I miss the athearn blue box kits i loved them most of my trains before i sold them where athearn blue box starting over again and finding some out there just wished they would come back
Probably won’t see them again while they can spend 3 min. assembling them, add metal wheels & sell them for 3 times as much. Also Ready to Run is more popular than kits today. Gives you more time to play computer games!
Unfortunatly that is true i just loved putting them together passed the time and got lost in doing it
Blue box is OK, but Accurail kits have much better deail and aren’t that much harder to assemble. I believe Accurail is still cranking out new kits. I’d be super happy if they’d add a little more variety to their lineup, to include PS covered hoppers, modern tank cars, centerbeam flats, etc.
Kit nostalgia aside, I can appreciate the value of a decently-detailed and reasonably-priced RTR model. I’ve got a backlog of a couple dozen kits that will probably take years to get to. My free time is at an extreme premium right now, and what little bit of hobby time I have is focused elsewhere. RTR is nice because I can run trains immediately and spend my limited modeling time on layout construction or loco detailing. If I had to scratchbuild or kit-assemble everything in this hobby, at this stage in my life I’d probably just give up and stick to railfanning.
I used to pick up several blue box kits every time I went to the LHS. About the only place I see them now is Ebay.
For me, ready to run gives me more time for operations. I spend my extra time on scratch building structures and scenery, etc. And the MRR forums of course!
I’m with Dan. Even though their product line is more limited, I like Accurail much better.
Tom
I am trying to build a fleet of cars for operating my layout. I subscribe to the “Good Enough” philosophy which includes at least KD couplers, weight to NMRA standards and metal wheels.I have been buying Athearn BB kits and Roundhouse kits on Ebay, but because they are out of production the price is climbing.
As others have written, try Accurail kits. I think they are a good replacement for the blue box kits, even a little higher quality, IMO. I’d put them in the same level of detail group as Atlas trainman and Walthers mainline.
Most of their kits are models of older era cars. I wish they would offer one or more cars of newer era.
No need to miss them. Visit a large train show in your area and you can find lots of them at the vendor tables and pick up a box full to keep you busy. I see lots at the shows every time I visit.
Until they all get built, there will be unbuilt ones traded on eBay and at train meets. Grab’em while you can. I’m sure some joker is putting some aside unbuilt so they can be 'collector’s items" in a few years - you’ll see it on ebay sure as the sun rises - “Vintage Unbuilt Blue Box Kit” starting bid $100.
In the meantime, there is Accurail, so far still committed to making kits, pretty much just as easy as BB, sometimes just slightly more difficult. And perhaps more importantly in these days of overseas manufacture - Accurail kits are made in the USA.
–Randy
I miss them, too, but there are alternatives. I just found one a week ago at a train show. I buy Accurails and Roundhouse kits. Since I model the Milwaukee Road, I bought a number of the rib-side cars from the little ad in MR.
As I’ve become a better modeler, I’ve learned to appreciate better models, so not having Blue Boxes doesn’t bother me as much.
Accurail makes or made great outside braced box cars. I just add metal grabs on the side & top, metal wheels & Kadee couplers. Can’t beat it for the price.
When I first started in the hobby about 10 years ago I really liked the BB kits. They were a cheap and easy way to populate my roster, and I made a point of bringing them up to NMRA standards as others in the thread have done. I had a ball with them!
They are still available at the train shows but the problem now is that the road names and car types are rarely suitable for my purposes. Also, with some experience under my belt I realize that the quality of things like the printing leaves a lot to be desired. The lettering is often very dim.
As others have said, Accurail has good stuff.
The other kit mfr that I would like to see back is LifeLike P2K. Their kits were a lot fussier than the BB ones but with practise they produced decent models, at least in my opinion. Not craftsman but not crap either. Yes the grab irons were a pita - thank goodness they provided extras.
I have purchased lots of RTR where the road name and car type suited my needs and I am quite happy with them, but had I had the choice or kits vs RTR I would have chosen the kits just for the pleasure of building something. That’s a very personal choice - I like working with my hands.
