Just curious, does anyone else like con-cor and roundhouse kits? I have gotton and built some from people getting rid of trains. I like the simplicity yet affordable level of detail they offer(based on prices on ebay, hobby shops, and the origional price stickers themselves). I am especially pleased with the 9 brand new roundhouse tank train kits I got for free. The detial is almost as good as the Genesis ones.
I'm beginning to realize that Windows 10 and sound decoders have a lot in common. There are so many things you have to change in order to get them to work the way you want.
BNSF UP and others modelerThe detial is almost as good as the Genesis ones.
I think almost as good is a stretch. However, I do have some of the Roundhouse 50 foot tank cars and they are quite a biy more detailed than the other run of the mill Roundhouse kits.
These kits vary in quality like many of the older style plastic cars. Some are essentially made up cars with no specific prototypes, while others are fairly accurate, albeit lacking in fine detail. I still have quite a few of them, and some have been serving on my layouts for 30 years.
The two middle tank cars here are MDC kits. They look reasonable enough from typical viewing distance despite not being truly accurate models. I picked these up for $5 each at a train show.
This MDC flat car was another $5 find. I don't think it's a match for any prototype but it sorta looks the part of a Thrall car from the 70s. Painting the trucks and underframe the same as the body color helps it better stand in for a MoPac flat.
I received this MDC boxcar kit as a gift. It's another of those old school cars that isn't necessarily close to anything, but hey, it was free.
One nice feature of the MDC cars was the screws provided for the coupler boxes, instead of metal clips or plastic mounting pins. The trucks also tend to work well with ExactRail or Intermountain machined metal wheelsets. All of my examples have such wheels.
I have a small number of Con-Cor cars. They can be a good value for the money too.
Rob Spangler
These Roundhouse cars,
with a bit of work, built into some very useful cars. The Pennsy reefer became one for my freelanced road...
...while the boxcar built into a pretty good representation of a Southern Su Class boxcar...
Wayne
I'd guess it would be hard to find anyone modelling before 1940 in HO who doesn't have a fair number of the old MDC/Roundhouse 36' truss-rod boxcars, reefers & stock cars...plus their wood Pullman cars, both the earlier shorter ones and the later "Pullman Palace" cars. I wish you could still get all those cars undecorated from Athearn...along with the old MDC cabooses - I use the 3-window wood caboose as my free-lance railroad's "standard" steam era caboose.
As an iron ore railroad fan, I was fortunate to start in HO back when you could buy either version of MDC's "Michigan" ore car kit for $4-5 each, so I have quite a few of those. Because of how the coupler boxes are set up, the cars would be pretty far apart normally, so I run the cars in groups of four connected with home-made drawbars so they're closer together.
I have built and kitbashed a number of Robbins Rails/A-Line/Con-Cor 60' Auto Parts Boxcars.
I have changed the doors, including scratchbuilt Superior Doors, removed the rivits and scribed weld lines and changed the wheelbase to match the prototype, then painted and decaled.
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
It is impossible to generalize about Con Cor kits because it has been such a dog's breakfast of different stuff from different origins. At one time they made genuine craftsman kits, but over time acquired tooling from Revell and AHM if memory serves, issued their own plastic kit versions of those, but also their own kits, which somewhat resemble Bowser's in how they are assembled (sort of shake the box, but with more shaking than Athearn blue box), and have issued special paint and lettering on other's tooling as mentioned above.
This is not to say they are not a valuable part of the model train industry, just that there is no one thing you can say about experiences with Con Cor.
Dave Nelson
I have quite a few of the tankers that Rob shows, in various stages of construction. I think they are an overall good liking to most modern tank cars.
Plano even makes a detail kit for the MDC/Roundhouse tank cars, with etched ladders, rails, platforms, etc.
PPW/A-Line puts out a set of different style tank ends for the MDC/Roundhouse cars from the early 50's and 60's to the present.
A seller on Ebay, River_city_railroad offers all kinds of blank/undecorated kits from MDC/Roundhouse. Some casting are different colors, but for scratch building/bashing, they're perfect.
I like, and have always liked the kits, including what Con-Cor has offered.
Mike.
