Ok, which do you think looks better on the layout, the RTR’s you can buy that have lots of details, or the kits you can buy and build and use on the layout? Assembly time is not an issue with this question, it’s about visual and overall appearance on the layout. This applies to all aspects i.e. engines, freight cars, and passenger cars.
I find my preference is for R to R locomotives, but much prefer kits, especially highly detailed kits for structures and my other rolling stock
B&O Steam Demon
I would phrase your question a little differently. Instead of what looks better, I would ask myself what feels better on my layout. Current better RTR is for the most part very well detailed. So if you are happy with opening a box and plunking something down on the tracks that looks good then go for it. Personally I prefer to be a little bit more involved with my rolling stock. In other words I am much happier with a Blue Box kit that I have upgraded to proper weight, Kadee couplers at the right height and metal wheels, or a P2K tanker kit that takes some time and patience to build then I am with the RTR stuff. Make no mistake - offer me a decent RTR car and I will gladly take it. But for me, a major part of the enjoyment I derive from this hobby is doing stuff myself.
Dave
I prefer kits myself (actually scratchbuilt). That way I can personalize them and not have the exact same things on my layout that everyone else does ! I like to see people’s imagination and creativity at work when I go to see someone’s layout, not how they’ve arranged everything they just took out of a box and dropped into place. It’s like a hobby shop display with scenery.
Mark.
I also would have to agree that your choice of words might be better as one is the same as the other really. For instance, for years Intermountain offered only kits, then they quit offering their kits and only offer them as RTR, same thing for Proto although the time line was much shorter. Now it looks as though the same thing will happen to Branchline but basically they are both identical.
I feel that “which do you prefer” would be more accurate than “which is better”.
Mark
NMRC
Not really Mark. The Intermountain kits, especially their grain car kits are lacking in detail compared to their RTR cars. The RTR cars are much nicer to look at. Proto kits on the other hand offered the same amount of detail as their RTR cars.
I’m a detail fanatic and if you want instant gratification then go with RTR Intermountain, Kadee, Athearn Genesis and some regular Athearn, Proto 2000 as well as Rapido for passenger cars. Exactrail makes some very detailed cars as well. Just remember you pay for what you get.
So is your “hobby” buying models or assembling/making/working on models? Anyone with money can be a model railroad buyer, a model railroad hobbyist participates in the creation of his models and scenes.
Actually today’s RTR cars are superior to any kit car and compliments today’s super detailed locomotives and in that light I perfer RTR…I have also noted these newer RTR models compliment a detailed layout that many modelers strive for.
I see it is time for one of these threads again…
I much prefer building the kits to my own specs…and if that means that I buy the “not as well detailed” kits then so much the worse for it……I mean, why should it be any skin off anybody else’s nose what I should/shouldn’t prefer RTR over kit/scratchbuilt in the first place?
I can see that this could become one of an issue of ‘convenience’ over ‘labour’…
Hi!
Well, for freight rolling stock I greatly prefer kits, but for passenger I prefer RTR (which ALWAYS need adjustments, etc.). For Locos, RTR is definitely the way to go for me.
Structures are a subjective situation. All of mine are kits or kitbashed - most with weathering. That being said, the owner of one of the LHS said that the new “rtr” structures are models of what kit builders should look to achieve. I agree with that statement - to a point - but don’t want to buy one.
Said another way, if I can build it and have it look halfway decent, that’s the way I will go. That pride (if justified of course) of saying “I built it” means a lot to more than a few of us MRs…
As blownout cylinder mentioned, here we go once again. The original question wasn’t “who is a real model railroader”, but “which do you think looks better on the layout, the RTR’s you can buy that have lots of details, or the kits you can buy and build and use on the layout?”
If it makes you feel superior to say you don’t have money but you have a detailed layout, by all means. My goal, assuming I manage to have a place to build a layout again, is to model the Rio Grande with fairly accurate rolling stock for the period and good looking scenery. If including a lot of RTR stuff in that helps me achieve that goal, I don’t care if people look down their nose at me because I’m not a “true” modeler. I’m not in this hobby to satisfy the high brows, but because I like trains and its fun.
Back to the original topic and question. The answer is as brakie pointed out, alot of RTR stuff looks superior. That isn’t to say a skilled person can’t make a freight car look great and many kits have nice detail but the newest products on the market are exploiting more state of the art tooling and tend to be superior in detail.
I think you missed the point of the question. There are some very skilled modellers on this forum BUT there are 100 times more less skilled modellers as well. So the question is what looks better? A RTR car, a kit that lacks in the detail department or that was poorly assembled? Obviously the RTR car. Of course a super detailed kit could look just as good as a RTR car but it just depends who built it.
