Freight Car & Passenger Car Kits you have built that you feel build into great models.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Per my post on Rib Side Car Kits, I thought it would be a good idea to ask people to discuss rolling stock kits they have built that build into really nice models. Or, if you have taken a stock kit/RTR car and turned it into something else that you are happy with how it turned out, let’s hear about it!

This is a good place to come up with a list of manufacturers still producing kits. To keep them up at the top of this thread, you folks list them and I will upgrade the list right here as you let me know. You can visit each manufacturer’s website by using a search engine and typing in their company name. Also, many of the various railroad historical organizations have models available, so check them out, too. Here is our list of Freight and Passenger Car “KIT” manufacturers:

Abacus Model Works (Mixed media prototype scale model railway kits in HO).

Accurail (I love this manufacturer, they have told me personally that they will continue to make kits)

Alkem Scale Models (Laser cut freight car kits and detail parts, car kits are from the 1860s to 1890s).

American Model Builders-Laser Kits (Out of the ordinary Wood Caboose Kits. There kits produce very fine caboose models)

American Models (S-Scale & S-Hi-Rail model kits and RTR, a wide selection of products**).**

Amesville Shops (Resin craftsman Kits of pre-1900s freight Cars).

Bethlehem Car Works (Passenger Car Kits)

Branchline By Atlas (Maybe the second widest selection of kits available. Some small parts that break easily. Branchline Passenger cars can be found at some of the auction sites [Ebay, etc.])

Central Valley Products (Has a very nice Northern Pa

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For rolling stock, I have built kits from the following manufacturers:

  • Accurail
  • Athearn BB
  • Bowser
  • Branchline - “Yardmaster” series and “Blueprint” series
  • Intermountain
  • MDC
  • Proto 2000
  • Red Caboose
  • Walthers

Here’s how I would rank them In order of quality:

  • MDC - Fair - Not always close to the prototype
  • Athearn BB - Decent - Not always close to the prototype
  • Walthers - Good to very good detailing - I’d rank it higher but mechanically the cars have had problems with the trucks rubbing against steps or other details.
  • Accurail - Good to very good - Undercarriage is a bit spartan on detail but the shell is generally very nice. My favorite cars are the 6- and 8-panel wood boxcars and 41’ gondolas. The wood grain of the boxcars is exceptional.
  • Bowser - Good to very good. Paint tends to be a little on the glossy side
  • Branchline “Yardmaster” - Good to very good - Sliding doors on the boxcars. Not as nice detailing as the “Blueprint” series cars. Detail parts (e.g. stirrups and grab irons) start becoming more delicate
  • Red Caboose - Very good
  • Intermountain - Very good - I really like their 40’ USRA, 50-ton, drop-bottom composite gondolas
  • Branchline “Blueprint” - Very good to excellent - Delicate parts - Build into beautiful models. I like the fact that the boxcars come with the option for sliding doors. The
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I’m in general agreement with Tom’s assessment, above, although I never saw much of Branchline’s freight cars locally. Most of their freight offerings are too modern for my layout-era, anyway, although I have one of their boxcars which is suitable (bought in the U.S.) and a coach (bought locally).

MDC offered some unique stuff appropriate to my era, and a little work will make them into models which won’t look out of place alongside more recent offerings from other manufacturers. Most of what I’ll show here was picked-up used or on-sale, making these so-called less-than-excellent models very suitable for upgrading.

This is a fairly accurate model of the Southern’s Su-class boxcars. They had almost 15,000 of them, and they’re perfect for my era. Lots of work to make this MDC kit into what you see, but enjoyable work and a satisfying accomplishment:

Another modified MDC kit, and 100% true-to-prototype (well, it’s freelanced, and is the prototype)[swg]

Another MDC kit, and not available in plastic from anyone else, the Pullman Palace cars. Many of these lasted into the '50s, either in branchline service or as company service cars. I converted several to CNR MoW cars for a friend who’s modelling the late '50s.
On my road, they’re still in regular passenger service, although bumped to local runs. This coach has some added underbody details and wire grabs, plus American Limited diaphragms:

This one is detailed much the same, but got a steel underframe in plac

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Wonderful projects there Wayne, very impressive. Did you know that Branchline has a bunch of Bill Board- wood sided refrigerator cars that I think would fit your era?

