I just bought a Branchline Model of a NYC Streamline coach and when I opened the box and looked at the underside of the body, there it was, the Concor name molded into the bottom. I was a little disappointed as I have other Branchline passenger models (heavyweight) and they are completely different. I didn’t know that they used Concor for some of their models and probably wouldn’t have bought it had I known. Does anyone know if these are the only models (streamline coaches) that Branchline uses Concor parts on?
I bought this on Ebay and don’t think I can return it on that basis. I put Kadee body mounted couplers on it but don’t care for how it runs/tracks.
I don’t ever remember Branchline offering any streamlined cars?
Did this come with a box? Who was it bought from? I see incorectly identified stuff on Ebay ALL THE TIME. Maybe some of them do it on purpose, I think most simply don’y know enough about the various brands.
Branchline is now completely out of the rolling stock business, having sold that part of their operation to Atlas.
The model came in the red Branchline box and has the instruction sheet, also Branchline, and everything matches; well, except for the Concor name molded into the underside. This was an original manufactured kit and probably is from back in the 80’s. I assembled the kit (well hardly a kit, just the body and trucks?) and installed the weight plates (like Athearn uses) and added body mounted Kadee couplers. The trucks came with metal wheel sets and rolls pretty good, but the body rolls side to side too much on the trucks. It uses plastic pins to keep the trucks on which may be the problem, as I can’t tighten the slop. I also noticed that the height doesn’t match up with Athearn or Walthers similar cars. I will most likely put it back on Ebay.
Early in Branchline production, they sold special runs and custom decorated cars. I have a 3 car set of Swift 36’ reefers - they are MDC bodies. Back in the 70/80’s Bev-Bel & Custom Finishings did a lot of custom decorated cars using Athearn or MDC shells…
It should also be noted that in that era, Branchline was primarily a distributor, and was just breaking into the manufacturing, house branding, and custom run business. They had some products they developed and others they simply branded and marketed.
I am working on a bunch of old AHM covered hoppers with the same sort of plastic pin holding the trucks in place, and the same slop. There are a couple of solutions:
The cheap and dirty method is to take a Kadee washer and put it on the pin before you put the pin in the truck. You will likely have to cut the washer on one side to make it fit over the pin. This may result in loose pins in which case it is not a viable solution.
The better solution is to get some round hollow tube such as what Evergreen offers and glue it into the pin hole in the bolster with enough sticking out so that it is flush with the bottom of the truck frame. Then tap the hole for a 2-56 screw. Some people just use a piece of sprue rounded to the correct diameter and then tapped.
If you need to raise the height of the car body you can shim the bolster prior to gluing in the tube. However, that will change the height of the body mounted couplers which will then need adjusting. I hope you didn’t glue the coupler mounts to the body like I did on the first five hoppers.[D)] Mine came out at the right height but changing a coupler will be a PITA.
Or, like you said, eBay will solve the problem too!
I had thought of putting 2-56 screws in to hold the trucks; which is what I will do IF I keep the car. The height problem I have is that the body sits too high and the couplers are also a little high (not enough to cause a problem, just looks). I DID glue the coupler boxes to the body but with a styrene shim. If I can cut the truck boss or body bolster a little it may work OK. Ebay is still calling me though!
Jim hit it, early Branchline was custom decorated other company’s equipment. Only later did Branchline start making their own kits, for freight and passenger cars, which have been sold to Atlas. I’ve occasionally seen some of the older stuff pop up at train shows - the boxes were different, so it should be easy to tell the difference between an older item not actually manufactured by Branchline with a newer one that they did.