News & Reviews News First look: New body styles on WalthersMainline HO scale Budd passenger cars

First look: New body styles on WalthersMainline HO scale Budd passenger cars

By Angela Cotey | October 28, 2015

| Last updated on November 3, 2020


Check out these pre-production samples of new WalthersMainline HO scale Budd passenger cars

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Walthers is introducing three new passenger car body styles in its WalthersMainline HO scale Budd passenger car series. This photo shows pre-production samples of the baggage/Railway Post Office (top), small window coach (middle), and the observation car (bottom).
Model Railroader magazine recently received pre-production photos of the next three passenger cars in the WalthersMainline HO scale Budd 85-foot passenger car series. The new body styles are a small-window coach, baggage-Railway Post Office, and observation car. The small window coach is based on a Southern Pacific prototype. The baggage/RPO and observation car are based on New York Central prototypes. The cars are scheduled for release in February 2016 and will retail for $34.98 each.

The newly tooled cars, like those in the previous run, are designed to operate on 18” radius curves and will feature tinted window glazing, detailed interiors, 36” turned-metal wheelsets, and Proto-Max couplers.

The cars can be upgraded with the WalthersMainline passenger car exterior detail kit (formed stainless steel grab irons and body-mounted coupler boxes with standard length swinging drawbar, bushing, and cover for operation on 22” radius and larger curves, $9.98) and the WalthersMainline passenger car LED interior lighting kit (light-emitting diode light bar; metal 41-N-11 trucks with turned-metal 36” wheels; and body-mounted coupler boxes with extended swinging drawbar, bushing, and cover, $29.98). 

The small-window coach will be decorated for Alaska RR (ARR); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (ATSF); Amtrak (AMTK); Southern Pacific (SP); Union Pacific (UP); and VIA Rail Canada. The baggage-RPO will be lettered for ATSF; Canadian National (CN); Canadian Pacific (CP); Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q); New York Central (NYC); Pennsylvania RR (PRR); SP; Southern Ry. (SOU); UP; and VIA. The observation car will be painted for AMTK, ARR, ATSF, CB&Q, CN, CP, NYC, PRR, SOU, SP, UP, and VIA. All three body styles will also be offered painted silver but unlettered.

For more information, visit www.walthers.com.

3 thoughts on “First look: New body styles on WalthersMainline HO scale Budd passenger cars

  1. I would buy these if they had flush windows, but they don't.
    These are just a bad as concor cars, not flush windows, truck mounted couplers, and plastic trucks.

  2. The cars are a non-starter for me, as they don't feature flush mounted windows, but rather just holes with glazing sitting behind. I'm amazed that Walthers offers that kind of detail level in 2015. No amount of add-on grab irons is going to make up for the bad looks of holes for windows.

  3. It would be very useful to see photos of both sides of each of the new cars. I'm particularly interested in the other side of the observation car, to see how close it is to those of the New York Central's Budd-built stainless steel tavern-lounge-observation cars, such as those used on the "Laurentian" into the 1960's.

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