Am I the only dinosaur around who still builds all rolling stock from wood kits? I love looking at current model railroad videos, and most are really quite well done…but it seems that most if not all rolling stock I see are RTR plastic as are most of locos. I can understand plastic diesels as their running qualities are excellent, and brass models are no longer mainstream.
This could be an overdone thread, but a first for me. In no way would I critisize folks who operate RTR plastic as the hobby is first about having fun. For many I would guess building a wood car kit would be a waste of valuable time, which I fully understand as I cannot build a wood car kit to look as good as a current RTR plastic offering. I get tremedous pride of accomlishment from constructing everything, and there was once a time when visitors took notice. Recently not one visitor commented on my over one thousand kit built wood cars…in fact as a train of kit and scratch-built freight cars rolled by, one fellow remarked…Athearn or Intermountain?? OH well! I now at age 80 finally realize that I have to adapt to the hobby as it certainly ain’t gonnna adapt to me. And that is fine as I still am having a ball building and playing with my toy trains.
Wood craftsman rolling stock kits are important to some folks’ enjoyment of the hobby and not to others’. Just as Varney and other early easy-to-build kits were decried back in the day by folks in letters to the editor, so RTR is bemoaned on forums now.
RTR and simpler kits let people get into the hobby easier and build a layout faster than back in the early 1950s and before, if that is their choice. How can that be bad?
I see folks on that other forum which will not be mentioned are into bear skins and stone knives kit building so there are more dinosaurs out there than you.
I’m still a few years off from retirement so I don’t anticipate the luxury of having the time for those kinds of things. It is challenging enough to get a basement finished and hopefully start building a layout so I can actually run those trains I’ve been collecting. Building wood kits implies having the time to do so, time I don’t have.
Take that comment as a compliment. I recall a collision repair body man one time commenting that his best work goes unnoticed since when he’s done the car looks just like it came from the factory.
I enjoy a resen or Proto 2000 type kit (many of those HO Protos are still available in the $10-15 range!) and I’ve built several laser-cut wood kits. My decision to "build or RTR is based mostly on what I’m looking for to fill a hole in my roster and what is out there in brass or RTR.
I’d really like to make several PRR “gun flats” that were used to transport the big 16" gun barrels. Choices for a PRR F22 flat car are slim. When they occasionally come up at a brass dealer or Ebay they will often fetch $200 +! So there is the Camerlengo resin kit for about $15/car. That narrows my choices considerably.
Personally, I have always enjoyed and prefer wood kits (that are not laser kits) for rolling stock and buildings. Probably, because they were so plentiful when I entered the hobby in 1971. I frequently buy old wood kits at train shows - mostly S and O scales.
But I also use RTR, plastic kits, and laser kits as well. And I have a few resin kits waiting to be built.
Once styrene scratchbuilding materials became readily available, I totally lost interest in wood kits or scratchbuilding in wood.
I used a lot of wood to build the house in which I’m living, but its use on my layout is limited to benchwork.
If the argument is wood=craftsman vs plastic=non-craftsman, that’s right out of 1960 as a issue. Even if you want to make it wood=craftsman vs RTR plastic=non-craftsman, that’s a lot like 1999.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to build in wood, for prototypes that were wood.
But plastic, resin, and lasercut kits aren’t always anywhere close to shake the box.
I’ve even done brass kits.
Really, material is immaterial, so long as you end up with a model that satisfies you. Nothing wrong with RTR anything, either because in my book it just makes more time to actually build models.
I live in a country which is spoiled rotten when it comes to the availability of RTR rolling stock and engines. Hardly a prototype which is not covered by one of the mainstream manufacturers in both HO and N scale. Even the latest releases from the locomotive industry appear as a model shortly after the first roll-out. There are few high-end kits from smaller manufacturers like Weinert and Bemo (for narrow gauge steam engines), but they play a negligible role. Buildings usually are plastic kits, but the number of highly detailed laser-cut kits is growing rapidly.
The huge amount of stuff available has a certain detrimental effect on layouts - somehow, they all look alike with their Faller, Kibri or Vollmer buildings and streets populated by Brekina, Busch or Wiking vehicles and Preiser figures. People are less creative when they can just buy everything!
Howard, For what its worth and that just may be a big fat zero I just bought a United Models Santa Fe 1950 Class 2-8-0 and plan on buying Accurail 40’ car kits while not wood they are still kits. I won’t be buying any RTR cars.
I stopped doing wood kits once the newer highly detailed RTR appeared. That level of detail is what I was striving for all along and I would never get to that level and they are cheaper than wood kits at times. Only time I buy a wood kit or one built by anyone else now is when I can’t find it in RTR plastic. With they would make highly detailed 36’ boxcars in RTR but I have a bunch of 40’.
