Walthers Troop Sleepers and Kitchen Cars in Stores

I visited my local hobby shop today and couldn't resist leaving with one of the new Walthers troop kitchen cars -- will get one or more sleepers as my budget allows. I already have two Roller Bearing Models early resin kits for the troop sleepers, plus some unbuilt (and possibly unbuildable) Wabash Valley cars. There is no comparison between the Walthers and the others, of course.

The Walthers troop sleepers are "Phase II" from the late 1945 delivery, after the war ended. They were only used to ship troops home, and most were sold to the railroads in 1947. The Roller Bearing cars are "Phase I" from the 1943 delivery. The Walthers cars reproduce the aluminum window frames on Phase II, which will make them stand out from Phase I cars in a train.

These cars will only be really correct with World War II era steam locos, heavyweight coaches and Pullmans, and FTs -- maybe some Phase I F3s here and there. But I like them as something different.

I've received one troop sleeper and one kitchen car that I'd ordered sight unseen, and now that I've seen them I've ordered a three-pack of the troop sleepers. That should make a good train, appropriately short for my small model railroad.

The instruction sheets that show where to install the hand grabs indicate that the sides are separate parts. I don't know how easily they can be taken off, but I can easily imagine modelers taking the sides off undecorated cars and substituting the etched brass sides for various conversions done by the New York Central, the Railway Express Agency, the New Haven and the Boston & Maine made by Bob Ellis for kits sold by Central Hobby Supply and by his own Concord Junction.

Will those troop sleepers/kitchen cars work well on 22" radius track?

They look like good models. Would be nice to see if they will release them in their post-war configuration, rebuilt as express boxcars for some lines (like NYC...)

-otto-

I've tested my kitchen car on 26 inch radius. I don't have two to couple together, but I can't imagine that they'd have a problem on 22 inch radius, since they're basically AAR 50 foot boxcars.

Since the body is put together the same way as the Walthers heritage-era coaches, I would imagine that it would be very easy for Walthers to issue cars with new sides. An important point is that they used the Phase II configuration, which appears to be much more popular with the railroads as baggage and MW cars. The reason is that the step wells in the Phase I cars weakened them. To my knowledge, there hasn't been a detailed accounting of exactly what cars from what phases were sold to what railroads, and how many were left unsold after the government put 2200 on sale in late 1947.

According to Railroad Prototype Cyclopedia 5, there were 1200 Phase I troop sleepers, 1000 Phase II, and 800 troop kitchen cars, which makes 3000 total, of which 2200 were sold in 1947. RP Cyc 5 shows lines of Phase II cars in storage in Massachusetts in 1948. So the whole story hasn't yet been told on all these.

I went up to my local hobby shop and got a Troop Sleeper to go with my Kitchen Car, and I coupled them up and had a loco run them around my layout's 22 inch radius curve. No problem. The diaphragms function fine, too.

Otto e-mailed me asking if I'd be willing to do a review for railroad.net, so I will be sending photos and text to him in a few days, probably Friday. These are very fine products, I think.

Shhh! John! That part was a secret!!

hehe. (We hope to have a review to share with you all soon)

-otto-

As promised...

http://railroad.net/articles/columns/re ... /index.php

Thank you to John Bruce for another excellent article!

-otto-

Walthers will be releasing several versions of the converted troop sleepers next year as baggage and express cars. Dick Yager