This could be the dumbest question asked,but. Is there an easy or correct way to remove loco’s from the boxes they come in. They are so well packed that their hard to get out, let alone back in. I think a finger either end and up while holding the box down is good but with handrails,lights and couplers… Plus their in there so tight the boxes are bowed out slightly at the bottom. I have n scale modern diesel and there’s not much room to get a grip. Try as i might i have found nothing on this. I have removed some but it’s an ordeal. Forgot to say hello. Hello and thank you very much. Robert. [;)]
love the avatar.
A lot of times there are finger holes on the back to help you push, vs prying. Sometimes there’s a plastic wrap you can pull on. In HO, with Athearn they have made it a lot easier to unpackage due to unfolding formed plastic. Yea, today with all the highly detailed RTR locos, it can be a challenge.
Richard
Many of these locos are in a styrofoam protective piece that the loco fits into perfectly, without any way to get your fingers around the model. Some also come with a plastic bubble specially shaped to that loco. In either case, what I do is take the top portion of the packaging off (box top or top of the plastic bubble), take one hand and tip the entire bottom part of the packaging with the loco in it into your other hand, so as to gently cradle the loco as it falls into your hand. Also, be sure to do this in a place where there will be a soft landing in the remote event you might drop it as it comes out of the packaging.
I have more steamers by far, and my impression is that their running gear and drivers are (meant to be) the most robust part of them, barring their internal motor and drive mechanism. The fragile details are on the smoke box and atop the boiler, and located just above or below the running boards atop the drivers. All of mine that do NOT come wrapped in a handy plastic square that I can partially unfold, grip, and use to life the locomotive and tender free, I press the foam back with one finger, then touch the loco, and do the same with a finger on the other hand. I keep an eye on what is happening at the smoke box front, and what I do then is rotate the loco’s boiler top upward, letting the drivers stay down in the foam. When I have the loco mostly rotated, say at 45 deg or more, and if the smoke box details are coming free without snagging the foam, I simple begin to lift the whole locomotive.
Press back the foam in two or three places, rotate gently, and lift. I have yet to find a hand grab, hand rail, or plastic/metal detail of another kind, say a turbo-generator or a number board, left behind.
Once you do get your steamer or highly detailed/customized diesel free, and if it doesn’t have the plastic wrapping when you first get it, make one and use it before you place the locomotive back in its foam packaging. It makes it soooo much easier to lift it free. Plastic shopping bags can work, even if they are opaque, or find some other clear pastic bags such as lighting and stuff come in from big box stores.
Crandell
Hi Richard[#welcome]
What Tom said.
I have no experience with N-Scale but feel your pain. In HO some recent Atlas offerings have been very tightly packed. I gingerly got it out but was nervous about breaking off detail parts with my ham hands. I think Atlas knows its too tight because they included the front and back handrails as modeler applied parts. Thanks goodness it was a very good press fit. I’d also say the in HO Athearn Genesis and RTR are the easiest to get out of the package.
Of course your mileage may vary. Derek
Bah’ just pry it out with a screwdriver