I returned to the hobby two years ago upon retirement. Have completed track laying, scenery, structures and even installed LokSound decoders in two 25 year old GP7 locos. It’s been wonderful with everything coming back to me. However, I am now in the process of “upgrading” my various freight rolling stock which covers many years and many manufacturers (and many prices). I am trying to bring all (or just some) of it “up to code”. This means (to me) good couplers, good trucks and weight to NMRA code. I’ve read the comments in the forum “Little Hope for Newbees and Cheap Rolling Stock”:
Upgrading my old rolling stock (all freight cars) is the hardest thing I have run into yet. About 20% of my cars are probably fixable, but the rest are probably going to be thrown out. Going forward, I want to make sure I’m buying good rolling stock.
My question to the forum is:
Who makes the best freight car models in HO defined as follows:
Good couplers, good trucks, good detail, weight to code and offers lots of cars from the 1950s?
I use Athearn Blue Box kits with Kadee 148 couplers and Proto 33" wheels.
I use Atlas rolling stock RTR whenever it suits me. Same goes for Intermountain and others. I found that some of these RTR items such as Tank cars are far superior to kit built items. Opening a kit today and being confronted with a million tiny parts isnt my cup of tea.
Roundhouse and Athearn was bought by Horizon, they are being re-issued as RTR with some good workmanship. Far better than I could do it from the older kits to be honest with you.
It is difficult to choose some RTR products when the entire month of advertisements and availible stock is stuffed with a Bigboy or a Gondola from 30 different makers. One gets burned out on these abundance of offerings of just one car type in rolling stock.
Sometimes one wonders if one makes a gondola of some quality, all the other rolling stock makers race to issue thier own version of the same gondola. Flooding the market with waves of specific items in specific roadnames…
I once brought some old items from my previous model railroading that were in storage for a long time. They were not up to par and some could not be upgraded, rebuilt to run today’s kadee couplers, metal wheels etc. They were thrown out or stripped of useful parts and then thrown out.
If you still wish to get Varney or other items, use Ebay with caution, such items in apparent good condition and sometimes upgraded with good workmanship are availible there from time to time.
If it does not stay on the track, I use a stick on weight that is availible from the hobby shop. Just a little bit. I have tried pennies, lead shot and other solutions and those only created more trouble down the road when the plastics failed. In fact pure lead is not something good to have at home unless you are keeping a Remington 1200 fed.
I find it rather rare to add weight.
The biggest challenge is finding RTR rolling stock that matches your chosen era. Sometimes with more than two road
You haven’t opened Pandora’s box – just a can of worms!
For the era you’re interested in, Athearn is re-releasing Model Die Casting rolling stock in Ready to Roll (fully assembled) form with metal wheels and knuckle couplers.
Accurail and Atlas are also good choices. Bowser makes rolling stock in kit form, but I have had some minor problems with a couple of their models.
There’s a new brand on the market called Hubert’s Model Railroad Manufacturing Company, but most of their product line is later vintage than what you want.
Check the following web sites for listings of their products:
I haven’t seen anyone mention Trix yet. I have a Trix NP steel reefer that’s RTR and has some of the best detail I’ve ever seen on a freight car, especially since it’s RTR. See through roof walk, scale size grabs and ladders, a fully detailed underframe including brake tubing, and an excellent paint job. They are no bargain when it comes to price but they are about the most detailed RTR card I’ve seen. I do like the Branchline Blueprint series for kits. I’d guess at least half my rolling stock is still Athearn BB kits and you can upgrade them with a little effort. You can cut off the thick stirrups and replace them with wire or engineering plastic. A little wire on the underframe helps the brake system looks more complete, and some shadow lining can make the grabs and ladders look more 3-D than they do on a standard kit.
Most Athearn is crap, and since you said you looking for good details, stay away from them. The only cars that are accurate are in your era are the 40’ quad offset hopper, the 40’ flat [very few roads], 34’ Offset Hopper w/Peaked Ends and w/Flat Ends.
Most of the paint schemes offered are inaccurate.
Model Die Casting is now part of Athearn. Most of their models are as bad as Athearn. The ore cars are good. The PS-2 covered hoppers are good. IF you can find them the 30’ is good for Milw and PRR. The express reefer is good for LV.
A good source of 1950s era freight cars is Branchline.
I like the BLI cars that I have. The CZ looks great and once I had fixed the out of gauge wheels they ran pretty perfect too. I also have 24 of their coal hoppers. Man they are sweet. I think that they are the best I got. I also like Proto2000, very nice detail and rolls great.
If you are close to a good hobby shop, just go and look at what’s there. Look at the lettering on the cars for an idea as to their era. Look for the builder’s date on the side of the car as well as any repack dates on the car. The’s a good way to see if the car is too late for your chosen era.
Most freight cars these days are pretty good. I will install metal wheelsets on any cars that don’t come with them as well as Kadee couplers if the ones that come with the cars aren’t Kadee quality, i.e. with metal springs on the knuckles and not plastic fingers. I also make sure cars are weighted to NMRA recommended practice.
Don’t give up on your older cars. With weathering they may look good. My philosophy is that I want my cars to look good enough, but not necesarily super detailed, to run on the layout. Things happen to cars that run a lot. Steps and grabs get broken off, but can be replaced. Paint gets chipped, but can be patched and the ones in real life get patched and repainted as well.
Oh, the prices have gone up rather significantly since you bought your cars 25 years ago. That’s another good reason to keep your older cars.
