Awesome... F***ing Awesome

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Walthers sucks. They really suck. And I'm dumb for not double checking my work.

I had Keystone Details design a great little kit for the Walthers PD5000 hoppers. This replaced the awful end cages and walkway of the model, and brought it up to modern standards.

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And I think it came out good. Especially compared to the stock model.

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While decaling the 10-12 cars of the fleet upgrade, I noticed something wasn't right.

Here is a proto photo:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=185796

Figure it out?

They put the damn walkway on backwards! The "short" support section should be near the brake end of the car. The worst part is that while it would be impossible to "fix" the stock model moving parts, I could have easily fixed this issue because I was replacing all the appliances and cages.

And like a dumb a$$, I kept checking the Walthers model so I would put the walkway, cages and pneumatics on the correct ends to match the Walthers car. I never checked prototype photos to see if the original car was wrong.

Since I already finished 80% of the cars in this project, I can't start over without destroying over a year's worth of work and $300 in supplies.

 

[Lemosteam]

Daniel, I am sorry that happened.

I found the walkway to be the most confusing part of the car.  Why the carmaker would intentionally design the walkway panels to be unique, (I think there were four lengths overall) and not all evenly spaced supports and panes is beyond me.

Keep looking at photos, I am not sure that the condition is 100 percent that way.  I thought I recall seeing some images showing the opposite, but I was going cross-eyed at that point.

I must say the despite the error, that car looks damn good and it looks like you found a good way to assemble that kit using the softer nickel silver parts.

How did you end up doing the extraction pipes?  Were you able to use the kit stanchions? 

[sd45elect2000]

Lots of car builders do crap like this. It makes it expensive to order parts post derailment.

Daniel , the only way to know that the cars are not right is for you to point it out to whoever is looking at the car. Its still a damn sight better than the original car !

[Kentuckian]

Experimental variants!

Post-derailment repairs!

Low clearance repairs!

The Leavitt option!

They are beautiful models and no one else will notice. Sometimes we have to go with the 80% solution, or in this case the 99.99999% solution.

[sd45elect2000]

Quickly and without much thought, what's wrong here ?

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[learmoia]

Quickly and without much thought, what's wrong here ?

(Attachment Link)

Rapido Couplers?

@daniel_leavitt2000  I can't see what your talking about, so.... seems like one of those.. 'I know its wrong, but few others will notice it so...'

[sd45elect2000]

No, trucks are easy to change.

[Rasputen]

Shouldn't that be a URTX reporting mark? 

[nickelplate759]

I know how galling such minor errors can be, but honestly it took me several minutes to find the error after you described it.  The work is incredible.

You did a particularly nice job of matching the original paint color - care to share how you did it?

[sd45elect2000]

Shouldn't that be a URTX reporting mark?

Yes, there was no UTRX mark. Regardless they made and sold thousands of these cars.

[chicken45]

My only question is if this is a Keystone Details or a Keystone Customs product?

[Lemosteam]

My only question is if this is a Keystone Details or a Keystone Customs product?

Neither, it was designed privately under commission for Daniel.

[jagged ben]

Dan, maybe I'm reading too much into your tone, but look at it this way.  You made a awesome model.  F***ing awesome.  Nobody else knows the car well enough to spot the error.   And if they do, you have a funny story abouy how much Walthers sucks.

Also I think I signed up for one of these upgrade kits way back.  Did I miss the boat or are they still available?

[learmoia]

Ohh.. I think I see it now.. the walkway brackets that are spaced closer on the B End on both sides on the Walthers model, but the prototype has them towards the right end of each side.

So that would make most of the brackets wrong on one side.

Wonder if the HO model is the same way..

[thomasjmdavis]

Daniel, you've done great work, and I can't imagine anyone would have noticed if you hadn't told us.  Those of us still running 95% of our cars with plastic walkways that are a scale foot thick envy your skill and attention to detail.

If it REALLY, REALLY bothers you, you could try the freezer trick with ONE car, and see if a few hours in the freezer loosens the glue joints enough to pop off the offending parts. This has (often, not always) worked for me in the past with plastic to plastic joints, and small metal parts (I emphasize the "small"- I haven't tried with anything like a walkway, more for brakewheels and grabs and such). My concern/warning is that because they are dissimilar materials, I would have some concern that the metal parts might warp or distort because the plastic and metal will expand/contract at different rates.

Why the carmaker would intentionally design the walkway panels to be unique, (I think there were four lengths overall) and not all evenly spaced supports and panes is beyond me.

I don't work for a car manufacturer, so I cannot say for sure, but I would speculate that this is done to utilize as many standard parts as possible.  That is, the walkway is manufactured in a standard section length, and for any given car design they use as many standard sections as possible, and then cut one section on each side to fit.  That would be much more efficient than having to fabricate and inventory dozens of sizes, so that every car length would work out to evenly divided walkway lengths.  I am sure that the average railroad car repair shop is more than capable of fabricating a given length of walkway for any necessary repair.