I suppose that, given the issue of there being loads more ‘unskilled’ MR’s out there, as some would have it, then it would only be a matter of time for RTR to completely replace kitform as the way to go …
And, as some have put …many kits ‘as built’ are not as neat, nor as realistic, in appearance as RTR could be…as say, a kitbuilt in the hands of a ‘skilled’ kitbuilder…
Now, how are you going to encourage modelling as such…given that the kits could be, eventually, replaced entirely by RTR?
Not that that will happen but…hypothetical here…hypothetical…
The hobby of model railroading is about modeling, not simply collecting high quality models offered by the manufacturers. Just how one can get a thrill, or even any great pleasure and pride of accomplishment, out of just taking something out of its box and plopping it down on the layout, totally escapes me. If the individual simply wants things that look their best on the layout, they need to move on to brass collecting, as the current generation of brass makes even the very best plastic RTR models pale in comparison.
CNJ831
Hi again,
I’ve nothing against those that buy vs those that build. To each their own, and the common bond we have of our love of railroading is what holds us together.
However, I do have a story I’d like to share…
About 6-7 years ago I put together 13 of the Athearn ATSF standard passenger car kits, added KDs, American Limited diagphrams (spell?), Intermountain wheelsets, appropriate decals, tinted windows, nd some were airbrushed. The end result, especially pulled by a BLI Northern, is pretty special to me.
Not too long ago I picked up a number of Walthers RTR full size ATSF passenger cars, as well as some Spectrum RTR full sized cars. These cars are all scale length, have interiors and more detail, and yet I rarely ever run them.
Suprisingly, I always seem to gravitate to the trainset I built, rather than the one I bought, even though the RTR set certainly is more prototypical. Go figure…
This depends on what cars you’re talking about. there isn’t much difference in an Intermountain 1939 ARA rtr boxcar or kit. Nothing compares to a rtr, Kadee PS car(any of them), but having built many Intermountain, Branchline, Red Caboose and P2k cars, there’s nothing to compare them to. I also add details to kits, like Kadee roof walks to Intermountain kits and Intermountain roof walks to some Athearn kits. Atlas rtr are nice, but need cut levers and scale couplers, so I can’t say what’s best.
All of my locos are P2K, and I’ve had to add details and paint them to make them road specific, so until some makes one rtr for my road I can’t compare.
Without really desiring to completely hi-jacking this thread’s intent, I nevertheless would have to say that RTR will only ever become totally dominant for one segment of the hobby. That one will either price itself essentially out of existence over the next 15-20 years, as brass did, or simply come to be regarded as a scaled down version of the high-end tinplate market.
As I have pointed out here countless times, beginning about a decade ago the traditi
I don’t know why I post on this perennial subject, but here goes.
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The expensive RTR stuff looks very good indeed. My very best efforts kit building can equal but not exceed the very nice stuff out there now.
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I enjoy kit building, that’s the fun part of the hobby for me. Others enjoy operations, electronics, scenery, hand laid track, photography, etc. So I will buy kits whether it makes sense to do so or not.
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The industry would rather sell RTR than kits. They can price RTR higher than they can kits, and assembling the RTR overseas ain’t all that expensive. They make more money selling a $30 RTR freight car than they do selling a $10 kit.
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Viewed at layout distances (say two feet) most delicate superdetail is invisible. What counts is the paint job, the weathering, running characteristics (wobbles, leans, derailments, and unplanned uncouplings ruin the effect) and concealment of shiny plastic parts with an appropriate coat of paint.
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It’s a hobby. Enjoy it any way you can.
For locomotives, I prefer RTR. IMO, its tough to beat the painting and detail work of an RTR locomotive these days. Back in the day when Irv Athearn’s products were state of the art, you could probably get better results by stripping, detailing, and repainting yourself
For rolling stock, I prefer Athearn, Accurail, or old MDC shake the box kits or Atlas Trainman RTR products. For whatever reason, fine details on rolling stock don’t interest me that much, so if it has a crisp paint job, that’s good enough.
I don’t think that I would ever buy an RTR assembled structure. IMO, structures often need to be customized to fit a certain space or detailed for a particular type of business within them. The pre-painted and detailed RTR assembled products are very attractive, but I would find myself removing some details and adding others, making the purchase kind of a waste.
I don’t even understand some of these pre-assembled structure products. I’ve seen Woodland Scenic pre-assembled structures that are of the small downtown general merchant type. You know, the kind that looks like an individual building sliced from a Walthers Merchant Row kit. In real life, those types of buildings are generally found attached together, like the merchants row kit has them, rather than individual buildings. The Woodland Scenics building has all four sides painted and detailed, making attaching them together wall to wall impossible, unless you want to un-detail one or two sides, making the $45 price a waste of money.
good post Dave, fwiw, beauty is in the eye…