I happen to have a bunch of these cars -- six in mineral red and four in
chinese red (one of which is lettered for the C&S). As far as I know, the
cars themselves are very close to the Q cars. Certainly close enough that I
can't see any differences in photographs. The numbers appear to be accurate
as well. The one flaw is that, at least on the mineral red cars, they made
a mistake with the slogans. If one is looking at the brake wheel end of
most Q cars, the car would have Way of the Zephyrs on the left hand side and
Everywhere West on the right. It struck me as strange, when I got these
cars, that Stewart had reversed them, and I wondered why. It turns out that
these cars acutally had Everywhere West painted on both sides of the car.
My guess is that Stewart, going from perhaps a single photo, assumed that
Way of the Zephyrs must be on the flip-side, since the only slogan visible
was the Everywhere West. Personally, I'll keep the cars as they are and run
them around the layout with the Everywhere West facing out to the aisles. I
thought I would mention that if anyone would like the C&S car, perhaps as a
trade for something that might have run on Lines East, I'd be willing to do
a swap. I also have a Proto 2000 gondola lettered for the C&S which I'd
also be willing to trade. Contact me at d.cameron@s... if you're
interested in either or both.
Duncan Cameron
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