Model Railroading > New ExactRail Waffle Box variation previewed @ WPM 2010

An interesting HO scale Southern Waffle Box variation was on display from ExactRail at the 2010 Western Prototype Modelers Meet in San Bernardino, CA on Saturday. Check out the unique apparatus attached to the doors... Sorry I failed to inquire about release date information. Exactrail also had samples of their next run of 62' PC&F Beer Cars, the green Garvey Grain Evans 4780 covered hopper, the new SP 2420 (shortie) gondola, and samples of their new N scale 33" metal wheels.

Athearn also had a small unmanned display at the event with a undecorated but assembled preproduction model of the unofficially announced Genesis GP9, a pair of Genesis SP passenger cars , a black preproduction casting for the unofficially announced U50 to be mounted to their Gas Turbine mechanism, and a partially assembled sample of one of their future 89' intermodal flats.

The full PBase gallery is now up...

http://www.pbase.com/mrmrl/wpm2010

Mr. MRL



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/10 02:28 by MrMRL.

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Some of the Athearn goodies...

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Athearn's new Genesis GP...

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VERY cool! Hmm.. That Athearn GP9 hood looks a heckuva lot better than the earlier test shots. The gaps between the hood doors are now looking quite good, at least from your photos. Very encouraging (for my heart, but not my wallet =).

I'm looking forward to the pbase album.. Hmm.. time to go huntin'! Thanks again Robby for taking the time to share with all of us your photos from WPM!

Cheers,
Harry

tracktime Wrote:
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>
> I'm looking forward to the pbase album.. Hmm..
> time to go huntin'! Thanks again Robby for
> taking the time to share with all of us your
> photos from WPM!
>
> Cheers,
> Harry


Workin' on it...

http://www.pbase.com/mrmrl/wpm2010
( - - u n d e r - c o n s t r u c t i o n - - )

Will upload the bulk of the photos and complete the captions later today, I 'm about to crash, l∞l . . .

Mr. MRL

tracktime Wrote:
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> VERY cool! Hmm.. That Athearn GP9 hood looks a
> heckuva lot better than the earlier test shots.
> The gaps between the hood doors are now looking
> quite good, at least from your photos. Very
> encouraging (for my heart, but not my wallet =).

Agreed! And the dynamic brake grills look better, too. I don't know that they changed, but earlier photos looked too short, like the old Front Range shell. At least in these photos, at this angle, they look accurate.

They took a lot of heat for the model shown on Facebook not being Genesis quality. This one sure looks like it lives up to the name.

- Arved
From a little too close to CSX milepost 666

The device on the Southern waffle box car is referred to as a 'door assist'. Box car doors can be difficult to close and this was a solution that was somewhat common in the late sixties to the early eighties. The hand wheel turned a gear that engaged a toothed bar along the side of the car. The gear and wheel would travel along the bar pushing the door closed. This worked fairly well until it was discovered that pushing the door closed with the fork lift was quicker and easier. Who cares if it damaged the door?

This is something rarely seen on the model. Detail Associates has marketed an add on kit for some time. Thanks to ExactRail for including it on this version of their waffle box.

Eighth deadly sin, forgetting to take camera to WPM!
Chet

The cab on the GP9 still doesn't look right. The radius on the cab roof looks too shallow making the top of the cab windows too high relative to the radiators and top of the hood doors. Maybe the top of the windows in previous versions were where they were supposed to be but the shallow roof radius made them look too low. The bottom of the window looks to be the right height relative to the handrails.

The dynamic brake blister also looks too shallow, the bottom lines up with the upper half of the radiator in the model and the lower half in the proto foto. It looks more pointed on the model.

Here are a couple photos of the former NP 304, BN 1742, b/d 2/57, the first taken at a similar angle to the photo above.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/10 10:02 by pmack.

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Interesting shot of the Cannon and Co cab interior....

Hopefully in a year we will see these Geeps

pmack,

I think your analysis is correct, but it's still a lot better than what we've sen before. How do you think the LL/P2K model compares?

