Greetings,
I’ve run across a few Mckean Models kits on eBay recently and was curious how they ranked in quality. From pictures they appear to be somewhere between Bowser and Red Caboose. The prices for assembled and unassembled are on par with or less than Accurail kits. Wanted to get a fair appraisal for these “old stock” kits before purchasing one to put together.
Thanks,
Tom
Your appraisal is very close to perfect. They have nice molds and individual plastic grabs and ladders. The trucks are one weakness to me and I always replace them. Not quite as nice as InterMountain or Red Caboose but better detailed than Athearn, Bowser (old line) and Accurail.
Roger Huber
Deer Creek Locomotive Works
The add on details are a little “clunky”, not as delicate as Red Caboose, P2K, Intermountain, or Branchline. I usually substitute wire grabs for the plastic ones in the kits. Front Ramge and C&BT Shops are essentially the same kits, though not all have the seperate details. Most can be bought for 5 to 10 dollars on eBay.
Yes, I agree… they aren’t as sophisticated (detailed) as Red Caboose or Intermountain, but they are certainly acceptible for the “better layouts”.
Yes, I noted that; hence why I was curious about the quality. I was also surprised to see so many Branchline “Blueprint Series” kits for <$10. Talk about maximizing your entertainment $$$ for the time it takes to put those together. [Y][:D]
Tom
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a RTR McKeen car. I think original kits were a little more advanced for their time, detail wise, then some of the competing items. But they were surpassed by the Red Caboose, Intermountain, and P2K kits.
The BluePrint Branchline kits are very nice, but suffer from the same fate as kits in general…the market is no longer there what with the availability of similarly detailed RTR items. There were also occasional issues with these cars with some of the finer details such as the brake rod detail. I think they were called “short shots”, where the plastic did not completely filled the mold.
Bill McKean was among the first to really cater to the serious prototype modelers of freight cars in plastic, but in my opinion the good intentions behind the offerings were not always matched by attention to how the parts would actually go together.
I can recall when his clinics at NMRA conventions were well attended, again by those guys who were really starting to notice, talk about, photograph, and write about freight car details that the mainstream manufacturers had glossed over or omitted. Bill died in late 2013
There is an older thread from 2011 about the Mckean model kits on this forum, here:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/188639.aspx
And on that thread I posted the following comments:
McKean Models has been gone from the scene for some time now. I think it is fair to say that the word on the street is that while McKean himself had a good sense for interesting prototypes that would make a good and desirable model, the kits are highly variable in quality – by which I mean, parts fitting, cars running well when complete, that sort of thing. Some of the kits seemed to have gone together OK; people seem to have had few problems with. For others, it is rare to see a running example on a layout. Some of my McKean kits had a strange variant on styrene - don’t know how else to express it but it was not the usual stuff.
I think there are still some cars McKean came out with that nobody has done since. I have no idea who has the tooling or what it would take
The McKeen/Front Range tooling (in aluminum so a lot of work was needed to make it usable again) was split up between Sky-Lim/E&C/LBF and Accurail. Accurail got rid of the seperately applied details and came up with a one piece casting for the cars.
Dave, your right about some of the plastic, the latter Front Range Cars had cast on grabs and ladders and the plastic was sure strange.
I have buiilt and still have a number of Front Range/McKeen kits at home.
Here are some examples:
50’ Evans Ribbed Side Boxcar Kit.
ACF Combo Door Boxcar
Front Range or McKeen 50’ RBL.
McKeen 40’ PS1 Boxcar.
I don’t know if many of the cars I built were McKeen or Front Range as the same type of car would be in either company’s box.
Rick Jesionowski
Of all the craftsman type plastic kits, Branchline Blueprint and P2K seem to be that most difficult to re-sell. As a long time eBay buyer and seller my offerings of those two are slow to move even with less than $5.00 shipping. IMWX, Red Caboose and Intermountain have a good following and can go north of $10. Careful shopping will net some decent buys. Kits are getting harder to move regardless of the manufacturer.
Depends, decorated kits don’t go for a lot, but try to get an undecorated one. I bought some decorated kits for kitbashing fodder from Atlas. I also don’t know why people can’t build the Proto and Branchline kits as they are simple and quick to build just like the Intermountain.
Rick Jesionowski
I think the trucks and the wheels were meant to be replaced with higher quality ones. That was normal back in the old days. I know the kit I bought had such horrible wheels that I couldn’t use them. I replaced them with trucks and wheels from Walthers (Walthers roller bearing trucks w 33 metal wheels 933 1007).
