Walthers

[locochris]

Anyone notice that Walthers didn't announce anything for February?  I wonder what's going on there.  Maybe they are moving to quarterly announcements.

[James Ashley]

A direct quote from a reply on their Facebook page:

"We will not be making any new product announcements in February 2024, and as such the New Product Express will not be published this month. Nothing to be alarmed about, this does not indicate anything negative, this is simply a situation where we do not have products to announce at this time. We will be back in March with more product announcements!"

[grabirons]

They have a lot of mainline freight car product in stock. Most of it discounted, some by a lot, some by half. They likely want to thin existing stock out some. People likely are be buying less with higher prices. Can they justify a car for a certain cost with not a lot of parts compared to other brand(s) with maybe a 12 to 18$ difference and get something with durable metal separate parts, better detailing ect. Or maybe stuff is just not selling as much as they'd like it to.

[trainguy99]

Since they said they simply don't have anything they want to announce this month, maybe that's what they mean.

Not everything has multiple meanings. Like when I say I don't like kale, all it means is I don't want any kale.

[prr 4467]

Normally in the recent past, I have steered away from Walthers Trainman or Mainline products, as my personal preferences lie more with ScaleTrains Rivet Counter, Athearn Genesis, etc. models. Additionally, I generally prefer big road power whether it is diesel or steam. Any kind of small switcher is just not on my radar at all, ever.

I just did purchase a Walthers Mainline series ICG SW-7 from Lombard Hobbies, with the sound and dcc for only $140 (because let's face it any locos in orange and white are relatively scarce, excepting the current foobie Genesis SD-70, which I already have).

I was shocked in a good way. The model I received is virtually a perfect 10 in everything. The paint, fit, finish, handrails (are straight), everything is as perfect as I could ever expect. The only thing missing is pilot air hoses, which I could apply if desired. The model has separate grabs nicely installed and painted. All the colors match even between plastic (I presume dyed plastic) handrails and the body. The only possible criticism is the black ICG lettering does have a few small white voids showing where the lettering passes over the louvers on the side of the model. Overall it's a great paint job smoothly and evenly applied with exceptionally clean mask lines.

With the sound and dcc on it starts moving on only 0.03 amps and pulls nearly 12 cars on mostly level track at only 0.11 to 0.13 amps. The mechanism is whisper quiet. The model runs better than my recently acquired Atlas U30C's which all make a lot of gear noise by comparison, with various weird electronic noises on startup, and some draw as much as 0.30 amps without even adding a train yet.

I know the Walthers Proto helical-geared mechanism is a good mechanism; I just haven't bought too many of them lately. This model is so good I immediately tried to get other road numbers, but all the sound and dcc ones appear to be gone everywhere. I instead ordered two plain dc versions at $105 each, again from Lombard.

Walthers' Mainline series engines, at least some of them, compare very favorably with anything from Atlas and many others. If they keep producing product like this, I don't mind if they slow down on new announcements, because the quality is better than most other manufacturers I could name.

[marknycfan]

Let the hand wringing begin.

[hudsonyard]

Occasional foobie and really clunky wheelsets aside, i'd make the argument that mainline stuff has some of the most consistent quality across the board of any manufacturer.

[edwardsutorik]

I agree about the Walthers SW7/NW2. Whenever they make one I can use, I pick it up. They are very nice, at a very nice price.

Only thing is they don't have detailing for later production versions. As I think I've mentioned several times, my GN one is pretty perfect for "as built" (meaning, among other things, it's got the "railroad roman" lettering instead of the "empire builder"). My UP one is lacking all the changes that happened by the time it got its particular paint job. Still like it, though.

I look forward to their next batch.



Ed

[crblue]

Feb 22, 2024 15:48:59 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

Occasional foobie and really clunky wheelsets aside, i'd make the argument that mainline stuff has some of the most consistent quality across the board of any manufacturer.

Let me tell you about Rapido wheels...

Between their wheels being different sizes, and underbody detail rubbing against the wheels, 5 of my last 6 Rapido freight cars don't roll.

In comparison, Walthers wheels are absolutely perfect.

[loco8107]

Feb 22, 2024 5:30:32 GMT -8 James Ashley said:

A direct quote from a reply on their Facebook page:

"We will not be making any new product announcements in February 2024, and as such the New Product Express will not be published this month. Nothing to be alarmed about, this does not indicate anything negative, this is simply a situation where we do not have products to announce at this time. We will be back in March with more product announcements!"