- Arved

MrMRL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An interesting HO scale Southern Waffle Box
> variation was on display from ExactRail at the
> 2010 Western Prototype Modelers Meet in San
> Bernardino, CA on Saturday. Check out the unique
> apparatus attached to the doors...

Robbie, you are showing your age. I would have thought a guy with 62,000 fully detailed MRL units was in his 40ies but if you do not recognise that apparatus, I suspect you are 20 something.

Thank you for posting this. It seems your posting has already generated interest in this model and may be sold out before it is announced. My model railroad pusher already knows about it. Unfortunately, the Southern car I bought was from the second release but had a 1985 re-weigh date so was technically wrong for my WP interest. This will be a correct car for me.

Rick

Arved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> pmack,
>
> I think your analysis is correct, but it's still a
> lot better than what we've sen before. How do you
> think the LL/P2K model compares?
>
> - Arved


IMHO, I would say the cab radius on the P2K is spot on. The biggest problem with the P2K is the extra large radius ( about 9" instead of about 2") at the top of the hood. The radiator grills look like they are .015" or so high accentuating the large radius. I don't have a dynamic P2K to compare but I can't see how the dynamic blister could be right if it fits the curve at the top of the hood. It just seems like there are enough GP9s and photos of them out there that any needed dimension could be either measured or figured out, especially on a model that will probably list for $150+ DCC ready. It should cost the same to make it right or make it wrong so a little research will result in a more accurate model. Fortunately for me, there were only a few GP9s on the BN in 1995 so I'll probably be good with the one P2K model I have.

rschonfelder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Robbie, you are showing your age. I would have
> thought a guy with 62,000 fully detailed MRL units
> was in his 40ies but if you do not recognise that
> apparatus, I suspect you are 20 something.
>

Yeah, and I don't even remember the Southern pacific or Santa Fe...

Mr. MRL - young'un (more photos added to the PBase site...)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/10 01:55 by MrMRL.

The GP headlight also looks incorrect....same goofy Athearn $0.10 bulbs hanging out, but the spacing of the bulbs vertically looks way too large as well. It is still a beautiful model....but Athearn seemingly remains mired in the stone age lighting-wise.

Bob

pmack Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Arved Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > pmack,
> >
> > I think your analysis is correct, but it's still
> a
> > lot better than what we've sen before. How do
> you
> > think the LL/P2K model compares?
> >
> > - Arved
>
>
> IMHO, I would say the cab radius on the P2K is
> spot on. The biggest problem with the P2K is the
> extra large radius ( about 9" instead of about 2")
> at the top of the hood. The radiator grills look
> like they are .015" or so high accentuating the
> large radius. I don't have a dynamic P2K to
> compare but I can't see how the dynamic blister
> could be right if it fits the curve at the top of
> the hood. It just seems like there are enough
> GP9s and photos of them out there that any needed
> dimension could be either measured or figured out,
> especially on a model that will probably list for
> $150+ DCC ready. It should cost the same to make
> it right or make it wrong so a little research
> will result in a more accurate model. Fortunately
> for me, there were only a few GP9s on the BN in
> 1995 so I'll probably be good with the one P2K
> model I have.


Even in your photos, the top of the hood appears to be a bigger radius than that of second generation EMDs. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think the radius is supposed to be about 7", which would scale out to 0.080".


BTW, here are photos of an "undec" Phase III GP9 (GP9E rebuild) for some comparison:

http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/gp09e_photos/3817a_sp-gp9e-rob_sarberenyi.jpg
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/gp09e_photos/3817b_sp-gp9e-rob_sarberenyi.jpg
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/gp09e_photos/3817c_sp-gp9e-rob_sarberenyi.jpg

Warmest regards,
- Arved

mp_eagle Wrote:
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> The device on the Southern waffle box car is
> referred to as a 'door assist'.

How long did these last on these particular cars? Were they actively removed by shops at some point, or did they just wait for a forklift to knock them off? I've seen a number of CSX cars that still have the toothed track, but the wheels are gone. I'm guessing there are some SOU/NS cars like that, but I don't recall seeing any myself. Definitely cool to see ExactRail offering this detail.

Dave