Anyhow purchasing more rolling stock is a moot point for me now. I am saving my money so I can actually start to build my layout.
Dave
With the large quantities of kits at train shows year after year, it doesn’t seem the bb kits and other varieties are getting all built that fast. The way I see it, many of us collected lots of kits, and simply ended up with more than we had time to build. But some years ago, that was the only way you could have a decent quality fleet of rolling stock because back then, the RTR stuff was mostly toy like. Now that we’ve had a large supply of good quality RTR stuff on the market for years, many of us are looking at our collections with realistic eyes and saying “you know, I"m never going to build most of these” and we are selling them.
There seems to be this romantic notion about kits. Well, thats fine but there are alot of folks who don’t have the time to build hundreds of freight cars, and the train shows I’ve gone to in Syracuse NY, Springfield MA, Indianapolis IN, Rochester NY, and recently Timonium MD - the tables are packed with kits and for cheap prices including lots of Athearn blue box. Why? Again because there are many people who realized they didn’t have time to build them all and put them up for sale. That, and many buyers don’t want to get many more kits because they already have more than they will build ,so they aren’t flying off the tables. We are happy to rebuild our fleet with more prototypically based RTR stuff and part with kits we know we will never build, not after 10 or 15 or 20 plus years of sitting on them still unbuilt.
So based on my observations, my guess
I find the ready to run range is more work than the blue box kits because you have to disassemble them before you can weather them, add weight, change the wheel sets and couplers etc. Then reassemble them just like a blue box kit.
Regards Jon.
Gidday, . While I miss the BB kits times have changed, I would just add my vote for Accurail kits.
Just a few irrelevant observations from New Zealand.
rrinker and riogrande5761. Its already starting to happen here, A dealer snapped the remaining stocks of “new” BB kits and, because of their “rarity” is selling them currently at 1 1/2 times more than when they were on the LHS shelves. The same happened with MDC “Roundhouse” kits , ( they got to 3 x) !!!. On our equivalent of “Ebay” I also note that there seem to be a lot of dreamers with what I consider over the top prices… I certainly am not buying.
While I have bought some RTR, and appreciate why others prefer to do so, my " LHS’ owner doesn’t like to stock kits because they just don’t sell that well. I find that a bit sad. (He will order stuff in for me as required). For me kits offer far more bang for my buck.
Cheers, the Bear.
I also see lots of them at shows usually in the $5-$10 range. Some of the smaller shows have them for $5 and under. I have also found old Roundhouse locomotive kits for $35.
As others have noted, the market for kits seems limited and bargains are available. For modeling on the cheap and for those with some time they are a good way to get started or grow the fleet.
Good luck
Paul
Generic BB cars had their day and that day has pass.There are lots of kits out there if one attends train shows,Accurail,BB,Bev-Bel/Athearn,Roundhouse,Bowser among others.I’ve seen built BB cars with metal wheels and KD couplers sell for $5.00 while built BB with the X2F coupler was selling for $3.00 or 2/$5.00
Here’s the rub…I seen BB kits 3/$10.00 and people walk right on by.I’ve seen Accurail kits ignored while RTR was flying off the dealers table…
I just can’t get teary eyed over the demise of the BB kit…I built more then my fair share over the years and usually found problems like warp floors,frames and weights.The coupler was usually to low or in some rare cases to high.
What I love about the RTR car is the ease of switching out KD wanna bes for either KD or Walthers ProtoMax coupler and 99.9% of the time the coupler height is spot on…I use either a roof brown or rail brown paint marker to paint the wheel face…
Hi,
I too have a soft spot for the Athearn BB and those companies that used them as base kits (i.e. Bev-Bel). I began my collection about 1960, and with KDs and metal wheelsets, and a coat of Dull-Cote, they are terrific layout cars.
While they are no longer made, there are plenty available on Ebay - built or unbuilt.