Golden Gate Depot Harriman 2.0 Review - (Part 1) Out-Of-The-Box

I know a number of people have received their new Golden Gate Depot Harriman V2.0 cars, but I'm turning this blog post out as soon as I receive my cars.

Fleet of new Golden Gate Depot Harriman 80ft cars, known as V2.0.

We've been waiting several years for the new Golden Gate Depot Harriman V2.0 project, but they're here!  This is my 'out-of-the-box' review of the models as I've received them from Golden Gate Depot and 3rd & Townsend Models.  I'm breaking my review down into several categories: basic mechanical and construction common to all the versions of the cars and then a more detailed review of each car type.

Expectations?

The GGD boxes come in a plastic bag to protect them.

My hope going in to the box that arrived from Golden Gate Models is that these cars will pass my mechanical and finish standards above 90%.  I already have some managed expectations based on previous GGD pre-production models and choices made to bring these cars to the injection-molded "R-T-R" HO-Market.  My personal requirements for body-mounted couplers and non-solid diaphragms will have to be set aside, as these are things I'm used to doing on basically all HO-scale models out there for the last 20-25 years.

First Impressions

The exterior of the GGD box.

While I understand the annoyance of having the opening in the box too large, and the tendency for the edges of the opening to catch and tear, or the plastic window material to fall out.  It would be nice if the opening in the box was about twice as tall and about 50% longer, so I could tell what car was inside the box without looking at the box-end.

The GGD cars all come wrapped in plastic and then clam-shelled inside a formed plastic box.

Generally, opening the boxes the cars look pretty good.  The first box I opened was a Dark Olive Green (DOG) Diner, as this is probably the one SP HW passenger car I've been waiting for the longest in my time in the hobby.  At first glance, the DOG is close to my Star Brand or Tru-Color painted models.  The Deluxe (fake) Gold lettering is fairly close to the Thin Film decals that I've used on the rest of my SP fleet.  

I like that the car is enclosed in the formed plastic 'snap-shell' and also wrapped completely with non-stick plastic sheet to protect the paint from any scuffing or damage.

DOG Comparison with Star Brand Paint

I need to post another photo of this in natural sunlight or with my layout's colored lighting.  The 'shop' lights are bright but may not be proper color mi of the light.

Comparison of GGD's SP Dark Olive Green vs Star Brand's DOG color.  

Here's my comparison between the GGD Dark Olive Green (Diner) and a car that is painted with Star Brand paint (SP 2810).  In person I think it's close enough.  My camera and post-processing of the image makes the color difference look more than it appears in person.

Daylight Color Comparison

Comparison of the Daylight colors of a MTH Daylight Chair Car (left) and the GGD Diner (right).

To my eye, the GGD cars hit the Daylight Red and Orange very well.  The two 'early era' Daylight cars (Diner SP 10115 and Lounge SP 2929) will fit in very nicely with my San Joaquin Daylight consist!

The 1946-1954 Daylight cars have good color and Aluminum (metalic) lettering, but 

There are some minor finishing issues

Two-Tone Gray Color Comparison

SP 10506 TTG (left) and Walthers TTG 6-6-4 (right) comparing colors.

The Walthers TTG car that I'm using is probably not actually exactly SP Dark and Light Lark Gray, but the Pullman standard color for their "Western TTG".  I think this is probably close enough, and the colors look good on the GGD TTG colors.

I will also note that the Hamburger-Grill should have Light Lettering Gray color for it's stripes and lettering, as 1954's General Scheme change to TTG instituted this change..  Thus, a pre-1954 TTG Diner would have Aluminum-Bronze (metallic) stripes and lettering, such as the 1942-1946 TTG painted cars assigned to Lark, Golden State, Overland Limited, etc.

72-IC-1/2 "Sub" (SF-SJ Commute Cars 1924-1980s, & Tourist RR's)

SP 2156, 72-IC-1/2 in 3/4 view.

