Drifting along; RTR quality, Couplers, EMD cabs...

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bob turner
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby bob turner » Mon Dec 27, 2021 12:05 am

So what happens if you carefully file a slant on those headlights?

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sarge
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby sarge » Mon Dec 27, 2021 6:57 am

Rich, the answer to "why" your conundrum exists might lie in what I believe is good memory. I seem to remember a nuance of the F9 and E9 was a change to a vertical face in the headlight shroud from slanted in the earlier units. An E9 is shown here showing that, but I couldn't immediately find a definitive photo of an F9 side on to match.

Image

There is a pretty unadulterated set of Rio Grande F9s at the the Colorado Museum; perhaps Erik is nearby and could check?

Given that was so and the F9 and E9 did change from slant to vertical at least at some point in production, the Roco shell actually got it right. Then of course the P&D project (carrying it back from the Roco shell) missed that important nuance.

Bob, that is a reasonable question with a very reasonable answer, but its not the point. This stuff is supposed to be ready to run, not kitbash fodder. If it is to meet current standards to attract hobbiests, experienced or new, those standards of fidelity, compatibility, and performance should at least be in lockstep with what is expected in HO or N product.

You and I are dinosaurs, my friend. We enjoy breaking every bone in their little bodies and expect it. We're from an era when commercial product was manufactured in someone's shed and we built things from it using saw, flame, minor explosions, and processes that would momentarily dim the lights in the neighbourhood. Even if it was a brass import from our day, we expected to paint it and glaze it as a minimum.

There is no reason for the hobbiest today, the guy for whom electronics, control systems, IT, is the hobby, to accept kitbash fodder as RTR at RTR prices. They reasonably expect the same levels of fidelity, performance, and compatibility as they would get in the smaller scales; indeed given the size they'd love more.

At a grand a pop for a plastic diesel, it is unreasonable for someone to have to take a file to something pointed out as a glaring error some fifteen years ago now, have to match and touch up paint afterwards, and pay for it as ready-to-run, not when RTR product made in the other scales would be laughed back to Hillside if made to the same standards as O scalers are expected to accept with gratitude. "Please sir? I want some more?"

Still, it all might be moot. Once the economic relationship with China in a post-pandemic world becomes clear, the taps might be finally closed. Indeed, its only been a dribble for the last decade or more. The only other option would be improving selected models to match the increase in costs. A revisit of the RS-1 with a new cab the right width and the horizontal drive from the SW? "New and Improved!" F with a slanted headlight? Or maybe 3d printed retrofit parts like the afore mentioned RS-1 cab printed in Hillside and new drop-in drives and updated electronics for the best of the old range?

Hmmmm...
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E7
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby E7 » Mon Dec 27, 2021 9:44 am

GREAT image Sarge!!! I think the late NS corporate F9's were of that ilk, and it is something I've had my suspicions about for some time. Harder to substantiate because there were not a lot of 9's out there. Add to that the idea that those headlight surrounds were hand made. I always thought the light located in the nose door made more sense, and some of the roads with the dual lights (C&NW to name one) blocked out the top light and used the lower one. That and ditch lights would light more of what was important. The top light would be more effective for distance. Then, how fast could you get the whole mess stopped if you did see something ahead? For you trivia buffs, the PRR had one E8 with the dual lights. Add to all that, where were the actual bulbs/lens aimed?

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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby up148 » Mon Dec 27, 2021 11:23 am

Interesting photo Sarge. I had many discussions with Roger Lewis about the proper upper headlight slant on EMD E & F noses. I argued strongly it should be vertical and he provided me with numerous photos proving KEY noses were correct (slanted headlight) and I was wrong, so I conceded. Apparently they came both ways, but there are a lot of E & F units out there with the back slanted upper headlights. Personally, a vertical upper headlight is more pleasing to my eye, but..........

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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby sarge » Mon Dec 27, 2021 11:34 am

Butch, I believe there was a change very late in the game, E7 and E8 slanted, E9 vertical, Fs from FT-F7 slanted, F9 vertical. Since EMD liked to change up the game at times out of synch with model changes, the change might not precisely coincide with the model change-up from E8/F7 to E9/F9.

The Roco F9 I believe got it right, at least for the late ones, and the error happened with the P&D ones as the Roco shell was used as the starting point to backdate the range to include F7 and F3.
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby bob turner » Mon Dec 27, 2021 12:46 pm

Well, I make lots of mistakes. Sometimes, I go back in with a torch and fix them. One thing is for sure - I do not agonize for decades. Once i get truly dissatisfied, out comes the tinsnip, or a new file, or a chainsaw.

Atlas has no duty to the consumer. The consumer has no duty to Atlas, either. If Atlas wants to produce a vertical headlight F7 with shitty couplers they have every right to do so, and of course we can complain in print forever so long as we don't cross some "product disparagement" threshold. We are not entitled to perfect models. We are not forced to buy imperfect models.

My answer to these sorts of things - all of us are free to compete with Atlas. Look what Mike Wolf did to Lionel, or for that matter look what Honda did to Chevy. Aren't we using Siemens locomotives on the Esst Coast?

