Hello,
Has anyone purchased and received any passenger cars from Golden Gate Depot? I'm looking for thoughts or opinions on them. Good quality? Good detail? Good runners?
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We have quite a few, in my opinion they are the best for the money. Customer service is great. I had a problem with four cars, shipped them back, the problem was analyzed and corrected. John
rattler21 posted:We have quite a few, in my opinion they are the best for the money. Customer service is great. I had a problem with four cars, shipped them back, the problem was analyzed and corrected. John
Thanks for the reply John. It's good to know customer service is good. That's a big part of any company.
Can you elaborate on "best for the money"? I'm familiar with the level of quality and detail in MTH and Lionel. Everything I've heard about Atlas indicates they are the leader in that area. Where would Golden Gate rate amongst those 3?
I have several of their heavyweight and streamlined passenger cars, from 10 years ago to new with most bought used. I have had problems with the cars coming uncoupled on longer trains. Because I don't break up the trains, I use ties to keep the couplers closed. I haven't run my newest sets yet (ToT, some PRR LWs), so those may be better.
Wanderer posted:rattler21 posted:We have quite a few, in my opinion they are the best for the money. Customer service is great. I had a problem with four cars, shipped them back, the problem was analyzed and corrected. John
Thanks for the reply John. It's good to know customer service is good. That's a big part of any company.
Can you elaborate on "best for the money"?
No manufacturer offers O SCALE passenger cars that sell for under $200 each, except GGD. They offer scale size, i.e. 21" long, passenger cars in sets and individually, in both ABS (plastic) and aluminum. All the CB&Q heavyweight passenger cars I have from them are ABS, while the complete Southern Pacific Daylight set (including articulated chair cars and 3-section articulated diner) are aluminum.
I'm familiar with the level of quality and detail in MTH and Lionel.
The GGD passenger cars exceed the quality and accuracy of both Lionel and MTH passenger equipment, but they are all scale length, i.e. 21" long.
Everything I've heard about Atlas indicates they are the leader in that area.
Yes, Atlas has FINALLY pretty much completed their California Zephyr scale length ABS (plastic) passenger set, but there have definitely been some quality/performance "issues" plus it took them about 5 years to finally complete shipments.
Where would Golden Gate rate amongst those 3?
Just my opinion but, I would rate GGD Number 1, and Atlas Number 2 for SCALE size passenger equipment. Since MTH does not offer SCALE size passenger equipment, and the latest SCALE size passenger cars from Lionel seem to be a "mixed bag" for accuracy, I will not "rate" either of them.
Agree with all of the comments above....
I will add, though, that they are not 'high volume' producers. IOW, if they announce, if you want, you'd best place an order before the cut-off date. When they're gone, they're very hard to find for a long while....unless Scott is sufficiently encouraged to make a second run.....which is very, very rare.
I would suggest subscribing to their on-line newsletter so you don't miss out on an offering.
FWIW, always...
KD
I have nine GGD 21" CP heavyweight cars. They are my personal favourites. But I also have four MTH CN cars . . . 18 inchers. They are also nice.
Besides the obvious 3 inch difference in length . . .
The GGD cars are definitely "heavyweights!!" A lot of rolling resistance! I have only one locomotive with enough oomph to pull the entire lot!
I've converted all, GGD and MTH both, to Kadee couplers. I also had to put LED lighting in but that would not be the case with new cars now.
The MTH cars are really just as nice . . . but are not scale length. They roll a little better. They also came with a reasonably generous compliment of EXTREMELY well done passengers which the GGD cars did not. (Love the studious gentleman smoking a pipe and reading a book!)
The MTH observation car also came with illuminated lanterns and a drumhead. The GGD obs. car did not have either.
IMO, the decision depends more on road and livery than manufacturer.
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I guess I am with Hot, except that I hear the Lionel plastic cars can be had for cheap.
I don't collect plastic, but I have one GGD heavyweight plastic Pullman, and it looks better than some very expensive brass I have laying around. Wish I did not have this anti- plastic thing . . .