A friend of mine ordered three of the TTG "Subs" and a single SP Dark Olive Green car, so these are the versions that I'll be reviewing here.  The three US Military recruiting scheme cars are quite impressive in the photos I've seen and I would love to get to see a fleet of these cars running on a 3rd & Townsend St. Commute layout sometime, but that's not what I'm able to model.

SP 2097 in TTG, 72-IC-1/2, circa 1954-1958.

There are only a few minor notes I have.  Mostly that the restroom windows aren't 'sanded', this can easily be fixed with the frosted 3M ScotchTape applied to the inside of the windows.  There's also the minor assembly issue where these cars didn't have 'indexed' assembly tabs or screw positions, so the underframes seem to have been installed backwards from the body, resulting in the generator being on the wrong end of the car... Oops.  Easily fixed with a small Phillips screw driver and 5-10 minutes.

72-IC-1/2 Underframe

All of these cars are based on the 72-IC-1/2 body and tooling, so it follows that I start by looking at these cars first.

SP 2097, TTG version of the 72-IC-1/2

Here's the box for one of the TTG 'Subs'.

Close-up of GGD's 4-wheel truck on the 72-IC-1/2 "Sub"

Unfortunately, the painting and lettering department in China seems to have missed the memo that the stripes and lettering on the TTG cars should be SP Lettering Gray starting in 1954, which is when the general scheme switched to TTG, not the previous 'Aluminum-Bronze'.  The GGD TTG cars have metalic lettering.  Some modelers might not care or notice this, some more prototypical modelers might need to look into fixing this.  I'll probably address options to do so in future blog posts.

DOG 'Sub"

SP 2156 Box End for SP Dark Olive Green 'Sub'.

SP 2156's side view.

The Dark Olive Green version of the 'Sub' looks pretty good.  I'm thinking the car reporting marks are a little large, but I need to double check that.

77-D-3/4 Diner (Modernized 1937+)

I ordered several paint schemes of the GGD 77-D-3/4 Diner, including; Dark Olive Green (SP, post-1946), Daylight (Diner, 1947 version) and TTG, which is correct for some of the Diners assigned to the Owl in 1954+.

DOG Diner, SP 10002, 72-D-3 Wait --- What!?

Left side of 77-D-3/4 in SP Dark Olive Green scheme for post-1946 era.

The first issue that I noticed is that both the SP DOG version at least have been numbered into the wrong number series for the 77-D-3/4 prototypes.  I don't know how that could have happened, as the SP roster for these cars is published in the SPH&TS Passenger Car book Vol.4.  I suspect that there must have been some prior data pack from GGD's original plan to do the 72-D-3 class (SP 10000-10005 series) cars, which is the number series that these cars have been lettered for, SP 10002 and 10004.

Cropped version from SP Diners 1937-1960 - Combined Timeline Graphic Including Repaints and Rebuilds

This is only an 'annoyance' level issue for me.  It is simple to fix with some Thin Film-160 decals after taking off the lettering with my fiber-glass brush.  I'm not going into any depth here on this process, but I'll do a future blog post detailing the fixes and upgrades I do on the GGD Diners.

End-view of the 77-D-3/4 Dining and Hamburger-Grill box.

It doesn't seem that GGD differentiated on the box-end this time between the cars lettered as Diners and those as Hamburger-Grills.  

Dining-end 3/4 view of SP 10002's kitchen side.

My first impressions are that the car looks very good overall, with a couple issues which I'll get into shortly.

Kitchen-end of SP 10002's aisle side.

First I want to say that I am extactic over the work on the roof with all the air-conditioning details, vents, stacks, conduits, access hatches, etc!

SP 10002 Diner, left side.

On the kitchen-side of the car, another issue is that for my era, the three left lower windows should be painted over with body color.  I'll probably be sure to fill in the edge of the glass in those windows before I do the touch-up paint work.

Interior photo of Kitchen in the Santa Fe LW Diner at CSRM, Jason Hill photo.

Also the interior kitchen section should be Stainless Steel colored, not red or whatever color because the entire kitchen was stainless steel for sanitation and cleanliness.  The floor should be the wooden pallet "duckboard" sections.

SP 10002 Diner, right side.