(List moved to the first post in this thread).

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This is a Walthers kit, came across it in a bunch of stuff I was given. Missing a few pieces but nothing to prevent me from using it. Put it together, weathered it using a dry brush technique & added coal for a load.

An Athearn BB “work” baggage car. Put it together, didn’t like the “uniform” one colour paint job, painted the roof black, then made it look like it’s been sitting in the sun too long then went & weathered the rest.

Gordon

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This is a Proto-2000 Mather box car that I built up from the kit, per the instructions.

Other than replacing the supplied couplers with a pair of Kadee #58s, this is the way the parts came out of the box. I didn’t even paint or weather this car. The grabs are all factory-installed, so that sometimes-unpleasant taks was already done.

Unfortunately, they are now selling these only as RTR. I bought a bunch of them on closeout, for about $8 each.

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I always enjoyed the challenge of the old Silver Streak line of wood boxcar and reefer kits. They were not difficult to build, although after building just one you would quickly figure out some important steps that were sort of glossed over in the instructions, like sealing the grain of the wood roof piece before attaching the metal ribs, when to add weight, and that sort of thing. The real challenge was doing a neat enough job that the car looked presentable and photographable (if that is a word) when you were done. I still have a few unbuilt kits and know that I can do better when it comes to grab irons and such. The original ones now looks quite oversized.

Old Red Ball kits involve similar challenges - not so much in construction per se but in getting the “fit and finish” presentable.

Another kit that made for an enjoyable challenge was the old (old) Athearn all metal house car kit. Again it was not difficult to build per se, but it took some patience to really get the car to look good. I still maintain that nothing looks more like painted metal than painted metal (I also like the old Ulrich hoppers for that reason). The Athearn metal boxcar doors are scale thickness, and no other kit known to me allows you to model the bulge/dent damage that forklift trucks sometimes do to boxcar roofs as do those old Athearn metal cars.

On a more modern basis I greatly enjoyed the challenge/frustration of an IMWX 1937 AAR boxcar kit – very similar in design to Intermountain and Red Caboose and quite possible the same tooling. But frankly some of the detailing is so delicate that I wonder if I am either doing something wrong, or if other guys also find these cars to be a lifetime of careful handling and re-cementing parts that flake off.

I like a challenge that nonetheless does not reach the hair-pulling, wife-arguing, cat-kicking, object-throwing level. And you know, some nights after a long day at work, chores aro

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Intermountain’s decorated cars all come R-T-R now, but you can still get them as undecorated kits.

Separate roofs, ends and doors on their boxcars make for great conversion fodder:

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This is a very helpful thread for me as I like to build kits but am unclear on which makers are not still producing (e.g., Bowser?). Knowing that will help me stock up more on those that will get even harder to find. I have mostly (still in the box) Accurail and Bowser, plus a few others mentioned. Next up are two Proto 2000 8k tank cars which look cool.

On another note, if I buy undecorated kits or repaint a freight car (one MDC Roundhouse is an unrealistic yellow) how would I letter it? Are there decal sets or dry transfer sets that come out ok? Are decal edges too noticeable, etc?

Thanks for any clarification.

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In HO, I feel the Tichy kits are hard to beat. They take a little work, but are a lot of fun. Here is one that built and lettered using Microscale decals…

I have also built a few in Sn3. The boxcar is an old Overland kit with handbent grabs…

Here is a PBL idler flat kit…

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Here are a few kits that I have built recently and have enjoyed.

