Freight car "kits"

[Anonymous]

I have a limited budget, and the kits seem to be the way to go, however, many ads on the internet sites don't give much of a description as to the contents. Do the Athearn, P2K, and others include decals for road #s, or multiple #s so that when I buy 3 kits, I can have 3 #s? Do they all come with metal wheels and couplers? Even the manufacturers sites aren't very specific. Any way to find out???
Thanks for any help!!
Tim

[CP5415]

Most kits, the bodies are painted with lettering applied already.
Athearn blue box, Accurail & Walthers kits usually come with plastic axles.
When buying the above kits, I've found that Acuurail is the only one that MIGHT have different #'s on the cars. These you would have to open the boxes to verify the #'s on the cars.
Almost all the kits come with Bachman knuckle couplers.
These work, but for how long depends on how abusive you are when it comes to coupling & un-coupling.
I hope this helps

Gordon

[Anonymous]

Athearn Kits come with Plastic wheels and EZ-Mate couplers. Accurail kits come with plastic wheels and accumate couplers. Branchline kits come with metal wheels and accumate couplers, P2K kits come with metal wheels and P2K couplers. MDC is still plastic wheels and X2F couplers. Old Athearn stock may have X2F couplers instead of EZ-Mates.

Accurail offers extra numbers via a cheap mail-in form (it's $3 for enough to do 12 cars), Branchline and P2K offer multiple numbers for most kits, but it's 1 number per kit, with multiple seperate kits, usually 2 available numbers for Blueprint, 6 for Yardmaster and 4-6 for P2K kits.

You can normally buy sheets of Numbers which should match most lettering. Unfortunately if you model Canadian Roads, there are no sheets to match the font used, as Canadian Roads do not use Railroad Roman or Gothic.

[Anonymous]

Wow, quick responses!! thank you very much for the help!
Tim

[cacole]

Another source of multiple-numbered rolling stock is Greenway Products. They custom paint Athearn and MDC rolling stock in up to 100 different road numbers. They advertise in MR and RMC magazines, and have a Web site (http://www.greenwayproducts.com)

[Anonymous]

I have had great success with repainting whatever is available, and lettering with dry transfers.

Just completed two new outside braced box cars. I bought MOW oxide cars, and stripped the lettering. I repainted using Floquil spray can - the coverage was good (over a like colour...). The can is about 1/2 empty, leading me to believe I can do about four cars per $6 can. I have relettered with dry transfers. Each $3 package contains enough for two cars, depending on what you want to to. I also upgraded with the bulk pack of #5 Kadees, and will add metal wheels to run on the modular club layout (P2K rib-backed wheels, $10 for twelve sets - enough for three cars).

If you want to renumber only, you can buy alpha-numerics sets in the correct font, and simply renumber identical cars. Just be very careful when stripping the old number away. Simplest conversions are things like a 3 to and 8, or 5 to 6, etc. You can also just paint over the entire number and apply a new one, making it look like the railroad has renumbered. Your era is right for multiple buy-outs and restructurings, so partially painted cars (change of number and/or road name) should look ok.

Hope that helps.

Andrew