Looking for opinions: I have an unbuilt Revell Interlocking Tower kit number T-9003 that I bought probably around 1962/63. The box has a copyright date of 1960 and the directions 1958. I know I paid $0.98 plus tax for it because back in those days the price was printed on the box with model number. All the parts, decals and prepainted figures are in the kit.
Anyway, I have been in the process of building another layout and was trying to figure out what other buildings I had from previous layouts to use for the yard tower and happen to remember I still had this kit stored away, along with others from my younger years. From what I have researched this kit could be considered rare, if not, it’s definitely vintage. The tower would fit very nicely in my new yard versus other towers I have. My intial thought is to go ahead and build it. My second thought is to sell it and buy a substitute.
Whether it is or not, no one will get as much pleasure from what’s in that box than you will. If you’re worried about “collectability” of the kit, well, it’s not going to send your kids to college. It probably won’t even buy enough gas to drive them there.
That was an extremely popular kit in its day; indeed all the Revell structures were nice kits crafted to a high enough standard that they still look pretty good today, the farmhouse and Superior bakery in particular. At least some of them were designed by Al Armitage a great craftsman who was one of the originators of using styrene plastic in model railroading (and there were outraged letters to Model Railroader about that at the time, including one that I recall that said in essence that if the material could not be soldered it was not a serious model making material).
I remember in the mid 1960s America’s Hobby Center, which always had a 2 page ad in Model Railroader back then, offered a package deal of that interlocking tower, an elevated crossing shanty, a crossing shack, and a water tank with spout, all in one Revell box for a total of 98 cents, so that was a real deal. There were HO scale unpainted figures included if memory serves.
I tended to slop the airplane cement on my kits back then but I imagine a bit of work with a hobby knife and some fine grit sandpaper could undo the damage, especially since I’d now be painting the kits which I did not do back then (just as well I didn’t). I know I have the built kits around here somewhere. By the way, for those that never built this kit, the windows were interesting – plastic frame and center sill but what look like muntins were white printed on clear plastic. If assembled and centered with a bit of care, it could look pretty good as you can see from the photo above.
Somewhat OT but someone once told me the crossing shanty is an authentic model of a Chicago & North Western prototype.
My recollection is that those Revell molds found several owners after Revell left the model train business. Con-Cor, Tyco, and maybe AHM or IHC might at various times have taken up these kits.&
Its not the RTR stuff…We still need to solder.Many young modelers fail to realize the soldering gun isn’t a new tool nor is many of the so called “new” modeling techniques…[(-D]
I was taught to solder with a iron heated by a open flame burner…
My dad had Weller soldering gun and a pencil type but,wanted me to learn how to solder with a heated iron first…
Brakie man, I think you just double whoosed me on my soldering snark - unless you really can solder wood together, as opposed to just charring it with the soldering iron.
I’m happy I started soldering w/ a gun (my Dad’s old 1960s ray-gun style w/ lights that lit when you pulled the trigger!), and went on to a pencil type for the odd soldering jobs (mostly soldering electrical connections, or making painting jigs using alligator clips and brass tubing) - I couldn’t image soldering detail parts to a locomotive using a heated iron.
Anyway, the OP definiately shouldn’t use a soldering iron when assembling his Revell Interlocking Tower - if it was a beat up gondola that needs distressed, warped side panels, that’s different.
Brakie man, I think you just double whoosed me on my soldering snark - unless you really can solder wood together, as opposed to just charring it with the soldering iron.
Actually we found Doublemint gum would hold wood together till the hobby shop got good ole Ambroid in stock…[:-^]
Seriously if it was wood it was passable for a freight car…Metal was superior to those “cheap” plastic cars that will surely ruin the hobby.
. . . . . . . . . . 1962/1963! That is indeed an oldie and it may or may not be a collectible especially if it has never been out of the box.
I would say build it as is. I don’t know whether the kit you are referring to is the one in MisterBeasley’s photograph or not but as I looked at that photo it brought back some memories of the club in Massachusetts in 1965. Several of these had been assembled intact at the throats of a couple of our yards while several others had been the focus of numerous kitbashing projects and you could see these bashes scattered across the layout.
Surprisingly–and again this is conjectural that the one you are talking about is the same as the one in MisterBeasley’s photograph–when I began building my first HO-Scale layout following my retirement from the Air Force in 1978 I encountered one of these kits at a going-out-of-busines–it was a real going-out-of-business–sale; the box had become very well worn from handling over the years but at $1.00 it was a bargain and somebody, undoubtedly, picked it up and it is probably gathering dust on a layout some place.
Thanks for the input. There’s something to be said about having items on your layout that you have had since you were a kid (45 years +) and it blends in with your current scheme.
All self respecting modelers cut up tin cans and scribed them to look like wood before soldering the model together. It was wooden kits that ruin this hobby.
Yes indeed they did. That was my first ever model railroad structure kit from way back when. The interlocking tower (as represented by Mr. Beasley’s photo) and shack remain in service on the present layout. The others are biding their time in a box but will probably see sunlight again once I find a good place for them.
When I originally bought most of my rolling stock, it was “modern era.” Now, it’s “late Transition era.” Funny how that happens.
When I first built this kit, I was struck by how much nicer it looked than the Plasticville structures I’d been happy with until then. It was a step up for me.
Heh heh good point – I didn’t say the guy won a prize for logic – and in fact that letter writer took some heat from others if I recall correctly. The Armitage article that incited the anger showed a steam locomotive boiler and cab that had been built from styrene as I recall and I suspect that was the origin of the letter writer’s anger – a direct challenge to metal fabrication from plastic.
Plus at least at that time plastic was replacing mostly metal in kits – consider the Athearn, Varney and Roundhouse freight cars – so the anti plastic guys were mostly guys who liked metal and saw plastic muscling in.
I agree on the virtues of having soldering skills, and wish mine were better at stuff beyond soldering feeder wires to rails to things like caboose handrails. But I also think plastic is a great scratch building materal.