My experience with GGD was very different I swore I would never buy another car from them after purchasing 12 Pennsy Heavyweights, 8 Long Island Heavyweights, 12 Lackawanna Heavyweights and 12 Erie Heavyweights. I have sold them all due to the poor coupler and vestibule design. Maybe the newer ones have been upgraded but all of these had problems with the vestibule detaching because of the two small plastic pins that held it in sheer off and detach All of the couplers would ride up and it was impossible to make one complete trip around the layout without them detaching somewhere Also after purchasing the original Lackawanna set I purchased the add on sleeper diner etc and they were a totally different shade of gray than the originals Here are some pics of the coupler mating. In the second and third picture you can see that the couplers are way off and moving due to the mounting on the bottom of the vestibule These pictures also show the space at the top of the vestibule where the two small plastic pins are starting to separate The space on the door of the car on the right also shows how uneven it is due to the vestibule moving. I had added Kadee couplers to the Erie cars which improved it but the vestibule pins eventually sheered too.
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I had a few with problematic couplers and one with a truck that would derail from time to time. The Pullman cars ie the twelve and eight section cars seem to be better in this department. They do look nice . The color on my Lackawanna heavyweight Pullman does not match the colors of the Kline by Lionel Lackawanna set that I have but that is different manufacturers. The vestibule issue is somewhat discouraging.
I do have one light weight car, a Union Pacific Imperial class Sleeper which was sold as a separate car. Its colors are quite close to the Lionel 18 inch cars that I have. The particular car I have has a plan shown in Kratvilles book on UP streamliners. What I noticed was that the window arrangement of the GGD offering differed slightly from the plan shown for the car. I did happen to find a plan for an Imperial class sleeper used on the Pennsylvania RR and Golden Gates car was an exact match. So the conclusion seems to be that GGD may have used a PRR plan for the Imperial class car and painted them in colors of railroads that had Imperial class cars in service. For me not a big deal since its close.
Lets not forget the Pullman Bradleys that Weaver did along with the series of Baggage and Rpos based on the PRR design. These seem to be quite arcuate models ,and well made. The PRR design Head end cars were owned and operated by other roads that Weaver offered
As for the New Lionel 21inch cars, the sleepers that they offer are the 10-6 design which was ubiquitous on postwar railroads . For the most part the decoration of the cars will be the biggest variant as the basic body styles are probably quite similar from railroad to railroad.
That is amazing for that price point.
Mikey
Larry
i wasn't saying the color of the Lackawanna ggd cars were different from another manufacturer. The cars were all ggd cars from two separate runs. The color was very different from one run to the other
I have a lot of their trains. There was some problems originally as mentioned above with the early heavy weights but they improved things on later runs. These are nicely detailed full scale length.
The Canadian is nice. Pics below. Very well detailed full scale length and accurate, highly detailed.
Weaver passenger cars were nice as well.
MTH Lionel and Williams are generic styles of cars MTH a bit shorter but they work well on layouts with tighter curves.
The Sunset cars do not roll all that well poorest on the market of them all.
Atlas seems to have some of the best rolling and more scale like offerings.
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Bluelinec4,
Did you contact Mr. Mann to see if he could rectify the problem? Yours is not the first problems I heard about the early run products. I would think he would want to help out the situation you have instead of getting negative publicity about his products. BJS
Bluelinec4,
I must admit that I have never encountered such problems with any of my earlier nor later GGD passenger cars. However, I up-graded all of my heavyweights to Kadee body mounted couplers.
bluelinec4 posted:
It appears the (1) coupler on the right is hanging at an angle and not level and (2) the wheel diameter of the car on the left is larger than what's on the car on the right.
I found I had a freight car with different diameter wheels on one truck, the Kadee was fine on the other end but the end with the smaller wheel sets was lower.
Maybe be "parallax error" on my part but I suggest checking the diameters of the wheels.
Barry
I didn't publicize negatively on the cars This is only the second time I mentioned it when somebody asked for opinions. For the money I paid for those cars I shouldn't have had to call anybody or have things changed. I sold all of them so its a moot point now
Hot Water
The one set that I installed the Kadees on was much better but they were still mounted to the bottom of the vestibule Eventually the two plastic pins on the top of the vestibule sheared off. It was a terrible design I have inspected some later run cars and I did see that the 3 rail knuckles were truch mounted instead of the vestibule mount. I did not have a chance to see if they changed the vestibule design
I have many GGD sets. Sometimes they require minor adjustments such as removing the thumbtacks from the couplers but all in all they are by far the BEST as far as scale 3 rail passenger cars are concerned. I have included a video of my most recent acquisition (budd slumbercoaches). Also, look at my YouTube Chanel for videos of many other GGD sets. Buy GGD passenger cars and you will be buying the best!
Thanks for the great thoughts everyone!!! Has anyone run any of the cars through 054 curves?
