Thanks for the pics. Lookin' G
D.
Just got my notification and invoice from Mr Muffin. Atlas has started shipping all the other CZ passenger cars. He expects his shipment to arrive next week and he will be sending them to his customers asap.
I will be sending MrMuffin my balance tomorrow. I expect I could see my CZ cars late next week or by the following week for sure. That will give me 4-5 days to populate them before taking them to the Club on December 3rd.
WOW! Samparfitt those are looking real nice.
Jim, I've got December 3rd marked on the calendar to see that awesome train. This set just begs to be run on a huge club layout. Can't wait to see 'em running.
Great to see that the new cars have the rollers rounded. It should make it easier to go through the Ross 072 switches. Big help.
Buzz
Forgot to post the 'high lites' on the side of the boxes:
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I'm glad to finally see 12 cars delivered together like this. In an ideal world, it's the way these cars should have been offered from the get-go. There's a lot of us here who have a few battle-scars from building our CZ trains piecemeal for the past 7 years. The first CZ product announcement was July 2009. A LOT can happen in life over 7+ years!!! 
So enjoy the opportunity to have instant CZ gratification by obtaining these 12-car sets now.
David
P.S. In case any importers are listening, I would NEVER jump on board a "buy-it-piecemeal" strategy again. N-E-V-E-R ! ! !
David,
One nice thing for those on a budget, they can afford to get them when released 'one at a time'. I also imagine it would take a long time and money for a company to research 12 cars and get them all produced at once.
The good thing about all being produced at once is consistency of quality for all cars, ie, paint color can vary greatly due to humidity, temperature, different batches of paint, etc. Plus, like you said: no waiting 
Sam
samparfitt posted:... One nice thing for those on a budget, they can afford to get them when released 'one at a time'. I also imagine it would take a long time and money for a company to research 12 cars and get them all produced at once.
...
Sam, points very well taken. It's just that the state of overseas manufacturing nowadays is too volatile on even a good day to ask consumers to "stick with" a long-term project that spans 7+ years. In that amount of time, Chinese factories go out of business... kids grow up... people's interest changes... serious health issues might creep into the picture... and worst of all, some folks may no longer be with us anymore. None of us is getting younger anymore. 
Is it expensive to offer all 12 cars at once? Absolutely. But I think the advantages outweigh the negatives, IMHO. 
Enjoy those new CZ sets, folks!!! They look wonderful!!!
David
Are these sets all sold out?
Thanks,
Ben
A few questions about the 16 section sleeper, please. If these questions have been answered on the Forum before, my apologies; my 'searches" didn't find them.
1) As is well known, these cars were converted to coaches in the 1963-64 time frame.
a) Is it correct to say that the window arrangement was not changed at this time, despite the apparent poor window-vs-seat spacing ?
b) If the windows were unaltered, and the names retained, what exterior changes if any would be necessary to reflect these cars circa 1967-68 in general pool service on the Q, other than possibly changing the CZ letterboard ? ?
I was asked the above question by a friend; the following is just out of curiousity:
2) Did Atlas change the interiors to coach for the Amtrak versions ?
Best regards, SZ
I was willing to put up with buying the cars two at a time. I would not have been able to buy the cars in one shot. I am glad that Atlas is making these outstanding cars available again.
Dick
DaveJfr0 posted:Jerry Kimble. Please email me (in my profile)- have a question for you. Been having trouble reaching you; probably because of that spam filter.
Thanks.
Dave - he's been on vacation. He's back later this week. You might try reaching him again....
I still have two rail and three rail sets left - Atlas is sold out......
Steve............
I got my 12 Western Pacific CZ cars from Mr. Muffin last Friday. I hope that Eric post a video soon showing us how to add peeps to the dome cars. Please start with the dome/orbs since that will probably be the most difficult.
Thanks
FYI,
My zephyr plaque came in the mail.
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My 12 car order of CZ cars arrived this week. While these are beautiful cars I have found three of mine to be defective. One has a paint blemish and an upside down name plate. Another car is causing my transformer circuit breaker to pop. A third car has no working lights. Atlas responded to my call quickly and is going to take the faulty cars back for repair or replacement. I love the 9 cars that are in good shape. The 3 problem cars are disappointing for a high end product from Atlas. Hopefully these can be corrected easily.
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VISTADOMESCOTT - glad to hear they are taking care of you. I had a different experience. I was probably one of the first to receive the 12-car set from Atlas and 10 of 12 cars had defects, ranging from small slices and nicks in the shells, to window scrapes, to vestibules and other small parts falling off, to two warped roofs. I didn't want to post without first contacting Atlas and seeing how they resolved. In the past, they've taken care of me and I've always been glad to post kudos about this. This time, they said they would come up with a win-win plan and sent me return postage stickers, which was what I expected and very nice.