Or my favorite - look what Airbus did to Boeing? (With a littlr help from European taxpayers.)

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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby ScaleCraft » Mon Dec 27, 2021 1:49 pm

This headlight angle discussion holds no candle to a GLARING issue in NG Steam.

D&RGW K-27.

MR did a 2-part series with drawings in June of 1973, and blew it. Referred to for 40 years as "fat boiler syndrome". Back when pen and ink drawings were all they had, you get 90% done and find an error, you dummy it.

The firebox as drawn was WAY too wide, fixed with angled inner front cab door and frame.
However, drawing dimension of inside of cab shows parallel sides. Prototype had parallel side rectangular doors...always....and no K-27 was ever re-boilered.

Dennis Beery wrote a book called "Mudhens" that had the MR drawings overlaid on a photo of the real thing.
Even tho MR drawings say hobbyist can use them, but no commercial use allowed.....EVERY K-27 built for over 40 years used those drawings and was...wrong.

Until Blackstone.

Blackstone is an H0n3 manufacturer, subsidiary of Soundtraxx, and commissioned new drawings. Had them built by Kader, took several YEARS of rejections to get what they wanted out of the PRC. I wrote reviews on a later release, in a larger scale, done by a Kader subsidiary, using those Blackstone supplied drawings, and mentioned all of this. (release embargoed by agreement until H0n3 unit delivered to customers).
Had ex-spurts screaming I didn't know what I was talking about, telling one publisher to kick me out as I was a moron. Literally 30 minutes later, publisher called me back, as my challenge to one of the mouthy ex-spurts to check his data showed him he was wrong and I was right. He called the publisher to so state.

So many things wrong with the drawings (and subsequent models) that weren't fixed until so much later.


Or the post-war Lionel F units. Rumor has it Lionel postwar partnered with GM, ATSF and NYC to build the F units. Used provided GM drawings....and apparently no photographs. We jokingly all these F5's (even tho there were some F5's), as the sides (both) are half chicken screen and half louvers. And that went on for DECADES.
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sarge
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby sarge » Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:12 pm

bob turner wrote:Well, I make lots of mistakes. Sometimes, I go back in with a torch and fix them. One thing is for sure - I do not agonize for decades. Once i get truly dissatisfied, out comes the tinsnip, or a new file, or a chainsaw.

Atlas has no duty to the consumer. The consumer has no duty to Atlas, either. If Atlas wants to produce a vertical headlight F7 with shitty couplers they have every right to do so, and of course we can complain in print forever so long as we don't cross some "product disparagement" threshold. We are not entitled to perfect models. We are not forced to buy imperfect models.

My answer to these sorts of things - all of us are free to compete with Atlas. Look what Mike Wolf did to Lionel, or for that matter look what Honda did to Chevy. Aren't we using Siemens locomotives on the Esst Coast?

Or my favorite - look what Airbus did to Boeing? (With a littlr help from European taxpayers.)


Whaaaat?

By your way of "thinking", then, any discussion of a product or product range on a forum, at a meet, in a bar, is mere whinging. Consumer advocacy, product reviews, all of it is pointless. No-one has a "duty" to supply product that meets any standard of quality, metrics of use-ability, whether it be our metrics of fidelity, performance, compatibility or other marketplace metrics like safety, DOT licensing, state inspection, CPSC regulation, EPA regulation; any body of metrics or standards or indeed simply "wants" can be ignored with no comment or opinion or judgement acceptable. Only the purest theoretical free-market drivers are permitted to express satisfaction or dis-satisfaction with a product.

Bollocks.

The dog-eared cards played like "you're free to go into business in competition if you don't like it" smacks of the usual law-school debate society game for giggles rather than anything possibly constructive or informative. The only thing left is to see who posts the last word, thereby winning the game. GRIN!
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sarge
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby sarge » Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:32 pm

Dave, you hit on the Rule of Cumulative Error in commercial modelmaking. There are a million of examples, the beloved 700e being the poster child. The cab and appliance turret is positioned 'way too high in order to clear the motor of the era. Everyone is so used to it that it took generations of NYC Hudson (and Mohawk) models before people stopped repeating it and put the cab down where it belonged (and got used to it all over again). Al Staufer used to be a champion picker of that particular nit.

Or the Athearn Blomberg truck, copied from the EMD general arrangement drawing back in the Hi-F drive era and replicated until the eighties when finally someone said it was all wrong, which it is. So is EMDs rendering of it on the GA drawing but it never was meant to be anything more than a sketch as a key for the detail drawings in the set.

Athearn was another one for whom an attention to consumer reaction was really slow, but once taken on the range improved dramatically from the over-wide hoods, that straight-frame Blomberg, the "SW-1500" done from the GM advert art announcing the 645 range as was a DD40 with a conventional cab that was never built, to some really RTR nice models that hold up pretty well even now.

What shit would still be out there if people in this hobby would just shut up and be satisfied with what they are served up.
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bob turner
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby bob turner » Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:38 pm

Consumer review is not pointless. Regulation is necessary. This thread is doing none of that. Consumer review is pointing out that the headlight slant is incorrect.