I have a complete set of the Milwaukee Road heavyweights. They are beautiful cars with excellent detail, but the detail is fragile. Several of the cars had details broken off when I received them, apparently from when they were placed in the boxes. I fixed them fairly easily, but it was kind of discouraging. The fragility is not a major problem if you have a large layout and can leave them in place, but I have a small layout and bought them intending to run them at our museum/club. However, I'm afraid to pack and unpack them because of how fragile they are. Also, I did run into some QC problems. The observation platform was not aligned properly, and it was extremely difficult to get it in place. Also, the glass in the observation platform door was omitted. GGD sent out the part, no problem, but it was the devil to install.
Regrettably, I probably won't be buying any more GGD cars and I'm thinking of selling the ones I have. If I had a big enough layout to run them at home, it wouldn't be an issue, but they just aren't very suitable for transport.
I love the GGD cars in my collection.
I have over a 100 Union Pacific passenger cars-ABS, Al, Brass-and prefer GGD. 'Nuf said.
I have about 20 GGD cars. They all run well right out of the box.
NH Joe
Ben,
I do understand. I'm not slamming you at all. You pay with hard earned money. You expect a quality product for the price you pay. That's all that you ask and expect. Unfortunately, we don't always get what we pay for. These and almost everything in America is made overseas and at places where quality control does not exist or better yet, is so lacking. Lionel, MTH, Atlas, etc. all have quality control problems. It becomes a problem with me and I'm sure most, if the manufacturer will not stand by his product and warranty it. If you buy something at the big box stores and it doesn't work correctly, you return it. No questions asked. Money returned. That's all I'm saying. Good luck in your future purchases. Hopefully, none of us gets a heartache from an expensive purchase that doesn't work right out of the box. We deserve more than that. BJS
Bob Delbridge posted:bluelinec4 posted:
It appears the (1) coupler on the right is hanging at an angle and not level and (2) the wheel diameter of the car on the left is larger than what's on the car on the right.
I found I had a freight car with different diameter wheels on one truck, the Kadee was fine on the other end but the end with the smaller wheel sets was lower.
Maybe be "parallax error" on my part but I suggest checking the diameters of the wheels.
Yes that is absolutely correct The car on the rights coupler is at an angle because it is mounted to the vestibule above it If you look at the top of the vestibule it is at the same angle because the two small plastic pins are starting to shear and the vestibule has moved The car on the right was from the first run and the car on the left was from the second run If I were a better photographer you would be able to see the difference in the colors You can see the difference in the size of the stripe. I never did compare the wheels I dont have the cars anymore so I couldn't check
86TA355SR posted:I love the GGD cars in my collection.
I have over a 100 Union Pacific passenger cars-ABS, Al, Brass-and prefer GGD. 'Nuf said.
Do you run them?
21" cars on O72, in my opinion, look silly.
illinoiscentral posted:21" cars on O72, in my opinion, look silly.
I agree!!!!!!
bluelinec4 posted:86TA355SR posted:I love the GGD cars in my collection.
I have over a 100 Union Pacific passenger cars-ABS, Al, Brass-and prefer GGD. 'Nuf said.
Do you run them?
Well, not all at once...
Karl Reichenbach posted:illinoiscentral posted:21" cars on O72, in my opinion, look silly.
I agree!!!!!!
18" cars on any radius look silly
WITZ 41 posted:
I'm looking forward to my first new set of GGD cars. 17" AND scale!
Oddball,
"It's a wasted trip baby. Nobody said nothing about locking horns with no Tigers."
Obviously I was referring to the non scale 18" cars... I have plenty of scale 18" heavyweight cars and I very much enjoy them. Also, congrats on your GGD Hairrman cars. They are going to be awesome!
I ordered one of the SP two tone gray Harriman cars too. I can live with 18 inches for my small area. This will be my first GGD car. SP had a big commuter presence on the peninsula and kept a fleet of trainmasters for that service so one car may do me just fine.
You pay with hard earned money. You expect a quality product for the price you pay. That's all that you ask and expect. Unfortunately, we don't always get what we pay for.
I think I shall disagree a bit. Consider - the price you are paying is probably about a third of the price you would pay if these products were made with the labor of your neighbors in the US. You are paying for the ability to buy stuff made in relatively low wage countries by folks who probably do not give a darn about how aggrieved you get when a small part falls off or the windows are not the correct shape.