This is an old Robbins Rails/A-Line/Concor Kit of a Greenville 60’ Auto Parts Boxcar, this kit comes normally with cast on plug doors, I carved off the plug door hardware and glued on YSD 8’ Sliding Doors that I got from Atlas along with the corresponding door tracks, I changed the wheelbase from 41’ to 46’, added a Details West Cushion Coupler Pocket and a Walkover platform from the junk box. Painted and decaled with Mark Vaughn Decals.

This is an old Eastern Car Works Kit (Still available on E-Bay and at Train Shows) replicating a GATC 3500CF Dri-Flow Covered Hopper. The kit consists of two Airslide kits and a new roof and hopper section, essentially a kitbash in a box. I cut the sides and glued together along with adding extra detail like airlines that were not provided. Painted Primer Gray and lettered with Oddballs Decals.

</

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There are plenty of decal offerings out there. Check out:

http://www.microscale.com

http://www.mgdecals.com

http://greatdecals.com/

http://www.greatdecals.com/Decals.html

Custom decals:

http://www.railgraphicsdecals.com/

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Rick (dti406): that AEX car certainly has a rather non-standard layout of lettering! That’s a neat variation.

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While this is a stock data only Accurail 50’ boxcar kit, it turned out far better then I thought or even hope it would.

Why is that?

You see this is the first car I decaled with my left hand shortly after I had a major heart attack and had around 30% use of my right hand at that time.

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I’ve had good luck in S scale using American Models 72 heavyweight passenger cars to model Southern Pacific’s new for 1927 72’ chair cars, these introduced taller windows for the DAYLIGHT LIMITED, the AM example which I believe to based upon a NYC protoype replicates this feature nicely, I have also created a casting for the Arched roof examples, but this is not always necessary as SP aquired dozens built to a 1922 ACF design and aquired in the EP&SW merger with clearstory roofs, I also upgrade to NWSL wheels and some additional weight.

Dave

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I forgot a relatively new kit maker, Moloco. Nick has produced an awesome model of a GATC insulated boxcar (RBL). The kit is an absolute joy to put together, even with all the myriad parts. The instructions and pictures are very clear in the steps involved.

Kit contents, many varied parts to build all the diffeferent prototypes.

The completed underframe with all the brake rodding and quides, cushioning equipment and extended coupler pockets.

Car end with walkover platform, grabs, roofwalk and ladders.

Finished car painted with Floquil Medium Blue and lettered with Mark Vaughn Decals.

Rick J

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Of the cars shown in my post only the Soo Line boxcar and possibly the Pennsy round-roof car have factory lettering. All of the rest were done with decals and/or dry transfers, as is most of my rolling stock.

Wayne

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Branchline Berwicks boxcars,great looking kits that come out looking great.

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Although some of you have listed manufacturers that I have yet to post on the list, I can’t help but hope there are still more kit manufactureres we need to list. Look at what I’ve put on the list in the first post of the thread and tell me what I’ve missed!

Thanks for your help! When I can find a little more time, I will make sure everything is listed.

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One manufacturer that has not been mentioned is Kaslo Shops Distributing in British Columbia.

http://www.kasloshops.com/ Unfortunately the web site is under construction.

EDIT: Here is a listing of their products as offered by Central Hobbies:

http://www.central-hobbies.com/products/kasloshops.html#CMLW

Most of their stuff is based on Canadian prototypes.

These are very highly detailed resin kits and they require some skill and patience to assemble. The instructions are fairly clear although the first time round I made some dumb mistakes doing things incorrectly that weren’t fully explained. Some of the etched details are very fragile when assembling them i.e. the steps only give you one chance to bend them, and the instructions warn you about that. More bends than that and you have separate pieces to try to solder back together. That is not necessarily a criticism but they are delicate. A modeler experienced with craftsman kits would have no trouble.

I have built one of two CP caboose kits that I was given when I retired. It was my first attempt at a kit with this level of detail, but I think it came out OK - not spectacular mind you. I did not do a great job assembling the ladders and the steps, but the grab irons, cut levers etc look pretty good to my not too critical eye. The second will be much better.

Dave