RTR Is it me or is it truely crap?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

Last night while chatting with some friends of mine at www.railchat.com, we got into a discussion about the modern so called quality ready to run offerings now offered by those like Proto-2000, Athearn, and Walthers. As many of you have probably have read, I have been less than satisfied with them. My gripe is not the concept of Ready to Run equipment. As ambitious as I am, I probably need every Ready to Run piece I can get my hands on. However, every one of these new so called Ready to Run models I have bought have been defective in one way or another, often requiring nearly total dissasembly on my part to fix. [:(!]I one case, An Athearn 40' AAR Box car had the trucks put on upside down. [:(!]Other problems I have had have been grossly out of gauge wheel sets.[:(!][:(!] (Almost HOn3 gauge) Upside down couplers. Missing couplers, (Although due to the fact that everyone selling RTR except Kadee uses EZ-Crap and Accu-Crap couplers now that was a good thing. Kadee forever!) as well as other merely annoying problems like having the floor oriented the wrong way for the brake gear vs brake wheel alignment.[:0]

To me if a piece of Model Railroad equipment is supposed to be ready to run, it should truely be ready to take out of the box, set it on the track and it is ready for service. I should not have to conduct any of this repair that I have so far had to do.[:(!][:(!][:(!] So far the only people that consistantly reach this level of ready to run quality are those that offer pre-painted brass pieces.

Is this a pervasive problem with the model railroad industry that they can now offer substandard offerings merely becasue it can now be used right out of the box? [:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!] Or am I just one unlucky individual that recieved a truck load of wrotten apples?[:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]

If my fellow model rairloaders can comment on this problem, it would greatly be appreciated.[8D][:D][8D][:D][8D][:D][8D][:D][8D]

Sincerely,

James R. Mitich

[Anonymous]

I too don't care for the RTR quaility you get nowadays. I purchased some Life-Like boxcars and am now very much turned off of purchasing anything else made by LL. I will have to disassemble them and make the needed repairs and fixes before I can run the ready-to-run boxcars. I should have started with a kit and done it right the first time!

I pulled some Athearn RTR boxcars out of storage, still in org boxes and have never touched the rails, that I had purchased in the '70's, compared them to the current Athearn quality and found that somewhere along the way they must have swallowed their pride because "pride in craftsmanship" it's not!

[CP5415]

I wouldn't call it crap unless consider the couplers, the way out of proportion extra coin you have to shell out, the same quality of wheel sets as in the kits etc etc etc.....

Gordon

[cacole]

The worst I have encountered is the Athearn RTR Cola-Cola series of rolling stock. The Chinese manufacturer of these items used a blunt-pointed axle which makes it impossible to change only the wheelset, and they roll like a lead weight. The only solution, other than not purchasing any more Athearn RTR, is to change the entire truck. Fortunately, I discovered this problem after purchasing only one item.

[AggroJones]

I try to stay away from RTR as much as possible, helps avoid some of those problems. I buy mostly in kit form.

[Anonymous]

Greyhound...

I feel the same way as you do...its not just you. At the last greenburg show i snapped up on 38 Walthers Centerbeam flatcars...HEY at $12 a car thats not bad compared to the retail of 22 or 23. Lets just say once i got them home...EVERY truck and EVERY coupler was replaced. The couplers just cuz KDs dont pull apart. And the trucks beacouse well...my metal wheelsets would NOT roll freely inside the Crappy trucks Walthers uses. So far those are the ONLY RTR cars i have had problems with. I own Several Atlas Evans boxcars and i never had a problem with a one of them...BUT then again Atlas was making those RTR way before anyone else was RTRing and Atlas seems to usualy do things right. Needless to say i will not be buying RTR anymore unless its a piece of brass.

[Anonymous]

I am glad I am not the only one experiencing these problems. It has become disheartening to the point that I have almost taken up scratchbuilding exclusivly becasue all I can find any more is Ready to Run. And Living in Wyoming, where there is only one poorly stocked hobby store, My choice of options are limited to EBay and Mail order when it comes to kits.

Mr Johnydash9, you say that Atlas makes a true quality Ready to Run piece of Rolling Stock? I havn't paid much attention to their line of offerings and am only really familiar with their exellent locomotives and track? Do they make any more modern era freight cars that I would find useful?

James.

[Anonymous]

so far I have purchased three and one had a wheel problem. But they are pretty conveneint if you're lucky enough to get one that works well.