Railroad models have come a very long way since the 1950s. The products we are getting, however flawed, are orders of magnitude better than before we started importing from cheap wage countries. The options for passenger cars in, say, 1970, were Lionel shorties and Walthers kits. There is simply no comparison - price, quality, or accuracy - with what we have now.
Obviously, Opinion.
WITZ 41 posted:I'm looking forward to my first new set of GGD cars. 17" AND scale!
You're not the only one brother! I want to order a yellow set also, but I shouldn't. That darn UP Excursion Train got in my way! Plus some 2R brass I couldn't live without....
bob2 posted:Railroad models have come a very long way since the 1950s. The products we are getting, however flawed, are orders of magnitude better than before we started importing from cheap wage countries. The options for passenger cars in, say, 1970, were Lionel shorties and Walthers kits. There is simply no comparison - price, quality, or accuracy - with what we have now.
Obviously, Opinion.
Bob,
Well said. I own some of the older models and they don't hold a candle to the great stuff produced later.
Wanderer posted:Thanks for the great thoughts everyone!!! Has anyone run any of the cars through 054 curves?
While I don't have any GGD cars yet, I do have two OK Engines 21" cars with GGD trucks on them and body-mounted Kadee couplers. They will not negotiate 054 curves but will do 072 curves fine. Not going round 054 curves may be in part due to the body-mounted Kadees, I never tried them with claw couplers mounted on the trucks.
Hi Ben
I did understand your point about the color and window band mismatch on the two runs of GGD cars . You can see it in the photos you posted.
In my case, I purchased the heavyweight Pullman to run with my K Line by Lionel cars like the DL&W did in the prototype and the color difference were significant. Makes you wonder what the prototype's colors really were back in the day.
For the poster who asked about the 054 curve operation, these cars have a wide overhang on 072 which would be even greater on 054. I placed a GGD Pullman sleeper coupled to a Weaver Pullman Bradley car on a curve that measures about 066 as it is an inner loop on my layout. The couplers seemed to be able to push to the side somewhat more than they did on this curve but I am not sure about 054.That does seem tight. They would not look to well in an 054 curve as even 072 seems tight for these cars. Here are a couple of photos illustrating the point.
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I've had good luck with my GGD cars (Super Chief set, 3 heavyweight baggage cars, 6 express reefers) but they do require some break in and good lubrication.
bluelinec4 posted:My experience with GGD was very different I swore I would never buy another car from them after purchasing 12 Pennsy Heavyweights, 8 Long Island Heavyweights, 12 Lackawanna Heavyweights and 12 Erie Heavyweights. I have sold them all due to the poor coupler and vestibule design. Maybe the newer ones have been upgraded but all of these had problems with the vestibule detaching because of the two small plastic pins that held it in sheer off and detach All of the couplers would ride up and it was impossible to make one complete trip around the layout without them detaching somewhere Also after purchasing the original Lackawanna set I purchased the add on sleeper diner etc and they were a totally different shade of gray than the originals Here are some pics of the coupler mating. In the second and third picture you can see that the couplers are way off and moving due to the mounting on the bottom of the vestibule These pictures also show the space at the top of the vestibule where the two small plastic pins are starting to separate The space on the door of the car on the right also shows how uneven it is due to the vestibule moving. I had added Kadee couplers to the Erie cars which improved it but the vestibule pins eventually sheered too.
I purchased a second-hand set of GGD Lehigh Valley (John Wilkes) heavyweights a few years back. These cars may of been produced around the same time as the ones Ben speaks of.
But I have run into the same issue of cars detaching on the club layout., as a result, they are nearly impossible to run. Does anyone offer set of truck-mounted couplers that can mount to the GGD body? I believe the couplers on my LV heavyweights were mounted to the vestibule.
Lionel16 posted:But I have run into the same issue of cars detaching on the club layout., as a result, they are nearly impossible to run. Does anyone offer set of truck-mounted couplers that can mount to the GGD body? I believe the couplers on my LV heavyweights were mounted to the vestibule.I purchased a second-hand set of GGD Lehigh Valley (John Wilkes) heavyweights a few years back. These cars may of been produced around the same time as the ones Ben speaks of.
Depending on how big the curves are on your club layout, i.e. 072 or larger, you could up-grade the cars to body mounted Kadee #805 couplers. That's what I have don, and I had no issues on our old modular layout, nor our home layout.
illinoiscentral posted:21" cars on O72, in my opinion, look silly.
Maybe, but they look great on any long straights that might be connected to the curves!
Jim
