LBF Company

[Anonymous]

I heard about this LBF company on e-bay. I went to their web site and it looks like they have some nice stuff. (especially the Boeing parts flats) Is this company any good? If so, Ive never seen it before at my LHS. Do you think I could find some of the LBF at GATS or other shows? Thanks, Ben

[jrbernier]

LBF makes modern cars. They usually distribute their stuff themselves to hobby shops, or sell it via eBay/CTC Hobbies(themselves). They are an outgrowth of McKean/Front Range/E&C - all who went bankrupt. LBF stands for 'Loads By Fred'(Fred Becker is the owner). I have not bought any of the current stuff, so I have no idea what the current quality is.

Jim Bernier

[ericsp]

I would say they are about like Athearn Blue Box.

[cacole]

Their wheelsets are excellent -- I replaced hundreds of Kadee metal wheelsets with LBF because they roll much better, even in Kadee trucks.

I've purchased only one LBF boxcar, and was surprised to learn that they don't provide their own metal wheels, but use plastic ones.

Since LBF is a smaller company, they are not available in most hobby shops, but you can order directly from them on-line.

[Anonymous]

They're pretty good. I like the cars themselves, but the paint and lettering on a lot of their stuff isn't too great.

[Anonymous]

I have several of their cars, and would put them just below Blue Box as far as the quality of the tooling - JMO. Some of the painting and printing is accurate, some is not. But they're good cars overall - they go together pretty easy and they do have a lot of modern prototypes nobody else offers.

Now, not to start any rumors, but I wonder if they're having problems - their website was down for quite a while a couple of months back, and when it came back, they'd discontinued some items, and a majority of stuff is listed as out of stock

[dknelson]

LBF had a booth at Trainfest in Milwaukee last November (as they have done for a couple of years now) and had a good variety of cars for sale. Clearly they are a small outfit and are probably not in a position to keep their entire catalog produced at the same time.
I find their cars just a bit trickier than Athearn to assemble.
Dave Nelson