Budd Passenger Cars

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I have seen the new Walthers HO Budd passenger cars on the web and thought the unmarked(52 seat?)coaches came as close to anything I've seen to matching the Man O' War. What I'd really like to know is, where can I find a decent Budd observation car, or even more difficult, a Budd combine that would do justice for my HO? Does anyone know if Walthers is planning to release an observation car to go with all the other Budd cars their putting out? (sleepers, RPO, lounge, etc.) Any help would be much appreciated!

-- James Hamilton (JHamil2081@aol.com), March 03, 2002

Answers

James,

The Walther's Budd cars are very nice looking models. Although I haven't checked window arrangements, etc., they will make reasonable stand-ins for the Central's Budd cars. The Central's cars had short letterboards, only long enough for the road name. The Walther's coach that I looked at had a full length letterboard, although the photo in the Walthers advertisement on p. 23 of the April 2002 Model Railroader seems to show a 52-seat coach which has short letterboards. If that photograph is accurate, then those cars would be reasonably accurate for the Central's two coaches.

The old Rivaraossi coaches have the full length letterboard, but are otherwise fairly close.

As far as a round-end observation to match the Fort Benning, I don't know if Walthers plans to release one. The Rivarossi observation would give you the "feel" of the Fort Benning.

You'll likely have to do some kitbashing to get a combine. The same Walthers ad shows both a 73' Baggage car and a 63' RPO. You could probably combine the Baggage Car with a coach and get a good representation of the Fort Mitchell.

Allen Tuten

-- Allen Tuten (allen@cofg.org), March 13, 2002.


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