That is not what we are doing here. We are trying to say that Atlas has a duty to correct it. They do not. They do not even have a duty to read this stuff.

I have done plenty of consumer reviews. I have railed against U shaped boilers and boot-shaped Alco noses, not to mention the lack of taper on the Sunset SP boilers. I never once said the importer or manufacturer owed us a duty to get it right.

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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby ScaleCraft » Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:57 pm

You commented on what folks get used to or accustomed to..like the NYC Hudson and Mohawk.

Athearn Blombergs.....heck, all we had back then in H0 was those...or the cheap plastic import sideframes that were worse. I got used to them (HiF and onwards) and "correct" sideframes in H0 just doesn't do it for me.
Wide body Geeps...to clear the big motors of the era.....you get used to it.
And you're right....NW's, SW's, heck, you never knew what you were getting until you had it in hand and researched it.
So used to headlight angle on Lionel and A-N, just got used to it.

There is a German LS manufacturer, unnamed, but sounds like Lets Go Broke.
Did a whole bunch of RhB stuff (Swiss Narrow Gauge)....most of it was so wrong not even funny. They seemed to borrow on the foreshortened Lionel ideology in rolling stock to accommodate R-1 curves (a bit over 4' DIAMETER!), locos just not there...and the question from hobbyists was how much more does it cost to do it right than to do it wrong?
Guys I know bought three cars to make two....cut and spliced into the middle...if they were floating in expendable currency, they'd make one out of two....and they'd be pretty close...but, no.

Wasn't there some issue with DD35 and 40 models somewhere with no center walkthrough?

I've got literally dozens of examples of NG boxcars out in the shop with door guides put on wrong (as in, holes drilled at the factory for them on wrong side of opening) with door stop on side away from where the door actually opens.
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ScaleCraft
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby ScaleCraft » Mon Dec 27, 2021 3:07 pm

bob turner wrote:Consumer review is not pointless. Regulation is necessary. This thread is doing none of that. Consumer review is pointing out that the headlight slant is incorrect.

That is not what we are doing here. We are trying to say that Atlas has a duty to correct it. They do not. They do not even have a duty to read this stuff.

I have done plenty of consumer reviews. I have railed against U shaped boilers and boot-shaped Alco noses, not to mention the lack of taper on the Sunset SP boilers. I never once said the importer or manufacturer owed us a duty to get it right.


You're right. They have no obligation to do any reading or correcting. No manufacturer does, unless product violates some federal or local standard, then they get forced to read and act. Not germane to this discussion.

What these discussions do for me and hopefully others who can read with comprehension is allows us to make a thoughtful determination of what NOT to buy and why.

Sometimes it's what you read, sometimes hear, sometimes personal experience, which is why nothing from the Boy Genius resides here...and sometimes personal experience is based upon a flaw in what you experienced.

Like the first time I knew I watched a CLW diseasemal run. Vibrated and growled so badly on a curve, I swore I'd never, ever own a CLW diseasemal.
Folks tell me their CLW's are fine....could be.....but you never pay attention if something is running fine. I probably saw lots of CLW diseasemals running over the decades, but that one engine cause my refusal to own one.

The A-N drives....there are those of us here who don't use them, but I've never had an issue.....but I've never owned a Delrin Chain drive A-N block, either.
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby sarge » Mon Dec 27, 2021 4:10 pm

Bob

We'll disagree about the point of the discussion, then. They do have a responsibility to get it right when it comes to a matter of quality and usability for the purpose, for example the zinc-pest couplers that started this thread.

The rest of this is a review by consumers in the form of a discussion about the desire for some adherence to fidelity, performance, and compatibility, and adherence to those metrics in kind with the other scales, Atlas being an example we've by thread-drift zero'd in on. You're the one assuming an assumption of duty has carried forward from quality issues, where there is one, to the metrics discussion, the conversation about couplers, headlight angles, &c.

Or are you just annoyed because we're having a discussion on a subject you understandably couldn't care less about?
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby ScaleCraft » Mon Dec 27, 2021 4:16 pm

sarge wrote:Bob

Or are you just annoyed because we're having a discussion on a subject you understandably couldn't care less about?


Did Piper get the angle of the wing leading edge right?
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Re: Was PRC/Atlas quality rant, now Couplers

Postby ScaleCraft » Mon Dec 27, 2021 4:41 pm

Every time discussions of F unit nose shape or headlight angle or sideframes....I am reminded of the MR undercurrent in the 60's and 70's that you couldn't be considered a serious model railroader unless you had (expensive) imported brass and KD couplers. Then the Tenshodo F units. I almost bought one at an antique store once except it wasn't priced yet.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ ... 3760026282
https://auctions.specialauctionservices ... 1616493964
https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/7015/160 ... &width=200
https://static2.lot-art.com/public/upl/ ... -thumb.jpg

AFAIK Tenshodo stuff went plastic later, same tooling? The one I picked up at the store to look at was brass.

Maybe splicing an Erie-built nose on would help.
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