can anybody give me a point of view on round house rolling stock any feed back welcome
Do you mean Model Die Casting’s Roundhouse brand? It has been purchased by Horizon Hobby and merged into Athearn. The quality and amount of detail is going to depend on whether you’re talking about the pre-Athearn or post-Athearn models. Pre-Athearn models were pretty plain in appearance, had poor-quality wheels, and came with horn-hook couplers. The newer models being produced by Athearn that I have seen are already assembled and should come with metal wheels and knuckle couplers, but the couplers they use will probably need to be changed to something better. I haven’t purchased any of the new Roundhouse models, so I can’t say for sure what their rolling qualities, weight, couplers, etc. are like; but they look much better than the older ones.
I have a few pieces of Roundhouse rolling stock and they are a good product…a lot of them have a metal underframe, ( I like the metal underframe because it gives them some weight) and you will have to assemble them just as you would any other kit rolling stock product…the only changes i made to them was as all my rolling stock…changing out the stock couplers with Kadee’s…another thing is to have a jeweler’s file and a hobby knife handy to fine tune the shape of some of the parts by filing or shaving away any slag off of the parts so that they will fit in the mounting holes properly before glueing them in place…chuck
i have a 36’ reefer in the old roundhouse kit and a new RTR 36’ boxcar . body detail is identical , cast on grabs and hinges , molded-in color , and printed graphics and text are all of identical quality . underbodies are different , the rtr is plastic and doesn’t have the detail of the kit’s metal underframe . also the steps (stirrups ?) are part of the underbody metal casting on the old kit (and needed a lot of cleanup of flash) , and are part of the plastic underbody on the RTR . the RTR is heavier than the kit , and has metal wheels . the RTR couplers are a kadee type , and work with accurail’s and whatever comes on bachmann spectrum steamers . i didn’t even bother installing the couplers that came with the kit .
overall i say the RTR is the winner . just not having to buy metal wheels and new couplers make it worth whatever the difference in price is (assuming you can still find the kits) also not having to install the truss rod thread is a bonus [:)] . on the other hand , if you can get the kit at a low enough price they’re a good way to build up the freight fleet , and a step above shake-the-box kits but below craftsman difficulty .
I have a large fleet of MDC/Roundhouse cars. I like them, not great shakes in the detailing department, but they have enough detail to suit me. They were also inexpensive, an important consideration when you need 20 ore jennies and 20 coal hoppers. I gave them all Kadee couplers, and am slowly replacing the plastic wheels with metal wheels.
Nick.
I loved the old Round house kits. I really liked the metal underframes. Any lack of detail can easily be remedied by shaving off detail and adding new yourself. I always replace the wheels and couplers, but you can buy them in bulk and they don’t really cost that much.
dr.bones,
The Roundhouse kits are good. I’ve only put together one of their cabooses. My beef with them is that their kit directions left much to be desired and a some things to be interpreted. I had to make my best “guess” at placing a couple of items on the cabosse. The paint jobs are a little too glossy for my taste. (A sooty wa***o the outside took care of that.) PersonallyI like Accurail, Branchline, and Proto 2000 kits better.
Tom
I’ve got a rather large amount of Roundhouse cars in my inventory. For the longest time, they were basically the ONLY source for older cars, especially 36-foot boxes and reefers, wood cabooses, and wood passenger cars. I concentrated on accumulating cars from those three areas, and ignored the rest of their product line in favor of higher-end cars (Branchline, Red Caboose, Intermountain, etc).
Overall, I like 'em. I especially like using their cars as “kitbash bait”, converting the 36-foot cars into prototype models, with seperate grabs, upgraded brake rigging, new ends (Westerfield), and new roofs. Their passenger car line (especially the Oveland and Pullman Palace cars) are still the way to go if you need to kitbash wood passenger cars, and their caboose line is still pretty decent (especially their wood cars, which are easily kitbashed into many prototypes). I have to admit though, that I don’t have a single factory-decorated MDC car on my layout!
Athearn is taking the Roundhouse line to the next level, by adding metal wheelsets, Kadee-clone couplers, and MUCH better paint schemes. Unfortunately, they have no plans to reintroduce the line as kits. Too bad, considering that’s the only way I need them! I keep my inventory of MDC project cars full by haunting the swap tables, looking for NIB kits.
I personally don’t like them, the other main manufacturers (Proto, Athearn Walthers) are better, and I don’t have any roundhouse kits in service.
Matthew
Roundhouse’s stuff is nice once you repaint/weather, detail, and add metal wheelsets. The finish is usually shiny, and a lot of the paint schemes are inaccurate. The stirrups and grab irons are usually too clunky. The brakewheel is molded black, so it needs to be painted, except on black cars. The Railbox’s are really the only thing I own by them. Now, Athearn has re-released their cars with better detail and correct paint.
Good stuff. I’ve had them since they were all-metal, and though as everyone else says, the detail isn’t up to Red Caboose or Intermountain, they’re good, solid kits. I usually change the wheels out to metal, and of course install Kadee’s on them, but no complaints from this end. I just purchased about four of their new RTR Rio Grande cabeese, and I’m so impressed that I’m going to make them the standard cabeese on the layout. Also, if you can ever run across one of their older “3-in-1 kits” that are designed for kit-bashing, you’ll have a lot of fun. Like I said, good stuff. Glad they’re still around.
Tom
I have a fair number of MDC/Roundhouse cars. As Orsonroy says, for a long time they were about the only ‘easy’ (not craftsman kit) way to get c.1900 36’ freight cars and 80’ wood passenger cars. Their Pullman Palace cars are quite good if you model that far back.
Also for many years they were the only ore car available, made in both rectangular (smooth) side and outside-braced versions. They’re based on the kind of cars used in Upper Michigan and northern Wisconsin, a little taller and a little narrower than Walthers’ “Minnesota” ore cars. I still run both, the MDC cars roll a little better out of the box, better trucks.
I have quite a few N kits and use these to practice my wethering skills, when ready I change the trucks and couplings with MTL’s the factory decals on the older kits are poor but this adds to the weathering, and the price is good…