It would be nice if they did another run of GP15-1’s with schemes they haven’t done before- and there’s plenty of that left.

[snootie3257]

Feb 22, 2024 19:30:00 GMT -8 loco8107 said:

Feb 22, 2024 5:30:32 GMT -8 James Ashley said:

A direct quote from a reply on their Facebook page:

"We will not be making any new product announcements in February 2024, and as such the New Product Express will not be published this month. Nothing to be alarmed about, this does not indicate anything negative, this is simply a situation where we do not have products to announce at this time. We will be back in March with more product announcements!"

It would be nice if they did another run of GP15-1’s with schemes they haven’t done before- and there’s plenty of that left.

We’re talking Walthers here. They won’t announce a new run of GP15-1s until Athearn announces a new run.
Steve

[locochris]

Feb 22, 2024 15:48:59 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

Occasional foobie and really clunky wheelsets aside, i'd make the argument that mainline stuff has some of the most consistent quality across the board of any manufacturer.

I would agree that the build quality of Walthers cars is usually very good. The Mainline series are a good price, but because of that they lack hoses, cut levers, and often grab irons. "Occasional" foobie seems like an understatement, at least in their Mainline series. I'm guessing Walthers only cares about being historically correct for their Proto series.

[loco8107]

Feb 23, 2024 5:21:16 GMT -8 snootie3257 said:

Feb 22, 2024 19:30:00 GMT -8 loco8107 said:

It would be nice if they did another run of GP15-1’s with schemes they haven’t done before- and there’s plenty of that left.

We’re talking Walthers here. They won’t announce a new run of GP15-1s until Athearn announces a new run.
Steve

Yeah really. God forbid they don’t compete with a much more detailed and expensive model. There’s still plenty of folks that don’t need or can afford a Genesis model. But like you said- Walthers thinking.

[cemr5396]

Walthers is one of the pettiest companies out there, from what I have seen.

If someone out there has a model that is the same or similar to something Walthers has you can bet that every time a new run is announced, Walthers will trip over themselves to announce the same thing as quickly as possible, even if it's a foobie, even if they could not have been bothered to run the model for years before that. I have no idea why, instead of being strategic about it and releasing things that haven't been made for years and have pent up demand, Walthers insists on always trying to fight every other company with every release.

The fact that Aurora and Prairie Shadows have gotten away with announcing and releasing multiple runs of modern 50' high cube boxcars without triggering a response from Walthers with their own car actually surprises me. Maybe they forgot that model exists.

[cemr5396]

Feb 23, 2024 5:31:29 GMT -8 locochris said:

Feb 22, 2024 15:48:59 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

Occasional foobie and really clunky wheelsets aside, i'd make the argument that mainline stuff has some of the most consistent quality across the board of any manufacturer.

I would agree that the build quality of Walthers cars is usually very good. The Mainline series are a good price, but because of that they lack hoses, cut levers, and often grab irons. "Occasional" foobie seems like an understatement, at least in their Mainline series. I'm guessing Walthers only cares about being historically correct for their Proto series.

Walthers has NO issue making Proto foobies, seen it over and over again.

[prr 4467]

Well, too often we the hobbyists tend to forget that this is a business, and they are in business to make money. The money they make from those foobies helps to pay for more of the high-end expensively detailed models that some of us want.

So far as foobies are concerned, now Athearn Genesis is making foobies, too. The only difference is they call them "Legendary Liveries" series Genesis models.

Believe me, I am all about all the details all the time, yet many manufacturers have for several years had issues with quality control of those high-end models. I'll gladly take a Mainline series model any time when the execution is as good as the (now 3) Walthers ICG SW-7's that I have.

I know many Mainline diesels do not have that much detail on them, but the SW-7's only lack cut levers and air hoses, which doesn't bother me in either case.  The bones are their for better modelers than me to make a higher end model, and so far as I have been able to determine, they are pretty correct for ICG in most details.  Since I can remember not that many years ago when only Proto 2000 U30B's or GP38-2's were the only quality ICG locos generally available, I'm happy.

I'm getting older now and realizing that sometimes less really is more.

[sdevo]

Feb 23, 2024 8:26:09 GMT -8 cemr5396 said:

Walthers is one of the pettiest companies out there, from what I have seen.

