After years of avoiding RTR stuff as much as possible, I finally gave in and bought an On30 sound equipped Porter. I needed a small steamer for my point to point layout and I found a great deal on this…a little over a hundred bucks, including shipping. Even my wife said it was cool, so that was good enough for me! Here is a quick shot of it in front of my half-finished engine house. I do need to reletter and weather it, but I am more than pleased.
While I have and have purchased RTR products (mostly locomotives), I still much prefer buying rolling stock in kit form. Unfortunately, only a few companies still provide those any more. [:(]
Some of the newer RTR offerings (particularly Exactrail and Tangent) are quite nice looking and I have purchased a few that are appropriate to my era and have been very pleased with them. That said, I will continue to support the likes of Accurail, Sylvan, and other companies that cater to modelers who are still interested in assembling kits. That’s part of the hands-on enjoyment of the hobby for me, Chuck, as I’m sure it has been for you.
Tom
No need to be sad. Get yourself to Timonium this fall and if it’s like it has been during my last several visits, there still should be a large selection of kits to add to the few that are still produced. Lack of kits are not a problem from what I’m seeing with my own squinties.
I noticed the OP was into O narrow gauge so I had no idea what the RTR world was like for them; I would guess a lot less than in std gauge HO. THe HO narrow guage RTR stuff from Blackstone has not escaped my attention and that line of products would definitely make HO narrow gauge much more accessible to folks who aren’t into kits or don’t have the skilz.
I can’t comment on Exactrail, as their offerings are too modern for my operating era, but Tangent does offer at least their 6,000 gallon tank car in kit form, both decorated and undecorated. I got an undecorated one, and while I modified it slightly, it was very nicely-done and a pleasure to build. Lettering it, though, was very time consuming…
…with 168 individual pieces of decal required. [banghead][:P]
Wayne
Tangent goes back a little futher than ER does, and they do some nice older style RTR tank cars, for example. ER does offer the Wagontop box cars too. Options are limited definitely as you go back in time for modeling RTR.