do these guys make ANYTHING that ran past 1950 with any frequency? I was just browsing their site, and don’t have much time as i have to get going to work, but I saw one of their kits on Don Cassler’s M&K Division of the B&O Great Model Railroads video, and it looked awesome. But unfortunately, I model the 60’s/70’s with GP35’s and 40’s and SD35’s and SD9’s. Am I up that creek?
If you look at the catalog he gives you the eras the cars and lettering is appropriate for.
Westerfield concentrates on cars in the 20’s and 30’s. Some of the coal cars (H21’s lasted into the 60’s) and the steel boxcars were rebuilt and would have made it into the 1960’s. But generally the vast majority of the cars will not be appropriate for the 1960’s or 1970’s.
Dave H.
Some of the prototypes of Westerfield’s car kits ran through the 1960s. Go to his website and click on the models listed. Details are provided showing when the particular cars (and their variations) operated. This information is a rarity among model manufacturers and Al Westerfield is to be commended. Also, it is a comforting feeling to know that you have a model that is prototypical, something that is unusual for models manufactured by the mass producers.
Mark
FWIW, during the later 1970s - early 1980s, I saw a wood boxcar parked on a siding that looked to be from the 1920s. (The car looked like an old USRA wood-sheathed boxcar. Since it was on the SOO, maybe it was a Canadian design of the era.) It even had markings saying the car could not be interchanged due to the Andrews trucks on which it rode. Now the car was in work train service, the paint job was in poor condition, but it was an ancient frieght car still in use in the 1970s.
There are a few. My favorite is kit #2852, a GN 50’ single sheathed boxcar–'cause I photographed one on my first trip on the GN back in the mid-'60’s. When I finally build that kit, I know what car number I’ll be using.
Also, consider the Sunshine kits. They’re of more modern prototypes. Check them out at www.sunshinekits.com (site not affiliated with the manufacturer).
Ed
Westerfield kits are about 1/2 step above scratch building a car using cast resin components. You’ll need to do all your own drilling, shaping, adjusting, painting, and decalling.
If you’re up to that challenge they assemble into very high quality pieces of rolling stock.
Regards,
Charlie Comstock
thanks. too bad theres no pictures on their site, at least that i can find.
Westerfield site has pictures, Sunshine has none.
Mark