Model Railroading > Athearn BNSF RTR boxcar problem.....

Saw some of Athearn's recent RTR releases at the local hobby shop this afternoon, the BNSF single plug door boxcar intrigued me: It has full-height ladders and roofwalks!! Hmmmm........

Oops - kind of like Atlas releasing their really nice flush-cupola caboose in MRL, with end ladders and roofwalks. It looks really great, but I can not find one photo of my own or anybody's that shows an MRL caboose of ANY kind with end ladders and roofwalks to justify me buying one. Does anybody have a photo of ANY BNSF boxcar with full ladders and roofwalks, or MRL caboose with intact roofwalks? - - - - - - JLH

The Atlas Cabeese are still fairly close for the MRL, simply remove the ladders & roof walks. Add small piece of plastic to fill in the roof walk mounts & you are done.

Robby F. (Mr. MRL)

Its not a mistake. I'm quite certain that the folks at Athearn are WELL aware of this detail discrepancy, but the amount of extra money that they would get in extra sales from having an "accurate" model, would not come close to the costs involved in revising the shell.

I have no firm numbers to back up the above, but I'd say that those are fairly accurate statements. If not, feel free to correct me. Jeff

bnsfsd70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Its not a mistake. I'm quite certain that the
> folks at Athearn are WELL aware of this detail
> discrepancy, but the amount of extra money that
> they would get in extra sales from having an
> "accurate" model, would not come close to the
> costs involved in revising the shell.
>
> I have no firm numbers to back up the above, but
> I'd say that those are fairly accurate statements.
> If not, feel free to correct me. Jeff

No need for any corrections. I have seen some of the numbers for that kind of change. Adding metal to an existing steel mold is very expensive for even a minor change such as plugging the rood walk holes and matching the roof details with the plugs. To modify the molds for this car is way too expensive for the sales from it. The road names just done are about it for the car, there is no real potential for six or six runs as with some of the cars they've modified.

& incase you want to actually see it to believe it, here is the car in question.

http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH70751


Robby F. (Mr. MRL)

Ok, here it is. Athearn has learned that brakemen have been called back as there are inherent flaws in the trains braking systems. This discovered after investigations regarding UP rear-ending a BNSF train.

Well, it sounds good. Grin!

RickH

The CN is also wrong roof walks were long gone when web addresses were put on the side of rolling stock.

It's just..........well it's just wrong! I mean the roofwalks and all.
Blasphemy, I tell you!


SantaFeRuss

I guess we'll be seeing these cars sitting outside the car shops, waiting their turn to have the ladders and roofwalks torched (X-actoed?) off?

At least it's old wagonwheel image - better not do that if and when the swoosh new image paint comes out! -- -- -- -- -- JLH