On the Aisle-side, the car looks pretty good, but I can't really get over the bright red interior wall color on the aisle.  Thankfully Bob Zenk has shared his full set of all four interior drift-panel cards for the SP's interior schemes.  I'll be covering repainting these interior walls in future blog posts.  Also installing the safety-bars along the aisle windows on all these cars.

Detail of the 6-wheel truck under the 77-D-3/4 Diner.

Detailed view of the 6-wheel trucks, stirrup steps, and car-side.  These generally look very good.  Some cars had the small window at the dining-end covered over by my modeling era.  Again, this is something that's easier to cover over than to try to put into the car if it wasn't there.  So I'm happy with their tooling choice here.  I may choose to do one of my cars that has this plated over, just to show how to do it.

Diner underframe.

As these cars have an underframe that is based on the 72-IC "Sub" model, with some extra boxes added.  Several parts will have to be added if you want to make the model photo-accurate for specific prototypes.

Kitchen-end of SP 10002's underframe, truck, and coupler, out of the box.

Here's the close-up of the kitchen end of the diner.  The coupler boxes are a bit of a problem, there's no 'carrying iron/yoke' to support the coupler from sagging or flexing downward.  I will be body-mounting my coupler boxes, so all of this factory system will be removed on my finished cars.

I am considering ways that this system could be fixed to keep it from sagging, and so far after a few days looking at the cars - I've not come up with any brilliant ideas.

Diner roof details, kitchen to the left.

I like all the details of the roof.

High angle view of the tables inside SP 10002

I like that the tables are thicker than the MTH Daylight Triple-Unit Diner-Coffee Shop car, which makes it look like the tables actually have table cloths over them.

Lighting on the Diner

Left side of SP 10002 with lighting.

The lit car does look weird with the red kitchen.  Did they freshly slaughter the burgers in there?  One of the changes on the diners that I will make is that the Kitchens were stainless steel, so I'll be painting the interiors in future blog posts.

Right side of SP 10002 with lighting.  The aisle doesn't catch much light over the interior partition.

The lighting is fairly bright, but when I have my layout room partly lit with a 500 lumin LED light bar, which points the light up to bounce off the ceiling, sitting right above where the car is, gives good partial lighting enough to see the car and see the lighting inside.  When I have the room fully lit for photography, the interior lights are not really visible. 

Left side of SP 10002 with lighting, high angle.

One issue that the cars do have is that the windows are pocketed from the back side.  This creates prisms inside the window that cause the edges of the windows where the corners and edges catch the LED light and reflect the light out in unnatural ways.  Think of each window as a cookie-pan with the 'underside' of the pan being to the exterior of the car.

Many people will probably replace the windows with 0.010" styrene or thin microscope glass.  Another option is to laser-cut new windows in acrylic.

Daylight Diner (SP 10115)

The choice of SP 10115 for the Daylight Diner is a pretty good one.  The car was painted into Daylight scheme in Feb or March 1947, probably as the protection car for the burned 10400 (LW Coffee Shop-Diner) from the Kingsburg wreck on Feb 2, 1947, which I cover below for the SP 2929 in more depth.  The SP 10115 remained in Daylight colors until it was was converted to Hamburger-Grill 10512 in May, 1955, out-shopped into Yellow-scheme for use on the Overland Route.

SP 10115 left side (kitchen side)

I don't have good photos for exactly what the SP 10115 should look like, outside of the car's general upgrades with Air Conditioning typical of the 77-D-3/4s around 1937-1939.  this would have included the enlarged windows in the dining area and the aisle.  The kitchen windows may have stayed in their 1940 arrangement (what GGD modeled them as with the horizontal bar), eventually most of the SP diners had the lower kitchen (left three windows) plated or painted over with the body color by the late 1940s and early 1950s.

SP 10115 right side (aisle side)

I think the Daylight logo is a little high on the carside, usually a bit lower, with the reporting marks "SP 10115" just above the rivets.  This change was probably done because the factory seems to have some issues getting good painting and pad printing over the riveted areas of the cars.