After almost 2 weeks, they emailed me to say they agreed the cars have defects and said they will issue me a full refund. So, that's great - on one hand. On the other, it would have been nice if they just sent me non-defective replacement cars or at least discussed it with me, given I didn't preorder and pay for this set as a Christmas gift for my twin sons just to now be empty-handed.
So I guess if I want to still follow through on this Christmas present, I'd need to locate a dealer that has even a 4 car (non-defective) set at a reasonable price...
I just spent the last 2 hours unpacking, examining and testing my 12-car Western Pacific CZ cars. I am very pleased to report that all of the badging is correct and right-side up. All cars roll freely and light-up off the track voltage. One minor problem on the diner a coupler was broken. Not a problem since I will be replacing all couplers with Kadees. The lights flickered a bit on the dome/obs car. Probably a loose wire wire, not a show stopper. When I was finished a notices a small plastic piece that appears to have broken off the under carriage of one of the cars. I guessing that I could spend 5-6 hours trying to figure out which car it came from, but it is probably not worth the effort.
All-in-all I must say that I am extremely satisfied with this set. It was worth the $$$ and meets Atlas measure for quality and value. Hats off to the good people at Atlas.
The California Zephyr sets are a fine tribute to Jim Weaver and I am certain that he is smiling down on his Atlas family with much pride and gratitude.
Thanks Jim.
Considering Atlas announced this set in Mar and delivered in Nov its not surprising that some sets had issues, quality control would have been harder to monitor in a manufacturing time frame that was much shorter than we have come to expect from Atlas,hopefully these issues are minimal . I have purchased Atlas O from the first products offered and have never experienced a problem, that being said hopefully they will actually make the Tman GE 8-40CW. I still have the original Oct 2009 product announcement with a May 2010 arrival date.just saying!
Hi All,
The cars really do look great. I hope they don't look too out of place East of the Mississippi.
Two questions:
1. What are you going to use to lubricate the axles?
2. Can the lights be lit with track power if you use DCC?
Thanks,
Ed
Update on my CZ cars. I decided to return the entire set of 12 cars to my dealer for a refund. The sickening feeling of spending $1800 on these and having multiple problems swayed me to do this instead of returning the defective cars to Atlas.
I later decided that I really wanted at least the "Silver Bronco" dome because I am a volunteer with CVSR who operates the real Silver Bronco car. I found this car indivudually and it turned out to be perfect. A few days later I bought 5 Amtrak cars requesting that the dealer look them over carefully. They arrived and I found one paint scratch on the Observation car but no other paint or decoration issues. Then upon track testing the Amtrak cars one car proved to have the shorting out issue. Also 3 detail parts fell off while running these cars the first few laps. One piece from a coupler lay over the rail as pictured causing the car to jump the track as the part fell onto the rail. I contacted Atlas again and wanted to send the shorted car back. I asked if Atlas could provide some touch up paint for the one scratch but I was informed they do not have any extra paint here in the USA and such would be unavailable. I suggest that they should have some avaliable given that some of us are finding paint scratches etc. The loose detail parts I will glue on myself, not a big deal. Atlas immediately authorized return of the car with electrical issues for repair. I will try to touch up the scratch when I find a close paint match.
I am glad to have a few of these beautiful cars, but really glad I do not have more invested in all 12 cars. I fear the electrical short problem is something that could surface on other cars. Hopefully not though. But I am very skiddish about having excessive investment in potentially faulty trains. I have not yet recovered from my MTH TurboTrain nightmares.
All other Atlas products I own have been flawless. Not sure if they changed factories in China, or simply didnt oversee the production well enough? I know that Rapido HO train company visits its factory often and owner Jason Schron speaks Chinese fluently. Not knowing all factors I am not comparing Atlas' situation to Rapido. However, it may be worth it for Atlas to have closer watch on the production facility.
Finally, Atlas still gets my support simply because they actually respond and take care of customers. They are to be commended for this and their long track record of fine products.
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Here are some overall pictures of the Amtrak cars
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The Silver Bronco becomes a private car spotted on the spur for the busy Lumber and woodworks business on my layout.
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I am sorry to hear that some of these Atlas CZ cars have defects. At the price point Atlas is selling these cars at $150-170 a piece that's a bargain in my opinion for a 2 or 3 rail scale large passenger car.
