An Eastern Car Works Passenger Car

[nkp_174]

Ok,
Here are the pics...

First, the kit...

Don't let the injection process fool you, the castings are not distorted. They are flash free.


The model vs. the official Pullman drawing.


The sides are slightly too long (slightly) and lack the full width diaphragms (or any!).


The windows aren't right. Neither are the skirts...although the skirts might have been altered for negotiating model railroad curves and are acceptable to me.


The vestibules are close but no cigar...especially with respect to the doors.


The model trucks vs. the real thing. I knew before I ordered that this detail would be wrong.

The cars are actually fairly nice. The trucks, which are less than stellar on their own, seem like solid trucks for a skirted car. The killer for me is the windows being 4.5" too high. While it isn't too much of a problem without paint, it would look terrible once the car is painted up in the 1938 4-stripe two tone gray scheme...the stripes won't line up with any correct or non-ECW cars! Nor will it line up with my J-3a's tender.

I have three options:
-drop it on ebay
-paint/letter it for something else (why didn't I get a 6-6-4 instead...they were more common!)
-build some new sides and trucks from scratch

Regardless, I like the kit. The car looks nice...it is a well built kit...and they're cheap. They'd be great behind a non-streamlined Hudson, Mohawk, or Niagara. If I acquire a K-4 at some point, I'll pick up some of the P-70s for behind it.

I don't know If I'll build this kit or not. I'll check out the Pullman order book the next time I visit my dad's place and decide which road she'll be lettered for. In the mean time, I have the correct decals on their way to my house...so I'm going to have to start scratch building a couple cars. I believe that the other ECW cars have the same "window" problem.