My You Tube
BNSF UP and others modeler Just curious, does anyone else like con-cor and roundhouse kits? I have gotton and built some from people getting rid of trains. I like the simplicity yet affordable level of detail they offer(based on prices on ebay, hobby shops, and the origional price stickers themselves). I am especially pleased with the 9 brand new roundhouse tank train kits I got for free. The detial is almost as good as the Genesis ones.
I do remember MDC/Roundhouse made Tank Train kits back in the day. There was discussion on Atlas Rescue Forums on them. Basic conclusion:
MDC tooled a full length top walkway and offered 12 numbers which AFAIK were fictional for TankTrain cars Read more: http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/3269/old-mdc-tank-train-cars#ixzz5CTjvHHVS
Read more: http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/3269/old-mdc-tank-train-cars#ixzz5CTjvHHVS
Read more on the discussion by following the link (above).
Do I like Concor & Roundhouse? Sort of. They filled a role back in the day, but since we have been spoiled by a lot of accurate and highly detailed models, they are a mixed bag - some are models which sort of approximate real freight cars, others are decent copies.
I would say comparing MDC tank cars to Genesis is a bit of a stretch. Most MDC kit models, as Rob noted, only have very basic details, and most are molded in.
I have a couple of the tank cars similar to the ones in Rob's photo, and they are decent looking and I plan to keep them. I have some MDC box cars as well and a few Concor. I've found some of the Concor freight car kits are not the best tooled and designed but they will serve for now.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I love my Roundhouse bulkhead flat cars. I also have several modern boxcars. I don’t know how accurate they are but I don’t really care either. I’m not building a museum I’m just trying to enjoy life. As for Concor I like some of their vehicles like my fleet of log trucksbut I don’t like their containers because they don’t match containers made by Athearn or Walthers which I have a large collection of.
Yes, the 60' bulkhead flat cars are still one of the more popular freight cars which originated as an MDC kit and has been sold under Athearn as RTR for some years now.
The 60' bulkhead flat car looks decent but I believe there are a lot of modelers who would love to see some accurate 1970's builk head flat cars to represent what the MDC/Athearn car "stands-in" for . I have 8 or 9 of them myself as stand-ins for lumber and other loads. AFAIK, they are only correct for some BN/C&S bulkhead prototypes. Pretty much all of the other paint schemes Athearn has done stand in for prototypes which were significantly longer.
As I understand, the prototypes that the 60' car was a "stand-in" for, were actually closer to 70'
I can't name any specific prototypes right now, but while doing a search a while ago on flat cars, somewhere this came up.
I was just looking at the River Valley Railroad site and they still sell Roundhouse shake the box kits but not like they use to be sold. I bought some 36 ft some years ago.
Surprised they are still selling these kits.
I missed the unpainted Overton sets.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Concor and MDC kits can still be found in good supply at some major train shows for those who are interested.
Overall, I like them just fine. Having said that, their stirrips, grab ladders, and walkways are now too thick compared to more expensive models. For ages, hobby detail parts producers made finer replacement parts for these components for those who wish to better detail the models.
DoctorWayne usually provides photographs of his nicely altered MDC/Athearn kits.
I think the tanks cars, and also their 50 foot hi-side gondolas (originally for coal but downgraded to trash service as time progressed) are some of their more finely detailed models. I plan to use a few of the hi-sided gondolas for woodchip service.
- Douglas
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
It's true that shake in the box low detail kits can be disguised with good weathering to hide the fact that details are molded in. A guy who went by Mellow Mike used to post photo's of Accurail and Front Range kit build cars that looked very good but he was a real guru at weathering. His models would probably blend in well with the likes of Tangent and Genesis.
As I sit in the “Good Enough” camp, the MDC cars suit my needs but with the bonus that at their price, I’m not adverse to using them for kitbashing....
I agree, Bear, and I'd forgotten about their covered hoppers when I made my earlier post.I used parts from Bowser's ACF covered hoppers (available separately from Bowser) to replace the original round hatches of the MDC model, and also changed the outlet gates, roofwalks, and some of the brake gear. After all of that, I continued down the "slippery slope" of detailing, and replaced all of the grab irons, too....
That got me thinking about re-doing the grab irons on my open hoppers, too...there are only 50-or-so of them.
