I was considering buying a set of the newly released Amtrak bi-level commuter cars. Upon seeing these at a train shop, the Amtrak lettering on these cars was not painted correctly. Are all of these sets like this? The "A" did not get full paint application. All cars in the set I inspected had the poorly painted "A"
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Wow!! You are very lucky to get the only collectible set with an imperfect "A". The prices on it should go through the roof. I am sure that all of the others have perfect "As".
NH Joe
Wow NH Joe...lighten up, the dude just asked a question.......
That looks like someone forgot to make the font Bold, so it stamped it regular weight, with the rest of it in bold.
MTH still has a few of these in stock, but I won't buy these as they look in these pics.
Can you say made in China.....
M-m-m-trak.
Did Taylor quit?
Here's an idea for these misprinted cars. Heavy weathering! 
Just amazing that stuff like that gets shipped out to dealers and customers. Why wouldn't a dealer send that back or refuse it upon delivery? Bizarre.
VistaDomeScott posted:I was considering buying a set of the newly released Amtrak bi-level commuter cars. Upon seeing these at a train shop, the Amtrak lettering on these cars was not painted correctly. Are all of these sets like this? The "A" did not get full paint application. All cars in the set I inspected had the poorly painted "A"
Thank you so very much for the "heads-up" on this product. It gives prospective buyers something to check on - BEFORE PURCHASE! Overlook New Haven Joe's "smart comment" - you did good guy!
Surfliner,
Glad this saved you some trouble in advance! I almost pre-ordered these. I don't sweat the "smart comment," just prefer to pass along good info so we can spend our money on the correctly made items. I lucked out this time and got a perfect VIA Rail train with F40's, and fortunately dodged this Amtrak set paint screwup.
Has anyone seen a set of these without this paint error? I would buy a properly painted set if confirmed all cars are correct.
It looks like whomever did the production art didn't create outlines for the "A." Instead it defaulted to a font that was probably unavailable at the China factory.
Knowing how these things work, they're likely all like that.
TRW
bigtruckpete posted:Just amazing that stuff like that gets shipped out to dealers and customers. Why wouldn't a dealer send that back or refuse it upon delivery? Bizarre.
Right on! The local dealer I used to go to said MTH wont take these misprints back.
Even more amazing is the refusal to own up to errors and make efforts to prevent customers from wasting hard earned money. I am done wasting money on products improperly made. Thus, NO more preorders. Maybe NO more orders period.
Junk!
That weird "A" reminds me of this font:
Either way, someone definitely messed up.
Fred
VistaDomeScott posted:
Right on! The local dealer I used to go to said MTH wont take these misprints back.
ouch!!!
I never buy anything until I see it first. Pre-orders are a roll of the dice.
Amtrak did have bilevels but were they not ex CNW cars used for inter city service on that road? Seems like Amtrak used a F unit from CNW with them because they already had HEP. Stayed near Chicagoland.
Dominic,
They sure did. And my photo of a rusting one above sits in a railcar restoration shop in Bellevue OH (not at the museum). I rode on one of these when Amtrak ran them to Valparaiso from Chicago.
They did NOT, however, have screwed up lettering on every car the way MTH sells them.
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