Intermountain Milwaukee Ribsides

[tom mann]

I noticed that they are out, how are they? 

[Chris333]

Where are they? I'll order a couple.

[tom mann]

Where are they? I'll order a couple.

Tough to find, but here:  http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/product_p/imr-48501.htm

[Chris333]

Crap. HOe scale, foiled again 

[Sokramiketes]

I noticed that they are out, how are they? 

They've been getting less than stellar reviews... For example, the roof has a random row of rivets on it when these were all welded cars...

The Ribside Cars ones are probably more accurate, but have all the detail of an Athearn Bluebox kit.  The Intermountain ones have all the separate grab irons and underbody details... but have a few minor issues. 

[tom mann]

I noticed that they are out, how are they? 

They've been getting less than stellar reviews... For example, the roof has a random row of rivets on it when these were all welded cars...

The Ribside Cars ones are probably more accurate, but have all the detail of an Athearn Bluebox kit.  The Intermountain ones have all the separate grab irons and underbody details... but have a few minor issues. 

Not good to hear...I have a lot of these coming in.

[CVSNE]

Here's a review of the models posted on the Steam Era Freight Car list.  I can't believe they got these models so wrong since I (and Matt) know exactly how good the prototype information they had to work with was.  I think it's an example of a tool maker not "understanding what he/she is looking at".  The errors pointed out below range from "not really noticeable" to " ??? ??? ???!!!"

Marty

RE: the new Milwaukee Road postwar rib-side box cars produced by InterMountain, you
should be aware that the model is royally screwed up and unfixable. The
sides have a couple of deficiencies, and the ends and roof are simply
awful. In addition to InterMountain's apparent inability to interpret
plans and photographs, they also didn't bother to understand the body
of these cars were all welded. They actually went to extra work to add
a row of rivets on the sides of the roof eaves where there should be no
rivets present. I'm posting this message so that potential buyers are
made aware of major shortcomings with the model.

Sides:
The right side of the car lacks a horizontal raised overlapping seam
that runs continuously just above the side sill. The left side has it,
so they just forgot to tool it one the right side! Also, the sides lack
the slightly recessed sheets on both sides of the door frame. On the
model the area around the door frame is flush with the ribbed side
sheets. InterMountain got the recessed side pans nearest the ends
right, but missed doing the same thing to the side pan sheets on both
sides of the door.

Ends:
Instead of the ends of the main corrugations being rounded (like all
Improved Dreadnaught Ends were), the model's ends have angled flat
spots that basically look like the outer portions were filed flat
(i.e., chamfer). Also, unlike AAR box cars, the top of the Milwaukee
Road end was flat across the top and the roof was prefabricated by
welding and applied as a single unit. This resulted in a prominent
horizontal flange at the top of the end that is quite visible in any
photo showing the end. The top of the InterMountain end is flush and
lacks this flange.

Roof:
The roof is integral to the sides and ends that form the car body. The
formed double roof corrugations and the wider pressed stiffener on the
outboard end panels are too short near the edge of the roof. The
prototype cars had the raised corrugations fair down to the edge of the
roof, whereas corrugations on the model abruptly stop approximately 4"
short of the edge of the roof. Refer to page 55 of RP CYC Vol. 13 for
what the roof should look like. Some prototype cars had diagonal panel
roofs.

Floor:
The separate floor has a wide cast-on coupler box, whereas this should
be left off and either allow modelers to add couplers of their choice,
or for the assembled models in China, have separate coupler boxes to
accept Kadee couplers like InterMountain has done on many of their kits
in the past. The molded-on coupler boxes is a step backwards.

After finding the features of the car body as they are, I didn't bother
to look at the underframe and other detail parts (what's the point?).

One last comment about the model's construction method. I truly don't
understand why on this model InterMountain reverted back to the
Athearn-type car body, which has an integral roof with the sides and
ends rather than the floor being integral and a separate roof. The
latter method has been used by InterMountain for the past 20 years.
This is not an error as such, but my personal preference is to have the
integral floor and separate roof vs. an integral roof and separate
floor.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins

[Sokramiketes]

Intermountain... well... ???

So on the Maroon CGW caboose that just came out, they apparently copied the painting of the Overland brass model (wrong) instead of using the pile of painting and lettering information provided.  Funny how the pile was good enough to help properly restore the CGW NE-5 at the Illinois Railway Museum (and sister at Green Bay apparently) yet Intermountain decided to copy the brass model instead.  Now the lettering is metallic gold instead of Dulux Gold (yellow).  And to make matters worse, they appear to have painted the grabs metallic gold too.  (Originally customers thought they were unpainted brass). 

 :

[tom mann]

Ok, I'm a little bit upset at this.  I haven't been this upset since I paid lot of money for a MT 6-pack of MILW reefers, only to discover that they are completely wrong.

The rivets on the model are unacceptable.  To me, this is like a GP38-2 with siderods.

[Chris333]

Sure hope they don't copy this to N scale.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

And THIS is why I think intermountain is completely f***ed.

[Matthew Roberts]

And THIS is why I think intermountain is completely f***ed.

And also royally screwed, no?

Minor mess-ups are okay, but rivets on a welded boxcar??? Not a chance. Theses guys must be mental.

[John]

And THIS is why I think intermountain is completely f***ed.

And also royally screwed, no?

Minor mess-ups are okay, but rivets on a welded boxcar??? Not a chance. Theses guys must be mental.

so, just don't count them

[Matthew Roberts]

And THIS is why I think intermountain is completely f***ed.

And also royally screwed, no?

Minor mess-ups are okay, but rivets on a welded boxcar??? Not a chance. Theses guys must be mental.

so, just don't count them

Yeah I thought about that one, John. ;D

Heck it's not even my scale....

[tom mann]

Mine arrived the other day and I spent some time comparing them to the photos in the Morning Sun Milwaukee Road Freight Car book.  First, the car is very well put together.  It's proportions and ride height appear to be correct.  It has grabs, free standing ladders, and a nice etched roofwalk.

Ed is pretty much right with his assessment, but I could not see what he meant about the sides and the overlapping seam.  If the Intermountain car is missing it, I can't tell it should have it from looking at the photos.  The recessed area around the door is also missing, but not noticeable.

The two bothersome discrepancies are the dreadnaught ends and the roof.  The ends appear that they were sanded at a 45 degree angle.  The roof is the most disappointing, as the rivets are obviously wrong.

All in all, a nice but frustrating car to own.  If you don't care about prototype fidelity, the car is a great, well-made piece of quality rolling stock.  However, it also serves as a classic example of when a little bit of knowledge can take away the fun.

Stay cool and toss out your books...