I bought my kit at a trainshow. The body was warped and I had to heat it up with a hair dryer to straighten it out. Still it was a nice model for it’s time (1980s) and the only centerbeam flatcar that I could find. This was before Walthers came out with their centerbeams.
!http://www.trainweb.org/lonewolfsantafe/up217021.jpg
pictured with a Walther’s centerbeam load which has been cut down to fit.
I have a number of Front Range and McKean cars. On some the truck and body bolsters don’t work well together, so I replaced the trucks. Others work OK with the stock trucks, but I always replace the wheelsets. On nearly all of them, the body and/or truck bolsters required modification to adjust the ride height.
The above was built from a factory decorated kit, with some extra wire grabs and new decals. It received Athearn trucks with Proto 2000 wheels.
This car was kitbashed from one of the same kits as above. It retains the stock trucks but got Kadee wheels.
This ADM hopper was having problems derailing, and nothing I could figure out to adjust the trucks helped. I filed the body bolsters down and added Kadee HCG trucks, which cured the derailments entirely.
The adjacent MP hopper was assembled from one of the same kits, that came with somewhat different trucks. It has proven to be reliable and currently has ExactRail wheelsets.
Part of the problem with Proto, Branchline, Red Caboose and Intermountain kits (and McKean and Front Range in the past) is their use of plastic for things like grabirons and brake rigging. Generally, those items are either oversize or too flimsy. I usually cut the brake components from the one-piece castings and toss the brake rigging and piping and the grabirons, substituting parts formed from wire. Likewise, replacing cast-on details on Accurail cars can make them look comparable to the re-worked ones mentioned, and generally better than ones built using the supplied details. This usually results in cars that stand up better to handling, too.
Branchline…
Intermountain…
Accurail…
Red Caboose…
Proto…
I had a number of McKean and Front Range cars, but sold them when I backdated my layout. All had upgraded details, and sold for two to three times what I payed for them.
Wayne
I was tempted to buy some Branchline kits back in the day but some of the examples I looked at didn’t have the best paint and lettering. Now that Atlas has taken over some of the old BL box cars, the RTR versions they are offering have beautiful paint and lettering and I’ve bought a bunch since then and continue to hunt for those I missed when they first hit the market. Not that I’m averse to building kits, but the decorating wasn’t the best on those I saw.
As for McKean/FR. I once had a bunch of the McKean coal cars that came in the white boxes with red stripes. They were on-par with Stewart hoppers roughly. Molded on grab irons and ladders which was normal for most coal cars at the time. I sold them off because they were only stand-in’s and later I was able to buy more accurate coal cars.
I also have two Front Range covered hoppers I built from kits (RI and SP) and never had any problems running them. At the time they came out, the had the finest ladders and end cages and still are decent. I’ve also built a couple of box cars of same heritage and they were among the more detailed at the time of production.
Jim, the Branchline cars went to Atlas and not Athearn, what Athearn got were the old Details West cars.
Rick Jesionowski
Let me first explain that my definition of “quality” has to do with fit and finish of parts, paint application, stoutness, etc. Fineness of details, fineness of printing, prototype fidelity, etc. would be described by me as “sophistication”, not “quality”.
As far as sophistication, the McKean kits I assembled are on par with Accurail, with a decent level of sophistication of details for the day, but overall more in line with the Atlas Trainman, Walthers Mainline, and Athearn Roundhouse level today since most details are molded on.
In terms of quality, the kits I had were below average. Lots of flash on the parts, and the parts in general were flimsy and didn’t go well together, which is the complete opposite of the high quality kits that Accurail produces. Consequently, I’ll never buy a McKean kit again.
Funny how I could see in my minds eye the Atlas box but typed the wrong company name. Brainfart. Corrected in my orignal post but not your quote!
Atlas has done a really nice job on those former BL cars.
While I’ll agree with you on the older “red box” Branchline kits, Rio, the later/pre-Atlas kits with the nice labeling actually had very nice paint jobs and lettering - at least the ones that I put together. My only complaint might be that the paint was a bit too shiny.
Tom
One thing I did not see anyone mention is the 3 piece non-sprung trucks that McKean put in some kits. They were worse than the Intermountain 3 piece non-sprung trucks they had in some of their kits. McKean also used white plastic on some cars. The combination of some colors and the white plastic made the cars look at little bit strange. I agree that some of the printing was not consistent quality. I also agree that the range of road names and paint is pretty wide. The biggest problem with these older kits is that they have been shuffled around so much that some are missing parts or have parts that didn’t come with the original kits or are brittle from storage.