Good idea. Also for use as wrecks along side the tracks or in the bottom of ravines. Also lined up at the layout scrap-yard awaiting the cutters torch. These 25¢ yard sale finds can still lend themselves to a layout. How about a boxcar or caboose being used as a line-side office or storage unit. That cheepo passenger unit as a 50’s diner in town. Even junk has it’s use.
Kind of painting things with a broad brush, aren’t we? There’s no manufacturer I know of that has 100% of their cars 100% right 100% the time. This Trix reefer is one of the best I’ve ever seen and the details look awful good to me. It has the most free rolling trucks I’ve ever used - I use it it find any slight grade on the layout because it will roll down it. Here’s ehe car in question:
I’m sure the rivet counters among us can find all kinds of things wrong but I like it. I surely wouldn’t describe it as garbage.
For those who want certain pieces of rolling stock properly detailed for a specific railroad at a particular time, there are:
A. Several sources of data:
Prototype-information magazines.
Hardcover books
The Internet.
Historical societies.
B: Several useful combinations of materials and techniques:
Scratch building, starting with trucks, couplers and raw materials.
Kitbashing, where the starting point is a ‘not quite right’ kit.
Detailing, adding and/or changing minor but visually important parts.
Painting, combined with decaling, if the color scheme is not up to specification.
Weathering, which, if properly done, can hide a multiplicity of sins.
Then there is the hundred meter rule. Unless you intend to enter the model in a contest or run it directly under your bifocals, there comes a point where a car looks good enough. For me, that distance is 100 scale meters, which in 1:80 scale is 1250mm, or a little over four feet. If a detail can’t be seen at that distance, it doesn’t need to be perfect. (Since locomotives get more attention, they have to meet the 50 meter rule.)
Granted that, in this age of all-RTR modeling, I’m an anachronism. If I had waited for some manufacturer to provide all the cars I wanted, with numbers (of cars I had seen) written in my notebook, I would still be waiting. And waiting. And waiting…
So…does that also hold true for their NYC low cupola caboose? Even though MR did do an article a couple of years ago (right after it was released) on what things needed correcting on Trix NYC caboose, they did say that it was a fine model.
I have mostly the Bauchmann Silver Series on my HO layout, they look pretty good after they are weathered. All come with knuckle couplers and I have had very little problems with them, I have had to replace the couplers with Kadee’s on one of them. They also come with metal wheels and brass axles nd run in the $12- $15 range. Mike
A couple of things I do with kits might help. Athearn comprises the bulk of my fleet but there is one major flaw and that regards the flat weights. Athearn used to (haven’t bought any lately) shear the flat sheet metal weight. The way they did it causes a twist in it. The same way a piece of paper does when cutting it. If not straightened it can deflect the coupler box down and twist the frame. Now I place them on a flat surface and since they are fairly soft just push them flat with my thumbs. The longer the car the bigger a problem this is. I found that a lot of cars I had added Kadee washers to becasue of low coupler height were really the weight pushing down on the coupler box. the second item is the coupler cover. It isn’t always bent properly. They do a great job when you get the little ear on the coupler box all the way engaged into the slot on the side of the cover. gently squeeze the lid and the couple box with a pair of needle nose pliars from the side until you hear it snap in place. That eliminates about 99% of all lids from coming off. The last thing I do is fill cars with soupy plaster. This exceeds NMRA recommendations but being heavier doesn’t hurt in my opinion. The plaster forms to the car shape, won’t rattle, is a cheap weigtht and is easily cleaned from the outside of the car if you spill some. this is especially effective on tank cars and covered hoppers. It can also be used with regular hoppers if you are going to install a load over it.
According to UP modelers on the steam era freight car list, the Trix reefer, which is supposed to be a model of a PFE car, has ice hatches that are badly undersized. The underframe is incorrect.
Both the Trix boxcars, which are supposed to be a model of a UP cars, have a badly done roof, doesn’t match the prototype. The underframe is incorrect.
The Trix tankcar is a model of an ICC105A, 6,000 gal. Type 27 tank car. The problem is that many of the details are oversize.
The Trix UP CA-3/4 caboose has an incorrect roof.
I’ll have to slightly modify my statement as the Trix stockcar is an accurate model of a UP S-40-12. The hoppr is and accurate model of a UP H-70-1.
Yes, it’s supposed to be a copy of a PFE R-40-20 reefer. There’s a picture of it at http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/reefer/pfe_r4020main.html. If you compare the details on the Trix model I posted and the real thing, you’ll see that Trix did a good job, including a see through roof walk and very fine but strong ladders and grabs. I will agree that the ice hatches are too small. The underframe looks fine to me so it must take more of an expert than me to see the problems.
I got this car for $16. An Athearn RTR reefer, which is also paterned after the R-40-20 but also has some errors, goes for $15 and has all cast-on detail, grossly oversized stirrups, plastic trucks and wheel sets, and the ice hatches are actually slightly too large but they do open, a point in their favor. I’ll leave it to the members here to decide which model is the better deal.
The most prototypically accurate freight cars I’ve seen (in plastic, at least) are Kadee’s limited line of HO freight cars that goes for anywhere from $30 to $50. At that price, I expect that all the details of the prototype will be there and of the correct size, paint, and markings. For $16, my expectations are a little lower. Expecting 100% prototype fidelity in a $16 freight car seems amazingly unrealistic to me.