Daylight protection diner, SP 10115, regularly used on the San Joaquin Daylight during the 1946-1950 era.

The "DINER" on the letterboards should be centered on the letterboard stripe.  Some of the pad prints seem to be a bit off vertically.

Aisle side and end of SP 10115 in Daylight colors.

Overall, this is probably still a better starting point than having to paint a Daylight scheme car from scratch, so I'll be working with what I have here as I do my upgrades in future blog posts.

Two-Tone Gray Diner/Hamburger Grill (SP 10506)

SP 10506 Hamburger-Grill car, circa May, 1955.

The SP 10100 was painted into TTG in August 1942, for service on the Golden State Limited.  The car remained in TTG until January 1955 when it was reconfigured into Hamburger-Grill SP 10506.  The car was retired in Feb, 1960.

SP 10506, Hamburger-Grill in TTG scheme's box-end.

There's no real indication that this model is a TTG Hamburger-Grill.  I ordered the TTG Diner version, so I think GGD would serve themselves much better in the shipping department by more clearly writing on the end of the box what is in the box like all other manufacturers do in HO-scale to varying levels of detail regarding prototype era, etc.

SP 10506 Hamburger-Grill, left side.

The standard issue of metalic TTG striping and lettering for post-1954 applies to this car, as on the TTG 72-IC-1/2 above, so I won't go into that anymore here.

The Hamburger-Grill cars have a unique interior arrangement where they removed much of the kitchen section and installed "cafeteria" or "deli" style counter with glass cover and one server handling the food from the remaining 'kitchen/pantry' space out to the serving area.  Seating was also reduced and bare table-tops typical of 'coffee shop' style dining took over.

SP 10506 Hamburger-Grill, right side.

The Hamburger-Grill cars have a unique interior arrangement where they removed much of the kitchen section and installed "cafeteria" or "deli" style counter with glass cover and one server handling the food from the remaining 'kitchen/pantry' space out to the serving area.  Seating was also reduced and bare table-tops typical of 'coffee shop' style dining took over.

I may at some point kitbash this Hamburger-Grill to have the proper interior, but that is more 1955 era, which is a couple years after my regular modeling era.

75-CS Lounge (Modernized 1937+)

SP 2938's left side.

I ordered the 75-CS Lounge in Dark Olive Green and one in Daylight, for the 1947-1949 San Joaquin Daylight "protection" consist, while the regular 1937 Tavern was being repaired after the train hit the gasoline truck in early 1947.

SP 2938 (DOG 75-CS)

I ordered two DOG lounges, for my Owl and West Coast consists, so I'll be renumber at least one to another number for the second assignment.

75-CS roof-top air-conditioning details

Again with the GGD's air-conditioned cars, I'm really enjoying the roof details, vets, hatches, conduit and the antenna, which seems to be brass with brass stanchions.

SP 2938's right side with lighting.

The rooftop Radio Antenna is held my engineering plastic stanchions, I believe.  They seems more robust than others that I have experience with, such as MTH's original plastic stanchions, which were taller, but could also be very easily damaged.

Pre-production view of a GGD 75-CS showing how the roof antenna was done.

Also the funky maroon-red interior color is not in the SP's drift cards for car interiors.  So like the Diners, these Lounges will need to have interior painting work done.

SP 2938's left side with lighting.

The 75-CS cars seem to catch the prism window problem more than some of the other cars, probably due to the extra vertical bars between the narrower windows.

75-CS roof detail

I'll probably shoot some charcoal gray to highlight the details on the roofs of these cars and make them 'pop' a bit more.  Even with photo adjusting, it's hard to get the roof detail to show when it's full black color on the cars. - There's a reason the prototype builders painted freight cars and engines in gray and even light gray so they could photograph the details in the shadows!

75-CS SP Dark Olive Green box-end, SP 2938.

Just for completeness, here's the box-end for the Lounge.  I believe some of the SP Lines cars were offered in the 'San Francisco Overland' scheme, from when they're rebuilt and air-conditioned.  Obviously, that scheme is a bit too old for me, so I don't have that version to review.  A friend is expecting to get the SP 2933, which is painted in the red and silver Golden State scheme, so I'll put in some photos from him when he sends them to me.