The only problem with the MDC Covered Hoppers are they are so wrong, the Atlas and especially the Kadee Ones are so much better.
dti406 The only problem with the MDC Covered Hoppers are they are so wrong, the Atlas and especially the Kadee Ones are so much better. Rick Jesionowski
And the Atlas ones are now in the Trainman line and can be often found for fairly cheap prices. The MDC covered hoppers have been sold under Athearn RTR for a while but I never figured out whether they were significantly upgraded or not. But if they don't match anything real, then maybe good I have avoided them entirely. For those who don't care, thats ok for them of course.
I have only really built Accurail, Scaletrains, & Tichy Kits. Out of those, the Tichy one is the hardest, I am waiting to aquire the proper tools before I continue since it requires drilling spots for each grab iron on the model.Accurail is not as detailed, but a decent project for anyone familiar with plastic scale models. I goofed up my first few Accurail builds, but I feel if I ever bought one of their kits again I will do much better the next time around since the learning curve is not that hard.Scaletrains Kit Classics aren't much of a kit. Basically a RTR boxcar without the shell & couplers attached yet! Not very well detailed either, but they do have some cool paint schemes not seen often.
[quote user="doctorwayne"]
maxman...I am curious about how you did the long grabs at the left end of the cars. Are they just lengths of wire bonded to the car side, or is there a 90 degree bend at each end that inserts into holes in the car side and end post....
No, all of the wires are bent and inserted into holes, then secured with a touch of ca.My LHS (Just Train Crazy) had a Westerfield kit for a Fowler boxcar, available for ten bucks. However, I could have it for nine bucks, if I'd also take another Westerfield kit, that one for a Norfolk & Western hopper.While I didn't really want the hopper (and didn't really need the boxcar), I took the bait. Here's the boxcar, converted into a MoW car....
I planned to build the hopper (and its grabirons) in the same manner as the covered hoppers, but quickly discovered that the kit was extremely old and extremely brittle - the attachment points for those long grabs literally broke when I carefully picked the parts out of the box. I attempted drill holes for all of the grab irons, with the parts shattering even before the bit could cut all the way through. I was tempted to toss the whole works, but decided to not let a few problems defeat me that easily.The broken parts were replaced with styrene, but because it was done in dimensions matching the original, drilling was still impossible. Anyway, I went ahead and assembled the car, replacing bits as they broke off, and when I got to the step in the instructions for installing the grabirons, it suggested cutting wire to the appropriate length. They were then to be surface-mounted in the appropriate places, and secured with a touch of ca. The car is extremely fragile, and I expect that it will eventually begin to decompose of its own volition.
Here's the hopper, carrying about 5oz. of coke breeze - I was surprised that it didn't fall apart during loading...
The grabirons look okay, but I'm very careful to not touch them - that's a poor way of assembling a model, in my opinion.I detail most of my cars with free-standing wire grabirons and other details, but all are usually securely attached, and all will withstand normal handling - my rolling stock cycles on and off the layout regularly, and is subject to frequent handling, generally without issue.
xboxtravis7992 I have only really built Accurail, Scaletrains, & Tichy Kits. Out of those, the Tichy one is the hardest, I am waiting to aquire the proper tools before I continue since it requires drilling spots for each grab iron on the model.Accurail is not as detailed, but a decent project for anyone familiar with plastic scale models. I goofed up my first few Accurail builds, but I feel if I ever bought one of their kits again I will do much better the next time around since the learning curve is not that hard.Scaletrains Kit Classics aren't much of a kit. Basically a RTR boxcar without the shell & couplers attached yet! Not very well detailed either, but they do have some cool paint schemes not seen often.
That Scaletrains boxcar kit is a 53 Evans boxcar and the tooling looks like the old Details West boxcar, even an Atlas RTR Evans. I think it is an anomolly relative to other Scaletrains products.
DoughlessThat Scaletrains boxcar kit is a 53 Evans boxcar and the tooling looks like the old Details West boxcar, even an Atlas RTR Evans. I think it is an anomolly relative to other Scaletrains products.
An anomaly only in that they were made to provide a low cost model people could buy from Scale Trains - they wanted to appeal to all sides of the market, budget, medium and high end.