Has anyone had experience with Eastern Car Works HO passenger car kits? Ease of building, prototypical, reliable running?
Thanks,
I have built a couple, and they take a little work. The car sides are sometimes warped, and need to be straightened out. This can be done using water that is just below the boiling point. A straight side makes it easier to glue to the roof correctly.
The ECW core kits are absolute garbage in my opinion. The roofs and ends are correct for a few prototypes, and the floors are generic. ECW only has one kind of floor, and the underbody detail is molded in. I would suggest scrapping the ECW core kit, and use a Train Station Products core kit and underbody details. Just study prototype pics to determine the placement of battery boxes, air tanks, water tank, generator, and ACs.
All in all, the detail on the sides isn’t bad. I would also suggest however, if the car that you want is available as styrene sides from Union Station Products, or brass sides from somebody like NKP car company, that is the route that I would take.
I almost forgot about the trucks. They are also prototype specific, and aren’t very good runners. Again, I would study the prototype, determine which kind of trucks you need, and use Train Station Products trucks with Intermountain wheels. That is a bulletproof combination and the TSP trucks look really nice. I buy the ones without the wheelsets and use IMs. I don’t care for the Jay Bee wheels that TSP uses. I have gotten very few straight ones.
In addition to the above, the Eastern lightwieghts sides are flat…including the skirts that should be curved.
yes, you might want to look a little further for passenger cars, building a good looking car depends on using good parts in my opinion.
Bob