Question Re Kato & Intermountain's C&NW smoothside cars

[spookshow]

Thanks to the just-released Kato six-car set, I now have both the Intermountain/Centralia and Kato "take" on C&NW smoothside RPO and baggage cars. Was wondering which of them are the most accurate? Or if any of them are accurate at all?

Thanks!
-Mark

[spookshow]

After a bit of research -

The Intermountain baggage car looks to be a very good match for C&NW #8900. All four of the C&NW's streamlined baggage cars were 85-footers, so the Kato car is a total foob.

Both of the RPO-Baggage cars have some problems when compared to the Railway Classics brass HO version of C&NW #8200 (perhaps a dangerous assumption, but I'm assuming that the brass model is accurate) -

Kato's RPO windows aren't square (IM's are)
Both have one too few RPO windows (should have five on either side)
IM has incorrect windows in the doors (Kato's are correct)
IM's baggage doors are too far from the ends (Kato's are correct)

I guess I'll go with the IM cars - if for no other reason than, excluding the Kato dining car, all of the rest of my cars are IM's 

Cheers,
-Mark

[CBQ Fan]

How does the Kato E8 match up with IM cars?

[spookshow]

How does the Kato E8 match up with IM cars?

Very badly. Kato's green is much darker than IM's, and Kato's yellow is much more towards the orange end of the spectrum than IM's.

Cheers,
-Mark

[skytop35]

Actually the Kato RPO is dead on for C&NW 60 foot RPO/storage cars #8225-8226. These were built in 1949 by ACF and are identical to UP #5900, 5901 and 5902 which the Kato model is based on. The Kato model has 5 windows on one side and 4 on the other as per the prototype.

[altohorn25]

The lettering on the E8 is also incorrect; it is a combination of two different paint jobs.  The green lettering on the side would not have been on the units the same time as the elaborate nose emblem.  When they went to the green lettering on the side, they went to a simple CNW herald on the nose.  In order to match the paint job on the cars, the E8's would have to have silver lettering on their carbodies.  The nose emblem is correct as to time period with the lettering on the cars.  Strip the green lettering off the E8's and replace with silver lettering, and it will be close to correct (micro scale has decals that you can do this with). 

The above posts are correct; the IM coaches are a prototypical version of the "400" coaches.  All the kato cars are total foobs with the possible exception of the RPO and the diner (not in this paint job however - they had some of the kato diners which are AC&F cars because of their joint venture on the "City" trains - when Milw took this over from CNW, the CNW cars were released into general service - some of them made their way into "400" consists - the "City" diners would occasionally find their way into the Dakota 400 consist still in their original UP paint but lettered for CNW). 

My favorite is that they included a dome car in the set which of course CNW never had..........

Nate

[spookshow]

Aha, thanks for the info Bill. I guess the Kato model is only wrong when you're looking at the wrong prototype (oops!) 

Cheers,
-Mark

[spookshow]

The above posts are correct; the IM coaches are a prototypical version of the "400" coaches.  All the kato cars are total foobs with the possible exception of the RPO and the diner (not in this paint job however - they had some of the kato diners which are AC&F cars because of their joint venture on the "City" trains - when Milw took this over from CNW, the CNW cars were released into general service - some of them made their way into "400" consists - the "City" diners would occasionally find their way into the Dakota 400 consist still in their original UP paint but lettered for CNW). 
Nate

Re the dining car, Jim Scribbins writes this in his "The 400 Story" (p 107) - In the summer of 1956, an ex-City ACF diner ran in the Dakota 400, along with a tavern-lunch counter car. From then on, either those diners or ACF ex-City cafe-lounges were operated on the Dakota in preference to the 400-type cars. By fall of 1957, the ex-transcontinental diners were newly painted in C&NW yellow and green, but Union Pacific "Streamliner" livery remained at least until summer 1958 on the cafe-lounges.

Does that not imply that the Kato scheme is correct for the dining car (at least as of 1957)?

Thanks,
-Mark

[spookshow]

Actually the Kato RPO is dead on for C&NW 60 foot RPO/storage cars #8225-8226. These were built in 1949 by ACF and are identical to UP #5900, 5901 and 5902 which the Kato model is based on. The Kato model has 5 windows on one side and 4 on the other as per the prototype.

Bill, did those cars ever get the green & yellow treatment? I can't find any pictures.

Thanks,
-Mark

[Mark5]

A friend of mine is a C&NW fan, he said the yellow is too "orange" on the Kato E8 and cars. Side by side with Centralia or Concor cars the difference is conspicuous.

I don't know if he's right about the Kato cars being the ones with the wrong color. C&NW fans chime in!

[Ike the BN Freak]

I use Fred Klein's page for passenger car prototypes.

http://www.trainweb.org/fredatsf/protopass5.htm

[Sokramiketes]

Re the dining car, Jim Scribbins writes this in his "The 400 Story" (p 107) - In the summer of 1956, an ex-City ACF diner ran in the Dakota 400, along with a tavern-lunch counter car. From then on, either those diners or ACF ex-City cafe-lounges were operated on the Dakota in preference to the 400-type cars. By fall of 1957, the ex-transcontinental diners were newly painted in C&NW yellow and green, but Union Pacific "Streamliner" livery remained at least until summer 1958 on the cafe-lounges.

Does that not imply that the Kato scheme is correct for the dining car (at least as of 1957)?

Thanks,
-Mark

The problem is that by the time the cars were repainted from UP colors to yellow and green, C&NW was using a simplified scheme without the pin striping.  So Kato could have done the later scheme and been prototypical on two cars, but they picked the flashier early scheme which is incorrect for the cars.

[spookshow]

The problem is that by the time the cars were repainted from UP colors to yellow and green, C&NW was using a simplified scheme without the pin striping.  So Kato could have done the later scheme and been prototypical on two cars, but they picked the flashier early scheme which is incorrect for the cars.

OK, cool. I guess if that stripe ever starts to bother me I can always strip it off.

Cheers,
-Mark

[skytop35]

The problem is that by the time the cars were repainted from UP colors to yellow and green, C&NW was using a simplified scheme without the pin striping.  So Kato could have done the later scheme and been prototypical on two cars, but they picked the flashier early scheme which is incorrect for the cars.

Mike, I hate to disagree with you but some of the C&NW "Cities" cars were painted in the earlier C&NW scheme with black stripe. Scribbins "400 Story" p.107 has a photo of car #8227, a RPO/Storage car with 30 foot RPO section in the early paint. I modeled this car for my Dakota 400. Also the C&NW color guide p.19 has club-lounge #7900 in the early scheme and dated October 11, 1962. I have also seen a photo of one of the sleepers from "Cities" train service in the early scheme as well.

So, it's hard to tell how many cars received the earlier paint before they switched to the later simple scheme but clearly at least some did. 

[skytop35]

The lettering on the E8 is also incorrect; it is a combination of two different paint jobs.  The green lettering on the side would not have been on the units the same time as the elaborate nose emblem.  When they went to the green lettering on the side, they went to a simple CNW herald on the nose.  In order to match the paint job on the cars, the E8's would have to have silver lettering on their carbodies.  The nose emblem is correct as to time period with the lettering on the cars.  Strip the green lettering off the E8's and replace with silver lettering, and it will be close to correct (micro scale has decals that you can do this with). 

Nate

Sorry Nate, I located a few photos showing various combos of lettering on the E8's. Here's just one. The lettering is definitely dark. As I understand it, at first they changed from the silver lettering to black and then later to green lettering.