrall 86ers and opted for Scale Trains instead. I was tempted but decided after the flatcar ordeal I’d wait and see on these.
Steve

[prr 4467]

The issues described above with flat cars and flat car weights are why I do not care for model flat cars, in general, and are why I had no--zero--flat cars at all on my current diesel era layout. There were a few double stack container cars because they have less issues with the bowing.  

However, I have seen bowing issues at one time or another with everybody's HO plastic and metal flat cars. Since the bowing bothered me visually, I just got rid of all flat cars that I ever tried. Simple as that...

[packer]

Apr 19, 2024 15:33:07 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Apr 20, 2024 10:29:50 GMT -8 grahamline said:

Our ops group had a number of trailer flats with the sheared steel weights installed. Some had the weights installed curved-side up, some with it down. There were constant complaints about the "trailer train decouples all the time." No wonder.
A prior car foreman tried to correct heights by installing overset couplers on some and underset couplers on others. Looked like cooked spaghetti going down the road. Did you know that the Athearn trailers, with the road-tire axles pressed tightly together, won't settle over the outside of the rub rails? They tilt. Whole train was a comedy.
The crew disassembled the cars and tried to roll and hammer the weights flat but the damage was done. Most of the plastic shells had taken on a permanent curve, so they were stripped of usable parts and trashed. The steel weights wanted to curve, too.
The Athearn and Atlas replacements were assembled more carefully and now we can restage the string of cars by backing it around a 33" radius reverse loop.
Brass bar sill sounds like a good way to weight our OTTX equipment flats and bulkhead flats.

Apr 19, 2024 15:33:07 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

I figure the Athearn 85' flat uses the same sheet steel weight as it did half a century ago.

And I figure if the weight is bent, the car is bent.

Might want to straighten the weight and see.

On the one I worked on (half a century ago), I replaced the centersill with a square brass bar--1/4", I think. The car is pretty much straight and unbendable, now. And nicely weighted.


Ed

I *think* the newer one has a diecast frame. But has a much better swing pocket. I managed to straigthen my BB weights and used the A-line weights. worked great.

Apr 21, 2024 13:12:53 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

I'm seeing 1-2.

The first car's (the funny looking but interesting well car) big fail, to me, is having the color of the pigmented pieces change under certain lighting. Sometimes mine match, sometimes they don't. But I don't see that "big fail" as terribly significant.

We're all pretty familiar with the next two.

I can see having a few bumps when you start up. I can also see the owners being aware of that, and being extra careful. These days, a company's reputation is pretty important. In my opinion.

We on this forum don't represent exactly the overall buying public. For example, Rapido has said that they don't care about our opinion, and apparently don't see the need to change as a result. They're still here, so maybe they're right.


Ed

What is the other model they did? I only recall the flat. I hope that GP40 they did is better

[riogrande]

Apr 22, 2024 8:20:50 GMT -8 packer said:

What is the other model they did? I only recall the flat. I hope that GP40 they did is better

Or will do. It's been what 16 months since ClassOne did their splashy announcement of the GP40 and not a peep since.

[gevohogger]

I thought it was Scale Trains that was doing the GP40? Or are they both doing a GP40? I realize Rapido is doing a GP38.

I hope they all look like they rolled off the same production line in real life, not from three different manufacturers. All the fine detailing and stuff need to match.

[ssw]

Apr 22, 2024 8:58:30 GMT -8 gevohogger said:

I thought it was Scale Trains that was doing the GP40? Or are they both doing a GP40? I realize Rapido is doing a GP38.

I hope they all look like they rolled off the same production line in real life, not from three different manufacturers. All the fine detailing and stuff need to match.

There are 3 GP40's in development - ScaleTrains, Rapido and ClassOne.

After having to spend 20 minutes bending my $65 not-so-flat car back in to shape, I'm taking a wait-and-see on any future ClassOne releases. 

[waverly5]

Received mine....unfortunately the PC and PRR fonts are incorrect as well.

[edwardsutorik]

Apr 22, 2024 8:20:50 GMT -8 packer said:

What is the other model they did? I only recall the flat. I hope that GP40 they did is better

the well car

well car + depressed center flat + these thrall boxes = 3


Ed