Currently available freight car kits?


H

hefyjefy

New Member
I am building up my stock of freight cars, purchasing old Red Caboose. Intermountain kits etc. on Ebay.
These are of course quite old (although very good) kits, I wondered if there are any modern equivalents, i.e. decent quality kits still in production?
Thanks for any information.
Geoff
 
Tichy Train and Accurail are the only two plastic ones I can think of off the top of my head. Well ... Central Valley makes a couple, and then the specialty places like RCW, Westerfield, Funero & Camerlengo types.
 
Accurail is my "go to" kit manufacturer. They are very well done for kits and many have a lot of add-on details. I have only seen the Intermountain kits in undecorated, but I have not looked lately. I reached my freight car limit in 2014!
 
I'm not a big kit person anymore, but I do enjoy the occasional Accurail kit. Detail is decent and paint pretty sharp for the price. Wheelsets and couplers are plastic, however, so I do replace those. It's not as high quality as a Genesis or P2K, but they're a great and easy kit to work on the coffee table while watching TV in the evening. The silver SP "Overnights" boxcars and the EL and IC boxcars in this picture are Accurail (sorry I don't have any close-up images handy):

50573138991_0a5fce0f3a_o.jpg


Are Proto 2000 kits (gray box) out of production? One of the hobby stores near me still has quite a number of those in stock. Very good detail, but in my experience, they require patience. Some years ago I bought a set of 8 or 10 hopper kits with NAHX markings. I only built about half, stopping due to my frustration; no matter how careful or how sharp a knife I used, I couldn't avoid breaking several grab irons or rigging lines on each one trying to get them off the sprue. But they're great kits if you have patience.
 
I think that P2K kits have been out of production since Walther's bought the Lifelike line. I agree with having patience to build them, I have done around 15 and still have two unbuilt on the shelf. Most were out of my era though.
 
skyliner said:
I'm not a big kit person anymore, but I do enjoy the occasional Accurail kit. Detail is decent and paint pretty sharp for the price. Wheelsets and couplers are plastic, however, so I do replace those. It's not as high quality as a Genesis or P2K, but they're a great and easy kit to work on the coffee table while watching TV in the evening. The silver SP "Overnights" boxcars and the EL and IC boxcars in this picture are Accurail (sorry I don't have any close-up images handy):

50573138991_0a5fce0f3a_o.jpg


Are Proto 2000 kits (gray box) out of production? One of the hobby stores near me still has quite a number of those in stock. Very good detail, but in my experience, they require patience. Some years ago I bought a set of 8 or 10 hopper kits with NAHX markings. I only built about half, stopping due to my frustration; no matter how careful or how sharp a knife I used, I couldn't avoid breaking several grab irons or rigging lines on each one trying to get them off the sprue. But they're great kits if you have patience.
Click to expand...
Yes indeed, you need a very sharp blade (or a pair of Tamiya sharp cutters $$$) also keeping the sprues warm helps!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top