Hello,
Does anyone build steam locos anymore?
Jerry
I haven’t built a Bowser or MDC steam kit in years. But that’s because I’m too busy superdetailing and kitbashing my plastic steamers: by the time I’m done with them, they might as well have been a kit!
Yes, I do, and I have a couple Mantua and Tyco kits waiting to be assembled when I get the time. Plus I’ve been doing some tweeking on a Bowser Challenger that I assembled from a kit. Right now though, I’m working on a Walthers spine car kit.
Kit building is alive and well. [:D]
Something here on the forum tweeked my curiosity awhile back and I visited the Bowser website - they still have most of the kits - both Bowser and Cary - available that I assembled and superdetailed back in the sixties and seventies. I also looked at Model Power website and they still list the Mantua lokes under the name Mantua Classics.
In addition to a few Bowser and Hobbytown of Boston units I had about three Cary/Mantua Pacifics and about four Cary/Mantua Mikes in my stable when I switched from HO to N in 1980/81 and they all took a trip to the swap table. I sure enjoyed building them; surprisingly, I am getting ready to build myself a new layout out of necessity - this one will have to be portable. I am 66 years old - I might just have 15 years of modeling ahead of me and it wouldn’t be bad finishing it up with a stable of HO cast-metal steamers - and a bunch of first-generation diesels.
Hello I have built 2 mdc 0-6-0 1 matune 0-4-0 wither tender. a vintage varney f7a unopened dads kit I have a 4-6-2 comeing from browesr . right now i am working on a vintage riv bigboy rebuild. my dad is building 4-4-2& bigboy from browser . frank
Hi Jerry,
I have built two Shays and a 2-6-6-2 logger from kits and rebuilt several other steam engines to put in DCC. The latter is just as much fun as a kit by the time you get through. I enjoy kit bashing all kinds of models and trains are good for that. TARP
I’m glad I am not alone.
Jerry
So far, I’ve built a Bowser A-5 0-4-0, a Bowser 4-6-6-4, and a Hobbytown RSD-5 diesel. I hope to build even more sometime.[:D]
It all depends on how you define “building.”
A purist will start with raw, bar and flat stock, machine his own wheels (including drivers) and spend two years’ worth of hobby time reproducing every detail of XY&Z Railroad # (fill in the blank) as of (date.) If anyone would like to know how this is done, research ‘Mel Thornburgh’ in the MR archives.
I am not that much of a purist. However, I did check to see if I could find a reliable 2-8-0 mechanism with the proper geometry to serve as a basis for a JNR 9600 class consolidation (which is as beautiful as a bulldog, which it resembles.) Now that I have three of them, I will be using them under superstructures which will be scratchbuilt using whatever comes to hand. The frames will be seriously shortened, the ‘cowcatcher’ pilots will become history and the (shortened) tenders will end up with three fixed axles in pedestals. By the time I’m finished, the manufacturer probably wouldn’t recognize them. If he did, he would disown them on sight.
I have also modified other kit and RTR steam locos, with everything from some added detail to major changes in cabs and accessories. But, before anyone assumes that I obsess over perfect fidelity to anything, let me admit that my objective is to have the end result look prototypically realistic at a scale 100 meter range. Anything that passes that test with me, and operates reliably, is good enough.
Chuck (modeling some of the locos that ran in Japan in 1964 - or could have)