If someone out there has a model that is the same or similar to something Walthers has you can bet that every time a new run is announced, Walthers will trip over themselves to announce the same thing as quickly as possible, even if it's a foobie, even if they could not have been bothered to run the model for years before that. I have no idea why, instead of being strategic about it and releasing things that haven't been made for years and have pent up demand, Walthers insists on always trying to fight every other company with every release.

The fact that Aurora and Prairie Shadows have gotten away with announcing and releasing multiple runs of modern 50' high cube boxcars without triggering a response from Walthers with their own car actually surprises me. Maybe they forgot that model exists.

They might be a bit petty but they're doing something right.  Obviously these Mainline cars are selling.  I did get a kick out of when Otter Valley teased their NSC Articulated 3-Unit Well Car.  Only for Walthers to announce a Mainline set days later.  And the Walthers cars are due out this Spring.  The Otter Valley Set, haven't heard of anything since, which is too bad cause I like the detail the OVR cars have.

And the more 50' Cars the better,  More variations and more paint schemes.  I have some Prairie Shadows 50' on Pre-order and recently saw them in person has me pumped.

[prr 4467]

Any company still around after 75 years is doing some things right, when 2 out of 3 upstart companies are going to fail (numbers from others, not my own).

[cemr5396]

Walthers could get by on their structure kits alone, rolling stock is almost an after thought and certainly there are times it is treated like one. Just look at the number of new building kits they come out with every year vs. the number of new freight car models.

I don't knock them for that per se, they at least know what their strengths are. But, they miss out on potential sales by doing things the way they do in regards to rolling stock (and to a lesser degree, locomotives).

Whenever company 'xyz' announces a model and Walthers does their immediate reactionary announcement, I'm not usually likely to get the Walthers one, and that probably goes for a lot of people.

However, if Walthers would once in a while just announce something just for the sake of meeting a demand instead of trying to take everyone else's slice of pie all the time, I think they would be a lot more successful. I get that they tend to cater to the lower budget modeler, (and completely understand why they do) but that doesn't mean everything they do needs to be a reaction to someone else. Just because Athearn/SXT/Tangent/Rapido/'insert company here' announces something doesn't mean they need to immediately release something in response, even if they are going for a different target audience. They would sell just as many to the lower budget customers regardless of the timing of the release, but they might sell a few to everyone else too if they would be smarter about it.

For example, their cyrogenic reefer from the red box days. They've probably still got that model stashed away somewhere, and if they decided to re-release it after many years, I would probably buy a couple in spite of their flaws and upgrade them myself. Now on the other hand, if they wait for another company to announce one of their own first and then do their typical reactionary release, (which I honestly would not be even a little surprised by) then sorry Walthers but I'm probably going to buy the other guy's. That's just how it is.

[12bridge]

You do realize that releases are planned months, usually years in advance, right? Its not just "Oh my, XYZ did it so we must do it now also!"

[cemr5396]

you think it's a coincidence that Walthers almost always announces a run of whatever within a month or two of a competing release from another manufacturer? It's been happening on a consistent basis for years now.

The odds of this happening over and over again completely by accident are absolutely astronomical. That, and if it was accidental, you would think that once in a while the Walthers release would come first, instead of ALWAYS being after the compeditor.

There is ZERO chance it's not intentional.

[idgara]

So what’s it to you if they make the same thing a month later? It’s business, buy Alphas model or Walthers model, it’s not about you, many modelers will pick Walthers because it costs less, same with foodies, or close enough models. What should they do, contact you first so you’ll get the model you want.Talk about petty.

[hudsonyard]

Feb 23, 2024 5:31:29 GMT -8 locochris said:

 

Those things are nice and I like when my cars have them but the reality of having an operating layout where dozens/hundreds of cars moving during a session is you need the beaters like accurail, mainline, bowser, trainman etc etc to flesh out the fleet, and quite frankly take the bulk of the beating and wear and tear. Those cars look nice in photos but when a guy is classifying 300 cars in a 6 hour session the only thing he's looking at is the reporting marks. The newer generation of high end RTR models are a LOT more sturdier than older ones, but i think i'd go insane trying to keep up with detail part attrition and broke trying to stock a railroad with just 40-60 dollar cars.

The fact that the floor has been raised enough that we have basic RTR stuff as nice as mainline and others i mentioned is actually where you take the temperature of the health of the hobby.

[hudsonyard]

Feb 23, 2024 13:26:47 GMT -8 cemr5396 said:

you think it's a coincidence that Walthers almost always announces a run of whatever within a month or two of a competing release from another manufacturer? It's been happening on a consistent basis for years now.