[Anonymous]

I have to say that I hardly ever go for RTR equipment as I find the cost to be prohibitive and consider a big part of the fun of model railroading to be the creation process at all levels. I do however have some RTR equipment that I have picked up over the years, mostly at swap meets, that were very well priced. I have to say that Atlas produces a very fine RTR product. I have about a dozen of their RTR rolling stock, mostly modern covered hoppers, and have only had a problem with one car that came with wheels that were obviously the wrong size (way too small). I also have an Athearn Genesis Trinity hopper that had no flaws out of the box either. I really liked the brief history that was included in the box for that class of hopper as well. I’ve found that LBF produces a fine product as well and haven’t had any issue with their RTR.

Even with all that said, I would still rather purchase a quality kit from Accurail, E&C, etc. and work from there. Even with an RTR car, I still have to install Kadee couplers (they are still the best in my book), weather the kits, and sometimes apply extra graphics or graffiti.

I’ve found that the only true RTR products come from places like Ebay or swap meets where some other modeler has already put all the work into it.

Warren

[Anonymous]

Greyhound....

www.atlasrr.com you can look at all they have to offer. Some of their stuff for some reason or another is not listed on there, but...as Warren did mention they actually DO MAKE a quality RTR product. As i said i have several 50' Evans Plugdoor boxcars, i know they make 2bay covered cement hoppers, Kaolin tank cars, and several cylindrical hopper cars as well. OH speaking of cylindrical hoppers...i have several of those made by intermountian...now i have built all mine from kits...but Intermountian does offer those as RTR and they are SUPERB!!!!! the only complaint i have about IMT and Altas are the couplers...but...just change those to KDs and they are truly RTR Heaven!!!! As an added bonus to Atlas for you Greyhound....you can order directly from Atlas!!!!!!!!!!

[brothaslide]

I've worked in manufacturing for 12 years as a quality control/quality assurance engineer. The bottom line is that these manufacturers don't have and won't implement a quality assurance program. These manufactures would not be willing to put out the money to implement a QA program. They are trying to reduce costs and increase margins by outsourcing to China. The sad part is that if they did implement a truly modern QA program, they could reduce costs, increase quality which would increase customer satisfaction and keep the jobs in the US.

[IRONROOSTER]

My experience in S scale with S Helpers Showcase Line is that the RTR is pretty high quality. They come set up for American Flyer, but scale metal wheelsets are included and they have pads on the body for Kadee couplers. I like them, but they aren't cheap. I've been out of HO for a while, but the complaints above seem to be mostly with the cheaper cars. These have always been a problem, even the old cheap HO kits usually benefited from upgraded trucks and couplers (do theystill come with horn hooks?).
Enjoy
Paul

[Anonymous]

I'm interested to read this. My experience with RTR is fairly small (at least in HO scale, I have a lot of OO Scale British RTR stock that is pretty good). I have a set of the Walthers Superliners and matching express box/material handling cars, and these are fine. I also have a few of the Walthers C&NW Bi-levels which are superb - just have to track down the interior lighting kits now!

The one piece of Athearn RTR I have is also perfect - one of their Bombardier Bilevels in Metrolink livery. The only problem I have had with this is the couplers - I'm contemplating changing them for Kadee #58s as the coupler at the cab end of the car doesn't appear to want to uncouple magnetically!

I've got a suggestion for the person having trouble with the Coca-Cola cars. Try putting a little silicone spray lube in the bearings, this should help. I'm glad I didn't buy any of these, though I saw them in the Hobby store and was very tempted!

[Anonymous]

Someone posted relative to kits stocked, or rather not stocked by, their LHS.
My experience is they stock tons of HO kits, IF you define 'kit' as something you attach 2 screws on and a glop of plastic cement. They don't seem to have any call for craftsman kits and not much in the way of scratch building supplies either. I'm loyal to the extent of ordering what I want from them so that they get the retailers discount to pocket. Hardly, in my view, a good situation. I can only suppose that the remaining 'craftsmen' in the hobby now use the internet and do not trade anymore with hobby retailers.

Randy

[Anonymous]

I have tried to remain silent on RTR.. here is my two cents. I find Intermountain to be very well done specifically the R-30-18 reefers. I buy these in a specific quanitity when I can get them.

I have always used kits and I try to get qaulity RTR only when all other options are exhausted. I do expect to have to install metal wheelsets or Kaydee couplers. For some reason I dont have a issue with couplers because once on, they will perform.

What does bother me is that RTR is kind of pricey and that can be a barrier. Back to the kits wherever I can find them.

[Anonymous]

What is very annoying is that the beautiful Rivarossi skeleton log cars have coupler boxes designed for EZ mate couplers or some other and the coupler boxes are too thin to fit both the Kadee coupler and centering spring so i can't change them.

Neil