First locomotive kit: Hobbyline Berkshire. Plastic. Unpowered. $1.98
Then:
First powered locomotive kit: Tenshodo 0-6-0T. Metal. $8.95. Plus whatever detail parts you thought it needed.
Then:
First diesel locomotive kit: Hobbytown Alco RSD. Metal drive, plastic body. Drive $9 on sale at hobbyshop in Alexandria, VA. Plus plastic body ($0.98).
They’re all here somewhere.
All were pretty straightforward builds. Instructions were adequate (hey, 2 out of 3 actually ran)
Problem with the 0-6-0T: It didn’t pick up on the front left driver. Stalled a lot. I built a wiper for that driver, also; and it ran a lot better. FWIW, The Mantua/Tyco 0-6-0T had the same problem.
The Hobbytown was manufactured at a time that the company was trying to save money. The spur gears were plastic and the insulated drive wheels were plastic. They came to their senses later, and I bought replacement metal parts.
My first kit built steamer was a Varney Old Lady kit. I say kit but it was actually mostly assembled. I think the mechanism was RTR and you needed to screw the boiler & tender shells to the mechanism & frame. It gave me great confidence in my skills at the time being about 7 or 8. My next was a Mantua Mike. It was a simple kit and well made posing no problems following their good instructions.
My first HO kit was an MDC 0-6-0 back in 1952 ($6.85), still runs perfect. It has been into the SP paint shop a number of times over the last 65 years. I installed a Digitrax DCC sound decoder in the tender in 2010, even using the original Pittman motor it runs and sounds great.
In 2013 I found a MDC Vanderbilt Tender to go with a second 1952 new in the box MDC 0-6-0 kit, both off eBay. The only difference was the price, $47.91 + S&H for the locomotive and $13 +S&H for the tender.
Mine was the Mantua 0-6-0 Big Six Switcher (with the slope back tender), bought from the local hardware store for about $10. Later I converted it to a road locomotive by adding a pilot truck and a scratchbuilt tender. Valve gear was installed a few years later, and the “egg-beater” motion made me a steam fan for life.
The next loco kit was the Little Six, 0-6-0t tank lokey, build stock but I gave the cylinders a flat-top haircut to backdate them to slide valves.
Noticing the uneven axle spacing of the Little Six, I bought another one and used it as the mechanism for a 4-6-0 by turning the frame back-to-front and adding larger drivers. I scratchbuilt a tapered boiler with epoxy/paper laminations, and the tender from styrene.
A distant project will be to get these off the shelf and onto the DCC layout with decoder installations. I’m certain that they’ll at least need new magnets, if not new motors.
We MRRs often say that the layout is never finished… I guess this applies to our locomotives too! [:D]
My first locomotive kit was a Varney Casey Jones which I received as a Christmas gift in middle school. I had no problem getting it together, and it ran reasonably OK. Years later in college I rebuilt it, better paint, some details, it looked decent. I kept it for many years, long enough for Zinc Pest to eat up the floor of the tender. I was able to order a replacement thru Bowser. I no longer have it, don’t remember just what happened to it. Fun locomotive.
Well, I think this is really a subject for a different post than this but…
It makes it easier to help you out if we know what you are trying to do and what you are working with to start out. Are you trying to build a kit? Detail a kit? Maybe convert an 0-6-0 into a Big Boy? Not trying to be ugly but you really need to ask the right questions and supply the information.
Kitbashing can be very hard depending what your goal is but it’s always fun. Please give us some more info and we’ll try to help.
One thing common to any metal steam locomotive kit, be it Bowser, Mantua, Model Die Casting, the old American Locomotive Company, the old Arbour – you have to make it run smoothly at every step of construction, from first installing drivers, to adding the side rods, to adding the valve gear – if is isn’t rolling smooth at each step there, don’t expect installing the motor to work any miracles. And this can involve much tinkering.
The first locomotive kit I ever built was an MDC Shay which I never did get to run very well.
While I still think the Shay is a neat loco, it’s rather outside my current modern focus. Maybe one day I’ll go back and get it tuned up, but it’s pretty low on my list right now.
MDC 2-6-2 “pensy”. I never got it right, and it got parted out and lost. Many other since, mostly successes, but some fails too. MDC Shay, couldnt get it smooth, so It got parted out too. But the motor is still working smoothly in a Tyco or Mantua 2-6-0.