The odds of this happening over and over again completely by accident are absolutely astronomical. That, and if it was accidental, you would think that once in a while the Walthers release would come first, instead of ALWAYS being after the compeditor.

There is ZERO chance it's not intentional.

You want the free market, you get free market results. The end of the day these guys are competing and trying to undercut one another, no matter how harmonious it is presented. The average modeler/club member might buy a pair of nice tangent hoppers, then when he wants more he sees walthers just ran a similar one to flesh out his train to bring to the club on saturday hes gonna buy 3 or 4 of the walthers cars, then talk about how nice the tangents are but how much cheaper the walthers cars were. Model railroaders are cheap and predictable beasts.

[cemr5396]

Feb 23, 2024 14:53:14 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

You want the free market, you get free market results. The end of the day these guys are competing and trying to undercut one another, no matter how harmonious it is presented. The average modeler/club member might buy a pair of nice tangent hoppers, then when he wants more he sees walthers just ran a similar one to flesh out his train to bring to the club on saturday hes gonna buy 3 or 4 of the walthers cars, then talk about how nice the tangents are but how much cheaper the walthers cars were. Model railroaders are cheap and predictable beasts.

absolutely, but by doing things the way they are, Walthers is setting up that either/or scenario and basically forcing people to pick one or the other. If random Joe on the street wants to buy 10 hopper cars and Walthers and Tangent both just announced similar hopper cars, he will likely choose to buy them all from either Tangent (because they are so nice) or Walthers (because they are cheaper). He probably won't buy 5 of each.

The other stereotype that is true of many modelers is that they are impulsive. So if when Tangent announces hoppers and Walthers announces tank cars or something, there is a really good chance Joe still buys the 10 Tangent hoppers and some tank cars from Walthers for good measure. And then, if in 6 months Walthers goes and announces more hoppers, Joe will probably think to himself "gee, I could use some more hoppers" and buy a bunch of those too.

If you are in the business of selling stuff it's a good idea to cast the widest possible net, and Walthers puts themselves in a box by constantly trying to go head to head with everyone all the time.

[prr 4467]

Some of the companies do collude to reduce the number of duplicate models. Specifically, folks at Atlas have communicated to other manufacturers "don't make that because we have the tooling already cut for it".

For every instance of apparent conflict or competition and "stealing sales" there are definitely other cases where communication prevented duplicated work and wasted developmental dollars.

Clearly this honor among thieves does NOT apply to SD40 and SD40-2 variants, as it seems everybody has one.

[Judge Doom]

Feb 23, 2024 17:30:45 GMT -8 prr 4467 said:

Some of the companies do collude to reduce the number of duplicate models. Specifically, folks at Atlas have communicated to other manufacturers "don't make that because we have the tooling already cut for it".

For every instance of apparent conflict or competition and "stealing sales" there are definitely other cases where communication prevented duplicated work and wasted developmental dollars.

Clearly this honor among thieves does NOT apply to SD40 and SD40-2 variants, as it seems everybody has one.

Some manufacturers even help each other or call on each other for favors if the guys at Company A know more about a UP, CP or Amtrak model than the guys making them at Company B, and vice-versa.

For certain popular models, the market is big enough for almost everyone to have their own version of the F7A, SD40-2, GP38-2, etc, many often tiered to different detail and price points.

Feb 23, 2024 13:26:47 GMT -8 cemr5396 said:

you think it's a coincidence that Walthers almost always announces a run of whatever within a month or two of a competing release from another manufacturer? It's been happening on a consistent basis for years now.

The odds of this happening over and over again completely by accident are absolutely astronomical. That, and if it was accidental, you would think that once in a while the Walthers release would come first, instead of ALWAYS being after the compeditor.

There is ZERO chance it's not intentional.

[sd80mac]

The fact that someone thinks a company like Walthers is able to pivot fast enough to announce a product within a couple of months of another company announcing the same product is hilarious.

[lvrr325]

The hobby has always had duplicate models. Tyco, Athearn and Penn Line/Varney/Life-Like all made an F-unit through the 60s that not only was the same prototype engine, but both the Tyco and PL shells were clones of the Athearn shell.

I think yes a company can pivot if it has existing tooling to get a production run made from it, maybe they have to swap position in line with some other product, but given the long lead times for the items to show up, it's not that hard to go to your plant and say "I want to make this instead of that" and get it close to the time the other company's item shows up.