Product Review: Walthers Ethanol Car

I recently bought my first tank car, a Walthers Platinum Line model of a Trinity 30,145 gallon tank car, commonly marketed as an ethanol car because that is one of the most common products these cars carry.  However, they are not strictly for ethanol use, and can be seen all over the country carrying all sorts of different chemicals.  I don't really know enough about tank cars and what they carry to say much more than that, so instead I'll review the car.  The road number that I bought is no longer available, but the model hasn't changed since then.

Appearance:
The car features an accurate paint scheme with clean paint and crisp lines.  All the tiny lettering can be read.  The model includes the reporting mark and number on the top of the car at the B end, just like the real thing.  The walkways appear to be etched metal and are see-through.  The bolt details on the roof hatch and the weld lines on the car body are present.  The brake rigging and other underbody details are all present.  The car has yellow conspicuity markings.

Operation:
The car comes with Proto-Max knuckle couplers and metal wheels.  The car weighs in at 4.41 ounces, a bit shy of the NMRA recommended 4.875 ounces.  I'm not sure how you could add weight to a tank car, but if you are running a unit train of these cars and they are all the same weight, then it shouldn't be a problem.

There is one letdown with this car.  All tank cars have placards that tell you what chemical is inside the car.  You may have seen these on chemical trucks on the road as well.  They are small, diamond shaped, and they have a number and a color.  The number corresponds to a certain chemical, and the color refers to how hazardous it is.  It also usually has a picture or two describing why the chemical is hazardous.  On the model, these placards are there and they are blank.  That is good, but the model doesn't come with any decals to put on the placard.  Highball Graphics has a decal set with three different placards available, but there are more chemicals than that.  I may be blowing this out of proportion a bit, but I just don't like the idea of delivering empty tank cars to the factories on my layout!

Except for the placards, I like this model.  I would buy more in the future to build up my tank car fleet.  I have several industries in mind that need tank cars, and so far this one car represents my entire tank car fleet.

Manufacturer: Walthers
Price: $39.98
Available Road Names: North American Ethanol (NAEX), Global Ethanol (TILX), Renewable Products Marketing Group (NATX), Abengoa Bioenergy (GATX), Midwest Ethanol Transport (MWTX), Trinity Industries Leasing (TILX), Undecorated