SP 2929 (Daylight 75-CS)

3/4 view of the lounge-end of the SP 2929 in Daylight colors, circa 1947-1949.

While we don't have a prototype photo of this car, the car card says it was painted this way in 1947.  I believe from my research that this was an emergency paint job applied to the next 75-CS coming out of Sacramento Shops after the Kingsburg wreck of the San Joaquin Daylight in Feb'47, which hit a gasoline truck at 45 miles an hour. 

Results of the fire damage to aisle-side of SP 10311 (Coffee Shop-Tavern) on Feb 2, 1947.  Mark McGowan collection, SP photograph.

The resulting explosion, spray of gasoline onto the cars, and fire when the train stopped heavily damaged multiple specialized food service and lounge cars in the train.

Results of the fire damage to bar-side of SP 10311 (Coffee Shop-Tavern) on Feb 2, 1947.  Mark McGowan collection, SP photograph.

The SP 2929 was repainted back to DOG scheme by 1/49 to be photographed at LA's Mission Coachyard with some light dusty weathering on the sides.  So my belief is that the 2929 remained in Daylight until at least August, 1948 to protect the SP 10311, which was still being repaired.  Then at it's next shopping at Sacramento, the 2929 was repainted back to general service DOG scheme, and then photographed a couple months later in January, 1949.  So this gives us about a year and a half to run this car in our San Joaquin Daylight's protection consist.  The SP 2929 was then renumbered as T&NO 896 in May, 1952 and operated there for three years until retirement in 5/55, and eventual scrapping in 12/58.

Left side of the SP 2929 in the striking Daylight colors.

The GGD rendition of the Daylight scheme looks pretty good.  There's no 1/4" black pin-striping around the edges of the lettering, but that's hard to do even on decal artwork.

Right side of SP 2929 in Daylight colors.

I'll be putting some window shades in this car, the aluminum reflective type and my other usual upgrades, but it looks like a solid starting point for me.

Vestibule-end of the SP 2929 in Daylight.

The roof line of these cars really is interesting with the large box vents and intakes for the A/C systems.  Also highlighted in this photo is the drip-rail above the door.  Something we've missed on the generic roofs of the old MDC/Roundhouse cars.

One minor thing, I'm not sure if the "LOUNGE" was applied over the door, I would think the standard was just inboard of the door on the letterboard.  Again, no photo of this car in this scheme that I know of exists, so at least there's plausible deniability that it is wrong.

72-C-1 Chair Car/Coach (Pre-1937 A/C)

I know this model is the as-built version from 1924, not my desired air-conditioned version.  So I picked this model up mostly to see what is involved in converting the GGD model into an A/C version of these cars.

(Unfortunately, I'm waiting for my 72-C-1 to be delivered, as I received the SP DOG 72-IC "Sub" instead... Oops!  I'll edit this blog post and fill in this section when the car arrives.)

72-O-1 Observation-Lounge (As-Built 1913)

While I don't need this pre-1924 car for any of my layout or modeling eras, I wanted to see how GGD did the transom windows on this car, for the very early 1910s-1920s era.  I've ordered it as the Oregon - Washington RR & Navigation Co.'s one car in this class.  

Right side of O-WRR&N 1590.

It seems that I was one of only three people that ordered this particular paint scheme, which is historically the longest lived of the seven prototype 72-O-1s built.  This one was for the UP's subsidiary, eventually being turned into a coach for the wartime effort in WWII.

Detail view of the left side of O-WRR&N 1590's smoking room.

This is the view into the smoking room from the left side of the car.  Small tables and seating make up most of the interior.  Both of these views are of the lit car.  Also notice the exquisite photo-etched transom window detailing of the 'glass'.  This is an interesting approach that GGD took on modeling this feature of the 1890-1920s style of passenger cars.

Detail view of the right side of O-WRR&N 1590's aisle side of smoking room.with interior wall windows!

