I purchased and built an Atlas Trainman kit (Ex Branchline Yardmaster Series) and wanted to say it produced a wonderful, pretty much “Shake-the- Box” to build kit, as easy as the old Athearn Blue Box kits ever where; but with a couple more parts. The kit has nice finely molded on details. My car is a Minneapolis & St. Louis/C&NW 40 foot AAR box car and the lettering is very nice and crisply done. I was satisfied with the weights provided which gave the car a finished weight of around 3.5 oz.; or, about a 1/2 oz. shy of NMRA’s recommended practices. It comes with metal wheels with shinny treads and ridged Bettendorf trucks that are nicely detailed. All brake detail is apart of the molded car under frame and includes brake lines, bell-cranks and linkages.
I should think these car kits would be very popular, compared to Atlas’ Branchline Blueprint cars; or, Proto 2000, Intermountain, etc. style of craftsman kits, as they are not quite so fragile and I feel the molded on details are as good as separately applied details when viewed at normal viewing distances. At least my 62 almost 63 year old eyes can’t distinguish between the molded on; or, separate grabs, and other details that are glued on.
Although I still enjoy building the craftsman type of kits, it’s apparent (at least to me) that they are scaring the general modeling public away from building car kits.
So, if you think you might like to save a little money over RTR and think you’ld like to try your hand at building a simple kit, I can’t recommend any, more highly than an Atlas Trainman kit!
I had several of these kits over the years, as they are the old Branchline Yardmaster kits. And you are correct, they are a step or two above the older Athearn, MDC and Accurail kits. They do build up NICE!
My first preference in kits which are being produced today is Accurail. However, I always replace the Accurail’s plastic wheels with metal wheel set (P2K) and you don’t need to replace the wheels with the Trainman kits. Everything Accurail produces is a kit, not just a small portion of the line, like the Trainman series!. Maybe there will be more kits in this series someday; however, I haven’t heard anything about it. Hopefully!
AFAIK, Atlas doesn’t have any plans for N scale kits. In fact, N has always suffered for a lack of kits. Some HO kits give people fits with small parts. The percentage is no doubt much higher in N, although I’m sure you’re not the only one with an interest.
GAH! wow, no fun. I suppose I could always detail my existing rolling stock, already have thoughts about lighting and putting people in my silver streak zephyr set.
I just paged through Atlas Trainman rolling stock in N-scale at Modeltrainstuff and Caboose hobbies and could not find that Atlas has produced any N-scale kits in the Trainman series, sorry!
But many past runs are available unbuilt in the aftermarket (such as eBay). MicroTrains kits were discontinued many years ago and are “collectible” now. Some other manufacturers (Red Caboose et al) produced N scale kits in the past which turn up (unbuilt) on eBay from time to time.
Simple searches on Google and/or eBay will yield results. Asking about N scale on a forum that is predominantly HO scale, not as much.
Of course not – the kits were HO-only lines before Atlas purchased them. Atlas uses “Trainman” as a designation for all their lower-detail offerings in various scales.
I have to agree. I just put one together, a transition era box car for Santa Fe and was thrilled. I prefer kits, and loved the simple ones of the old BB nature. Between work and life, don’t have the time like I used… Heck, who I am kidding, Ive never had the time. I will buying more of these for sure.
I think, It would really be interesting to determine how many Model Railroaders actually prefer to build rolling stock kits, as opposed to buy them RTR?
I have always wondered if the swing towards RTR was caused by modeler demand; or, by the manufacturer’s causing the demand by their discontimuing the production of kits. I have been involved in manufacturing, almost my whole life and have been lead to believe that manufacturers produce what the buying public wants. However, it is also in the manufacturers best interest to create demand and therein lies my question? It’s to bad this topic cause such ranchor as it would be interesting to delve deeper.
As far as a kit taking to long to build; or, not having enough time to build, we always make time to do the things we want to do. It’s sort of obvious, given the directon the hobby has headed in the last decade and a half, that modelers have more money, than ability; or, interest in actually modeling (my opinion; but, how else can you explain the above shift away from model building)?.
I think that there are several factors at work here supporting RTR
They are available at or just slightly above the cost of kits for the same car/manufacturer. Years ago, kits were the only option beyond the entry level economy lines of Tyco and others. When better RTR first came out they were priced significantly higher so kit building saved money. No longer true. So people who naturally prefer RTR can do so. (Note as labor rates in China keep going up, this may change).
With larger homes people are building larger layouts. If your layout is 4x8, 5x10, even 8x12 you can build everything. If your layout is 10x20 or larger you already have plenty of building to do even with RTR. In fact RTR may be the only way to get a large l
I enjoy building craftsman kits and scratch building cars, but now that I’m “building a railroad” and need a several hundred cars, it is no longer practical. The simple Accurail and Branchline Yardmaster (now Atlas Trainman) kits go together quickly and have a reasonable level of detail and ruggedness for an operational fleet of cars. I especially like the fact that Accurail has renumber decals. The old Branchline Blueprint series kits and the Proto (ex Lifelike) kits build nice cars, but I no longer have the time to invest, because I’m building the benchwork, track and electrical parts of a good size model railroad. So now the more complex kits will sit on my shelf until I get most of the layout running.
As well as loving to build all my rolling stock and having a layout that is 8 feet X 22 feet, I have about 125 freight and Passenger cars and if I had to build another 125, I would be a happy camper! I don’t know when I will stop building them as it probably my favorite part of the hobby, building rolling stock and structures. However, for me building the cars is approximately 1/2 of the process of providing rolling stock, the other 1/2 is weathering them. So you guys who buy RTR, are you weathering them, also?
I’m a bit different than some/most, I really don’t care if my layout is ever finished. Just being down stairs working on it is what I enjoy! My only goal is having fun with the hobby.