My situation is that Atlas sent me a set with 10 defective cars and then replaced it with a set that has 7 defective cars, although this second set is like night and day better than the first set. On the second set, six have the floors inserted so deeply into the shells on one or both sides, the cars ride very low and some coupler mechanisms can't move freely because they scrape against the bottom of the end-of-car diaphragms. And the other issue is that one other car keeps shorting everything out. See my review thread:
https://ogrforum.com/t...ia-zephyr-set-review
I've been very patient and understanding, but Atlas has told me to either pay return shipping for the repairs (despite the defects being manufacturing issues) or just return the set. So if I want to keep the set, which was a Christmas gift for my sons, but not pay this cost which Atlas pays for others with similar issues, it seems I have a problem.
I'm very much a novice - but I've added a couple photos that illustrate the "low rider" problem. I think if you compare one photo to the other, you can see how one side of the floor is more deeply inserted up into the shell than the other side. You can see the difference in the amount of plastic that is visible between the floor and that horizontal portion of the rectangular recessed area of the shell wall on the wall area by the wheel.
It's probably a relatively easy fix but I'm not inclined to touch cars this expensive with no experience in this stuff. Really hoping people are still out on vacation and that I'll hear some positive news from Atlas soon. Really hope they reconsider and take responsibility for this and absorb 2-way shipping to get these cars repaired.
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I get the impression that Atlas rushed these into production so that they could be delivered before Christmas. Any word on the F3's?
I wonder if anybody that ordered 2-rail California Zephyr sets is experiencing the same defects.
catnap posted:I get the impression that Atlas rushed these into production so that they could be delivered before Christmas. Any word on the F3's?
I wonder if anybody that ordered 2-rail California Zephyr sets is experiencing the same defects.
From a Mar announcement to a Dec delivery was a remarkable mfg feat for a company not known in recent years for on schedule performance so some of the issues posted by customers are not suprising, as for the F3s logically it would seem they should follow the F7s, The Atlas rep recently stated that the Tman GE 8-40CW was next to go into production however that being said the F3s may have already started being built [or not] just speculating. JMO
I just did a quick inspection of my 12-packs of zephyr cars when they arrived, but due to the "doom and gloom" posts on this thread and others, I figured I better take a closer look. So I unpacked all 12 of my D&RGW cars and could not find any blemish at all, and only one small hose detail piece came loose in shipment.
Then I plopped down a bunch of Atlas 2-rail track, hooked up my NCE gizmos, and added a Weaver Pacific for locomotion (don't judge me for my motive power, I have the F3s on order!). The cars navigated my 49.5-inch radius curves no problem. No flicker. No shorts. The only temporary issue I had was uncoupling... You see, the transition from tile to carpet is not a smooth one, and that combined with sectional track and 21-inch cars, there was enough dip for couplers to displace vertically enough to become uncoupled. Mind you all of these cars coupled and stayed coupled perfectly on level track. After adding a sock under one transition point (carpet to tile) and a few pieces of paper under another transition point (carpet to tile) they ran lap after lap after lap without a hitch.
The size and weight of these cars is quite impressive. Even after hooking up only the first 4 cars I was like "wow, this is some train!" And after all 12 were together as intended, OMG what a beautiful sight. I've GOT to get these to a completed 2-rail layout to really see them shine! Invitations anyone?
Here's a video of the consist.
With all the 'commotion' about cars, I got all twelve 3R cars out and checked them and they are great with no paint imperfections or broken parts. Almost forgot, also went online and did the warranty.
sam
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Jay, thanks for the video. The only suggestion I can make is to put some fannies in the seats. That will take your CZ from a "Ghost Train" to a " Revenue Train".
I ordered a couple sets of these. Will take awhile to get here, from China (or where ever!).
samparfitt posted:I ordered a couple sets of these. Will take awhile to get here, from China (or where ever!).
Thanks for the link- cheap 3.5cm tall looks close to O.
Like my pilots for my RC airplanes, I usually like to have them on the smaller size as they always seem to fit in the spaces, better.
FYI,
My people ordered from China just arrived. Surprised at how fast, ordered Dec 26 so only about 12 days for today Jan 6.
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The video for this trip was shot before Atlas announced the complete CZ sets. In fact, the journey starts out without the entire 12 car consist in place, but ends well in Oakland. Since then, I've switched to batteries for lighting because of the even, constant low light glow and elimination of some shorting issues. Motive power varies throughout the trip and encompasses Lionel, MTH, and Atlas. A bit too long, but some unanticipated but intended delays along the way.
The video is permanently located on railsforfun.com , and is found under The Woodshed Railroad videos. It is served by vimeo without commercials.
Bill,
Great video... thanks for posting.
FYI,
The previous post on passenger figures, I just checked the contents and there are only 10 seated figures in both bags. I've ordered from another posting that are all seated figures.
I wanted to update: I now have 7 perfect CZ cars, Atlas quickly returned the faulty Silver Lounge and it runs fine. Atlas from my experience is responsive.
Are these the very expensive ones? Like over $2,000 for a proper Zypher?