One of the interesting things that pushed me to pick up the 72-O-1 to look at the rather unique internal windows in the wall between the aisle and the smoking room, allowing the passengers to see out the windows, across the aisle!  I'm not sure if I've seen this on any other observation type cars.

Straight side view of the left side of the smoking room in the car.

These windows tend to pick up the prism effect with the lighting more than some of the other cars.  With the etchings in the transoms, this car might be harder to replace the windows on, but I'll see what I can do and of course will take more pictures for future blog articles on how to adjust this.

Left side of the Observation-Lounge area at the rear of the car.

In my alternate reality... I'm going to say that this car didn't make it to being converted to a coach on the UP for WWII, and was instead sold off in the mid-late 1930s to the Railway Historical & Locomotive Society for operation on their excursions. - Historically, there was a beat up SP non-A/C diner that was leased to the CCC and then sold to the RH&LS during this timeframe, so my story could have happened!

Basic Specs & Mechanicals

Let's first look at the mechanical setup of the cars and how they measure up to the wheel and coupler standard gauges.

Dining-end of SP 10002's underframe, truck, and coupler, out of the box.

Trucks

The trucks seem good, with bronze journal bearing pickups for the power and bars extending into the body to bring the power up into the car for the lights.  The trucks are extremely free rolling.  Even on my "level" parts of my layout these cars are willing and eager to start rolling.

Couplers & Swing Mountings

Parts of the new GGD V2.0 swing-extend draft gear.

These new cars have another iteration on the 2018 V1.0 car's extending coupler box as the coupler is pulled off center.  This style has become the fad with European and some Japanese models over the last few years with solid diaphragms and the need to extend the coupling distance when the car's in a curve.  The whole draft gear on these V2.0 cars can pull out slightly but then has to go to one side or the other.

Coupler caught on the tie just from pushing the car to couple with another GGD car.

This is probably going to be the largest operational issue these cars will experience.  Many of the cars have their trip pins bent up to only one knuckle height from the bottom of the coupler.  This tells me that the factory in China knew they had a problem.  My Daylight Diner's (SP 10115) dining-end coupler pin hangs below the rail head often.  This is usually operated as the rear-end of the car, but when shoving backward against only one other GGD car, the draft gear flexs downward and catches on my unballasted flex track ties.

Coupler comparison. Slack tension (top) and compressed (bottom)

It seems this problem is aggravated and causes the most problems when the couplers are subjected to sudden pulling or pushing forces between the cars.  I coupled 6-8 GGD cars together and also tested them with non-GGD cars, which would simulate a mixed inter-city train consist.  My concerns with the V1.0 cars from 2018 are still there and valid.  Best case, the springs stretch out and create extra gaps between the cars of about 1/4".  I've seen this effect in some of the on-line videos of the consists running, with larger gaps between the cars, showing the draft springs are being stretched and the car spacing is changing.

Couplers under high pulling load will offset and also create much larger gaps between cars.

The concerns of the couplers being pulled hard off-center also are shown to be correct.  This MUST be addressed by GGD before they tool their next batch of cars, which we already have seen announced to be SP head-end cars (RPOs and Baggages), which will be subjected to the heaviest loads in tension of any cars they've made so far with full passenger consists behind them and pulling grades.  

My prior experiences at clubs like La Mesa with 16+ car passenger trains of mixed plastic and brass construction get very heavy with the grades over 2%.  This is a major problem for those modelers that are counting using on these extending-draftgear design for operating on very tight radius curves.  I would say that most modelers 26"R and above can switch to body mounting.  I did check that the cars will fit on 26"R curve on the wye at Owenyo on my layout.  The extension didn't even seem to activate on the two cars, perhaps they will as the diaphragms start to touch.

As I'm planning to run body-mounted couplers anyway, this issue doesn't effect me.  I will remove the whole assembly and replace it with standard body mounting techniques.  Thus all my prior cars in my fleet are upgraded with body-mountings, but this is personal preference for my cars which are only planned to be operated on very large radius curves of large home or clubs layouts.

