5 HO Walthers Amtrak 85′ Horizon Fleet Passenger Cars (4 Coaches, 1 Food Service Diner) Set

Description

5 HO scale Walthers Amtrak 85′ Horizon Fleet Passenger Cars.

Manufacturer:  Walthers
Series:  Golden Age, Transition, Diesel Era.
Price Each:  $60
Condition:  Opened, Old Stock, Never Used, Like New
Model Numbers:  932-6051 Amtrak Coaches 2-Pack; 932-6061 Amtrak Food Service Diner (Can be designated as Partial Dinette or Full Dinette car).

These 5 Walthers cars were acquired by me on July 28th, 2023.  Upon getting them home, I discovered that they will not run on 18″ radius curves on my layout.  This is not the first time Walthers has produced cars that will not run on 18″ radius curves.  I’m starting to wonder if they care about the average model railroader as too many times their items do this.  My guess is that the person selling these items to me must have encountered a similar problem hence the reason he/she had never used them.

I opened the Food Service car and removed it from its plastic wrapping.  Then I set it on my straight tracks and hand pushed it into the nearest 18″ curve (the next track over).  Before the car was halfway through the curve, it popped of the tracks.  Later, I pulled out some 22″ radius curves and tried the exact same thing.  This time, the car made it into the curves, so I opened another one of the cars and removed it from the plastic wrap and connected the 2 cars together and tried hand pushing them around the 22″ radius curves.  Although the cars will SIT very tightly on the 22″ radius curves, they keep popping off.  I wasn’t able to make it the full length of the next curve.  So, my deduction is that these cars require a minimum of 24″ radius curves in order to operate.

Make sure you have 24″ radius curves BEFORE you think about buying these cars.  If they sell, there will be no refunds provided.  The cars are EXACTLY as I am describing them.  You are receiving a courtesy that was not extended to me.  I cannot return these passenger cars, hence the reason I am putting them up for sale.  I meticulously put the cars back in their original plastic wrapping.

Because I have other train cars by Walthers that require 24″ radius curves, if these do not sell, I will keep them.  As a member of a train club, the club’s layout has around 34″ to 36″ radius curves so about once a year I can usually take the other cars I own and run them on the club’s layout, which is what I will do if these trains do not sell.

About the cars:

All 5 of these Walthers’ 85′ Horizon Fleet passenger cars come unnumbered, with Kadee sprung metal knuckle couplers, metal wheelsets with power-pick-up wipers on them, sturdy plastic shell and frame, metal weight, dark tinted clear plastic windows, and what looks to me like the Phase III Amtrak paint scheme.  The food service / diner passenger car is in a box by itself.  The other 4 coach passenger cars come 2 to a box.  An information sheet is included inside of each box along with water slide decals (mostly road numbers) that can be applied to the cars so that you can number them however you wish.  The information sheet lets you know where the road numbers should be applied, and which road numbers belong to which railroad company you may wish to represent.  The cars do not have interiors inside of them, but in order for me to confirm that, I had to use a flashlight and shine light from the opposite side of the car into it so that I could see there were no seats.  With the dark tinted windows, it is hard to see inside of the passenger cars.  Also, there are no current holes in the floor of the passenger cars and no wires connected to the power swipes.  The cars are not very free-rolling due to the pressure / tension exerted on the axles of the wheels by the power swipes / power pick-up shoes.  In my opinion, if one does not wish to install lighting kits inside these cars, they can improve the free-rolling aspect of them, by unscrewing the bolster screw on the trucks, removing the power swipes, and then screwing the bolster screw back in.  You could also change the method of getting power from the wheels that provides less friction and resistance than the swipes method.

Overall, these train cars are quite handsome.  The paint job is bold, and the lettering is extremely crisp.  All details are molded on, and I didn’t see any hand-applied detail parts.  The coupler assembly provides some articulation allowing the couplers to swing nearly the full width of the ends of the cars.  I saw no way to modify these cars to operate successfully on 18″ or 22″ radius curves.

The cars come in their original Walther’s Red and Cream-colored boxes.  The boxes have some discolorations on them and one of the boxes may have been previously exposed to moisture.  I say this because one of the cars has a coupler trip pin that appears to be starting to oxidize which happens when exposed to moisture over a period of time.

All 5 boxes fit nicely in a USPS shoe box which is how they will be shipped to the buyer.

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