Back in the day, an Athearn Blue Box, Model Die Casting, or Accurail “shake the box” kit really earned its nickname, as I could dash one off in 10 or 15 minutes. It seems those days are gone. The kits haven’t changed. I have. They are now more time consuming. And I am by no means a detailer of the Doctor Wayne stripe.
Back then the bare unpainted metal floor of MDC Roundhouse kits was the way I built it. Whatever plastic wheels that came with the kit were used, with no thought to rolling quality. I did switch to Kadee couplers (not early enough) but, being frugal, for a long time I accepted Accurail’s Accumate couplers even though they never worked well for me. I guess my feeling was, I’ve paid for these couplers darn it.
Athearn Blue Box. I used to just slap the underframe and weight on the floor, screw on the trucks, snap in the couplers, plop it all into the carbody, and was good to go. Happy innocence. Happy for a while at least.
Dave was that Robins Rails car in a Athearn box ? Reason I ask is I still have about 90 Bev Bel cars still on the shelf Some of the boxes say BevBel / Athearn some say Bev Bel / Millenium Series and some Bev Bel / C.-C. I just figured that one out ConCor
edit not sure now looked at 4 of the ones marked C.-C. and they are athearn ??
Things go that way in my shop too. I can easily spend a couple of hours on a shake the box kit. Back when i was younger I would knock one out in 15 minutes. On the other hand, I enjoy building rolling stock, and the extra time spent painting the undercarriage, painting the trucks, brushpainting the wheel faces, installing brake rodding and piping, painting the tack boards driftwood gray, and other fiddling around, is pleasurable. It’s a hobby.
Dave, I built my Athearn and MDC cars the same shake-the-box way, but as the newer kits appeared (Robin’s Rails, Front Range, Ramax, McKean, and others), I decided to go back and upgrade the Athearn and MDC stuff, too, so that it would fit-in better with the more detailed cars which were becoming available.
Accurail really accelerated that programme, as the one-piece bodies were so nicely done that they almost begged to have free-standing grabirons, even though I’ve seen well-painted and skillfully weathered versions, with cast-on grabirons intact, which look like they’ve been re-done with wire.
For me, that was my first step down that slippery slope of detailing freight cars (I’d already succumbed to diesel detailing, and when I backdated my layout to a late '30s era, went quite willingly into the same for steam).
Selling-off the diesel era stuff was somewhat difficult for me, mostly because of the work put into it, but it went quickly and for very good prices, which helped to fund the backdating. There are a few that I wish I had back, but they’ve gone to good friends, and can be seen when I visit.
There was, of course, some stuff which remained useful for the earlier era, mainly hoppers and covered hoppers (the latter weren’t all that common in my new chosen era, but I’ve always liked them, so free-lancing a progressive railroad makes them acceptable exceptions to reality).
However, a friend who moved his modelling era to current day sent me some surplus Proto “War Emergency” hoppers, which are very nicely detailed (the design of the prototype is
That’s the way I built mine. It didn’t even occur to me to paint it. But truth be told, except for the stirrup step, I didn’t see the bottom anyway once it was on the track.
I did, however, go to metal wheels and KD couplers early on.
They were the first car kits I did. I still have them, even though I’m in S now and the plastic kits have a lot more separately applied detail.
I never understood why people detail the undercarriage of rolling stock. It’s not seen like the car body, so why bother? I’m not disparaging anyone who does, but I see no point in it.
I’ve been buying some Athearn and Roundhouse boxcar kits lately, and see their molded in grab irons and other warts as a warm reminder of the past.
When I switched from HO to N scale I had some Athearn BB freight and passenger cars that I just could not bear the thought of selling or trading off just because of the fond memories I had with them of getting started in this hobby. Almost all were upgraded with KD’s and metal wheels although I have a least one with hornhook couplers and the original plastic wheels. I can still remember my first Athearn train I put together with two B&O Chessie GP35s, fat bodies, no handrails yet installed, one powered with the “bonfire” in the cab and the other a dummy and both with the same engine number and thinking “wow, they look so real!” Now those were the days!
Ralph,Back in the days of BB,Roundhouse and other like kits I fully believe the hobby was more I dunno innocent perhaps?
When I sold my BB and Roundhouse cars I kept several of my favorites like Berwin Mills Railroad,Akron & Barberton Belt 50’ boxcar, Louisville New Albany & Corydon modern 40’ boxcar and several others that was hard to find since there are no replacement cars with those road names.
The box is a green and white “Bev-Bel Collector’s Edition” box but now I see (after how many decades owning the thing?) that one end is marked “Robin’s Rails Inc.”
On the other end, the one I paid attention to, it says #9971-1
PS-1 50’ S/D boxcar
Milwaukee Road
car # 52095.
Dave Nelson
Amended Post: Well I looked at the box again and there is a drawing of a bird on the top - Robin’s Rails, get it? I don’t know where my brain was all these years - I must have thought “Bev” of Bev-Bel was the name of the bird. [D)]
I like to do a lot of model photography at “eye” level, so underbody detailing can add a lot to an image.
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If you are not into photography, there is no reason to detail the underbody. I never detail the underbody of cars with fishebelly side rails. Then I really don’t see the point.
Point? Well … I’m not sure there is a main point, or even a secondary point.
Let’s just say the phenomenon of laboring for the better part of an entire afternoon – and a productive one at that – to ready 7 “shake the box” kits for future construction, without constructing them at all, struck me as rather funny and thus worth sharing with the group.
Back in the days of BB,Roundhouse and other like kits I fully believe the hobby was more I dunno innocent perhaps?
Larry, that was a great way to put it. This was before the days of the internet, fourms and all web sites we use for research today. All I learned was either standing track side, hanging out at the hobby shop or from magazines and books at the library. But also Athearn BB and Roundhouse were about all the local hobby shops here carried and compared to the toy train brands these were the "Chevy Impala"of the day that just about everyone could afford and customize to their own need. If it had my favorite road name or looked close to what I saw, I bought it and was happy.
Innocent? naw, just more limited in scope, perhaps. The ready availability of detail parts and the era of kitbashing, along with some feature magazine articles started the demand for a higher level of detail.
Don’s comments amused me more because, I was recently in the process of repairing and upgrading an old custom lettered BB 50’ box. I was actually going to relocate the AB equipment, and install some piping, then thoughtbetter of it whenI found the broken coupler tab. So I fixed the couplers, replaced the wheels, and put it back to work. Still needs a shot of dullcote though.
As I once said to a fellow club member, “If you can see the underframe of one of my gondolas, things have gone seriously wrong.”
Of course, my primary interest is operations, and that affects my perceptions. When I’m switching, I could almost be using wood blocks with reporting marks on them.
I loved the original post and must admit, all that sounded very familiar. I have very few models that haven’t been upgraded to some degree and I had fun doing it. However, when it comes time to sell them, all that time spent and extra parts, etc won’t count for much when the bargain hunters swoop down on my garage sale. At least, I had fun and model railroading is never considered an “investment”.