Weight

The cars weight is 5.0 oz for the 72-IC-1/2 'Sub'.   This is noticeably lower than the NMRA standard suggested weight of around 7-8 Ounces, depending on which formula you use.  There's a bit of an allowance that can be taken because the car is so free rolling, but passenger cars generally need to be a bit heavier if they're going to have working diaphragms. 

Interior of the floor with the anemically small weights.

I decided to open up one of the Diners and see what the story with the weighs is.  I was shocked how small the weights are that they put in the car.  I believe there's room between the existing weights and the plastic clips over the longitudinal metal strips, which need to be kept clear over the trucks so they can flex upwards.

I disassembled one of the Dining Cars.

The pocket formed by the interior is about 0.140" tall, which should allow several large weights to be added where they won't cause trouble.  I haven't tried adding more weights yet, but I plan to, and will cover any such efforts in an update blog posting. 

There's room to be able to put some extra weight in the extra areas I'd probably like if I'm mixing it with brass cars in the consist, to have them more in the 7-9 Ounce range.  However, solid trains of GGD cars and other plastic cars that roll well should be ok for now.

Windows

The windows in this run of GGD cars are effectively prisms, which catch the light and send it out the edges of the window glass.

There's also a number of people that have complained about the windows on-line.  Most of these people are replacing the injection molded windows with clear styrene or microscope slide glass.  This blog post is already one of the longest non-index articles I've written in one post, so I'll look into the window issue in a follow-up post, after I've looked into some options for solutions besides mounting glass to the interior of the car-side, which will create a very noticeable set-back from the window frames, etc.

In Closing

 

This post is only meant as an 'Out-of-Box' review of how these cars arrived and my first impressions.  I deviated somewhat from that mission by opening up the car and looking into the coupler and weight issues more to show at least what's going on with them.  

O-WRR&N 1590 Observation Car

These numerous minor (annoying to most modelers to fix themselves) to moderate issues (probably outside the average modeler's abilities to procure or do, depending on the modeler's skill) are definitely going to be leading me to writing follow up articles and blog posts to address the modifications and upgrades I do to these cars.  I don't see any issues that are insurmountable, but my views of difficulty might not be the same as the reader of my articles, but I hope that my future posts in this series will serve to inspire and guide you in the upgrades to your GGD cars.  So sign up to the blog subscription to be notified when I post more articles on this topic.

Owl Mountain Upgrade Kits?

Switching hats from "Out-of-the-Box Reviewer" to OwlMtModels' "Designer" for a moment, now that I have these cars in hand, I'm currently working on designing some upgrade parts and products to improve and upgrade the GGD V2.0 car issues that I've sighted here.  It's slightly too early to announce how and what I'm doing on this front, but please subscribe to this blog or the OwlMtModels-News blog where I'll be announcing these upgrades soon.

Jason Hill

Related GGD Articles:

A look at GGD-TTM's Pre-production Samples - November 2025 blog post

SP Lounge, Club, and Taverns 1937-1960 - Combined Timeline Graphic Including Repaints and Rebuilds.  Prototypes and background understanding before GGD's upcoming Lounge Cars arrive.

SP Diners 1937-1960 - Combined Timeline Graphic Including Repaints and Rebuilds - My Graphic Timeline for SP Diners.  Prototypes and background understanding before GGD's upcoming Dining Cars Cars arrive.

Pre-Review for GGD SP Head End Cars (Announced 2024-12) - I've not posted this yet.

Pre-review of the Prototypes for GGD's 2025 Common Standard Harriman Passenger Cars in HO Scale - Discussing GGD's announced 80ft Harriman "V2.0" cars.

Golden Gate Depot Harriman 2.0 Update for July 2025 - Update discussing GGD's new paint scheme renders.

Previous Articles & Research Posts:

SP HW Psgr Car Index - General Overview of SP HW models available.

SP Head-end Passenger Roster Modeling Data and Analysis - with Prototype SP Roster of Classes of Head-end cars.

Modeling Nos.55/56 Tehachapi Mail

Modeling the Shasta

Modeling the Owl (Part 1)

Modeling the Owl (Part 2)