Reviews : Walthers Carfloat Apron - Kit

Back in production, the Carfloat apron is an excellent kit, and a must-have if you are modelling east coast carfloat operations. A little background - the railroads that operated in the New York City area got together and agreed on a standard carfloat and apron design so that they could share carfloats and not have to worry about compatibility. This apron (and Walther's car float model) are of that design. Other areas used the same design, but I could not tell you where exactly, except that apparently it was not used on the west coast. The model is outstanding. There was no flash, although there were the usual sprue nubs and mold lines that needed to be scraped/filed. The parts all went together perfectly. The model is well designed in that all the pieces have guides/tabs/pins to ensure that they go together in the correct position. The kit comes with plastic rails, but I replaced those with actual rail. It is set up for code 83 rail - if you want to use code 100 it will cause issues with the supplied points. My only issue with the kit is that the instructions are written as if the modeler will not be painting the model. If you will be painting it (which you should) you will need to deviate from the instructions a bit in order to get things painted before gluing everything together, otherwise certain bits will be almost impossible to get to. If you weren't planning on modelling carfloat operations, this kit and the Walthers car float should make you want to!