Wm. K. Walthers, Inc. offers a vast range of products and services with something for everyone in the hobby, regardless of whether you’re a beginner or seasoned veteran. Product and Brand Manager Dana Kawala recently stopped by Firecrown Media’s Brookfield, Wis., office to discuss more with Trains.com Staff Writer Lucas Iverson, as well as to check out Walthers’ 2025 HO product highlights of new arrivals and upcoming items.
Watch the insightful video recording of the interview on Trains.com Video. For more insight on Wm. K. Walthers, Inc., watch the insider interview with CEO and President Stacey Walthers Naffah, also on Trains.com Video.
Q: What are the types of products and services Walthers provides, especially to new customers looking to get into the hobby?
Dana Kawala: Walthers is the leading manufacturer of model railroading equipment, especially in North America and around the world. We provide not only locomotives and rolling stock, but also track, scenery items, and structures. We’re also a distributor to other manufacturers’ products, not only in HO scale, but also N, O, and Z. Odds are, if you’re building a model railroad, you will encounter Walthers.
WalthersTrack Roadbed
Dana Kawala: Over the last couple of years, one of the things we’ve noticed was that it’s been harder to get cork roadbed. Some of the alternatives on the market were not satisfactory, so we decided to come up with our own product.
What we have is a new roadbed. It’s not open cell foam like other cork alternatives on the market. This is actually a closed cell material. It’s designed to dimensionally match cork roadbed in both height and width. In many ways, it’s superior to cork because it’s flexible. You can actually bend it around broad curves without splitting it. But if you do need to split it, it’s extremely easy with a hobby or utility knife.
WalthersTrack roadbed is now in stock for both single and double-track versions. It’s also available in 1 X 3 foot sheets, which can also be used for building foundations.
Visit the Walthers website for more information on the WalthersTrack Roadbed.
WalthersTrack Street Track
Dana Kawala: One of the coolest things you can do on a model railroad in my opinion, especially if you have an urban scene, is street running. Whether you do that with a freight line that runs along an industrial corridor, or if you want to have a trolley running down mainstreet, this insert makes it easy because it comes with the rails already embedded into the pavement material. We offer these in concrete, asphalt, and cobblestone. They are also sized to match our Cornerstone street system so that makes it easier for you to build up an urban scene.
Visit the Walthers website for more information on the WalthersTrack Street Track.
WalthersProto Scale Test Car
Dana Kawala: This is a newly tooled item from the WalthersProto line. These are samples, but it’s the first time anyone has seen these. The scale test cars are diecast metal and will have different handrail and hatch arrangements to match their specific prototypes.
The cool thing about this car for a model railroader is that it’s going to have multiple uses. You can use it to enhance an operating session at industries and scale tracks. It can also be a cool scenery addition on a siding next to an industry. But these cars are really awesome as flatcar loads because that’s the way they would travel between long distances.
We’re really looking forward to getting these out to the market this summer. They’re the most detailed scale test cars that have been brought to HO.
Visit the Walthers website for more information on the WalthersProto Scale Test Car.
WalthersProto EMD NW2
Dana Kawala: We’ve been doing a lot with cab-end switchers lately, and this one is arriving mid-summer. Our new WalthersProto EMD NW2 switcher is going to be available in phases one through four as appropriate per the road name. Like all WalthersProto equipment, it’s detailed with road name-specific handrails, lighting, horns, etc.
It’s also available with a factory-installed LokSound 5 DCC decoder or in the standard DC. One of the things we’ve started doing over the last couple of years is not only do our Proto locomotives have 21-pin DCC plugs, they also include a pre-installed speaker. If someone buys the NW2 in the standard DC version, and they decide that they want to put their own decoder in, that’s now an easy thing to do.
Visit the Walthers website for more information on the WalthersProto EMD NW2.
WalthersMainline 50′ AAR Single Door Boxcar and 70-Ton AAR 3-Bay Open Hopper
Dana Kawala: Walthers Mainline is our mid-range line. These are accurately scaled and sized models, but you’ll have the steps and ladders molded in. You will still have some separately applied details, but not every roadname-specific variation.
The 50-foot AAR boxcar and 70-ton three-bay hopper are two of our newly tooled WalthersMainline items. The boxcar includes a full underframe and separate brake wheel details.
On the hopper, we’re offering it with both the peaked and the flat ends. These cars were ubiquitous throughout the transition area and into the early diesel era. If someone is modeling from the 40s to the 70s, they’re going to want multiples of these in their fleet.
Both cars just came in a month or two ago, so they’re now in stock.
Visit the Walthers website for more information on the Mainline 50′ AAR Single Door Boxcar and 70-Ton AAR 3-Bay Open Hopper.
Cornerstone Merchant’s Row Background Building Kit
Dana Kawala: I am very excited about this, and our Cornerstone line in general. It’s a highlight for Walthers, because we really have a wide variety of structures available.
This particular building, Merchant’s Row background building kit, is part of a long-standing series of popular structures as it makes it easy to build up a small town. This is a low-profile, or background version, where it’s basically a shallower structure. We’ve taken the full-size building, divided it roughly in half or in thirds, and you can set it along a backdrop. It’s a real space saver because you don’t have to have this full-width structure, especially with a lot of folks now building their city scenes on shelves.
Merchant’s Row comes with a lot of the same features you’d see in full-size buildings. It’ll include different signs with decals and shop names, as well as interior treatments to simulate the inside of the building.
Visit the Walthers website for more information on the Cornerstone HO Merchant’s Row kits.
