Back in the day, an Athearn Blue Box, Model Die Casting, or Accurail "shake the box" kit really earned its nickname, as I could dash one off in 10 or 15 minutes. It seems those days are gone. The kits haven't changed. I have. They are now more time consuming. And I am by no means a detailer of the Doctor Wayne stripe.
Back then the bare unpainted metal floor of MDC Roundhouse kits was the way I built it. Whatever plastic wheels that came with the kit were used, with no thought to rolling quality. I did switch to Kadee couplers (not early enough) but, being frugal, for a long time I accepted Accurail's Accumate couplers even though they never worked well for me. I guess my feeling was, I've paid for these couplers darn it.
Athearn Blue Box. I used to just slap the underframe and weight on the floor, screw on the trucks, snap in the couplers, plop it all into the carbody, and was good to go. Happy innocence. Happy for a while at least.
I don't give my unbuilt Athearn blue box kits a very high priority any more but there are some I would like to complete: special run/custom paint versions that various after-market paint and lettering suppliers such as Kar Line, CM Shops, Bev-Bel, and some railroad historical societies, have issued over the years.
It didn't used to, but the infamous Athearn blunders at reading the official drawings now bug me (according to Linn Westcott former editor of MR, Athearn's tool and die folks were reading drawings which looked at the underframe from above, but didn't know that, so did the die work looking up from below, making the cast-on AB brake system exactly wrong: the pointy end of the cylinder should be point to, and basically be on the side of, the brake wheel on the B end). It is a "simple" matter to snip off and re-arrange the cylinder, valve and reservoir. It isn't exact in matching with other cast on detail, but because sometimes I add all the piping, I do want at least the general placement to be correct. That takes time, plus cementing time.
Also, now I paint the Athearn and Accurail underframe so it isn't shiny raw black plastic. Ditto the trucks; the wheels are replaced with metal, which are painted and if I use Kadee wheels, the treads are made shiny with a wire brush in the Dremel tool. The trucks are all given the "Truck Tuner" treatment before the wheels go in. This all takes time.
Now I weigh all the parts and add weight as needed before assembly. Didn't used to do that. I typically do still use the Athearn metal clip for the Kadee couplers (until it fails), but if the car is painted as cushion underframe I add the Walthers plastic cushion underframe draft gear box, which itself needs to be painted, then cemented. And some of those kits have been sitting around long enought that the steel weights show some rust, removed with the wire brush on my bench grinder.
Most cars get an ACI label decal while the factory paint is still shiny.
The carbody itself now gets weathered to one degree or another even if it is just DullCote. But the running boards are removed to do that so roof weathering doesn't end unrealistically at the edge of the running board. Whether I address the "claws" on the boxcar doors is a function of how ambitious I am.
So when all the smoke is cleared, you are now looking at painting, cutting, cementing, modifying, adjusting, even minor decaling, that was not part of the process years ago for the very same kits. Nope, the old 15 minutes per kit is a thing of the past, and at the end of the day all that added work has resulted in ... just another Athearn Blue Box for the layout. That is why there needs to be something special about the car for me to make a priority of it.
Two things that surprised me this weekend in readying a quantity of Accurail boxcars for assembly this summer and fall (my wife and I have a small vacation condo and I have set up a TV table there with basic tools and adhesives and supplies -- suited mostly to these easy assembly kits as there is no paint booth nor vise or Chopper nor other advanced tools) were 1) the disparity in weight from kit to kit, even kits of the same "series" of cars, versus NMRA standards, and 2) that every Accurail truck really needed the Truck Tuner -- I could actually feel a "hitch" as I twirled it in every Accurail truck.
There is no moral to this story - just a tale. I do not regard myself as a fussy modeler nor a "Naperville" type prototype modeler by any means. But it is funny how I have chosen to make simple kits -- indeed, the simplest kits -- not so simple any more. Yeah I was having fun.
As for the Bev Bel suprise mentioned in the title. Bev-Bel was one of those after market custom paint and lettering lines that issued Athearn and Con-Cor and some other shake the box kits but with special and interesting and somewhat/slightly more accurate lettering. For years I had a Bev-Bel Milwaukee Road boxcar kit on the TBB (to-be-built) shelf and this weekend I was going to just add it to the Athearn and Accurail shake the box kits mentioned above. But when I opened it up I had a considerable surprise. It was nicely painted and lettered but it was not Athearn or other shake the box, it was a Robin's Rails kit, which is more like the original Proto2000 kits or perhaps the old Kurtz Kraft kits with separate detail parts needing much more construction time, although of an earlier era for fineness of detail. It should be an interesting challenge but I was utterly unaware that Robins Rails (a line younger modelers have likely never heard of) was ever given the Bel-Bel treatment. I always assumed Bev-Bel kits were shake the box, and I assume I acquired this one while thinking that. The downside is that the Robins Rails instruction sheet was and is notoriously hard to read but I've built enough such kits that I should be able to blunder my way through it OK.
Again no moral to the story just rambling (not ranting: rambling).
Dave Nelson
(huge reply lost yet again because of this worthless network at work - and I DID highlight and copy the text first just in case, but nope, not there)
Maybe I'll write it again later.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Losing a long reply at work is your boss' way of telling you you should be working. Yes, I AM retired, thanks for asking...
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Dave,
Cliff notes of your main point from the original post?
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Dave was that Robins Rails car in a Athearn box ? Reason I ask is I still have about 90 Bev Bel cars still on the shelf Some of the boxes say BevBel / Athearn some say Bev Bel / Millenium Series and some Bev Bel / C.-C. I just figured that one out ConCor
edit not sure now looked at 4 of the ones marked C.-C. and they are athearn ??
Things go that way in my shop too. I can easily spend a couple of hours on a shake the box kit. Back when i was younger I would knock one out in 15 minutes. On the other hand, I enjoy building rolling stock, and the extra time spent painting the undercarriage, painting the trucks, brushpainting the wheel faces, installing brake rodding and piping, painting the tack boards driftwood gray, and other fiddling around, is pleasurable. It's a hobby.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
dknelsonBack in the day, an Athearn Blue Box, Model Die Casting, or Accurail "shake the box" kit really earned its nickname, as I could dash one off in 10 or 15 minutes. It seems those days are gone. The kits haven't changed. I have. They are now more time consuming. And I am by no means a detailer of the Doctor Wayne stripe.....
Dave, I built my Athearn and MDC cars the same shake-the-box way, but as the newer kits appeared (Robin's Rails, Front Range, Ramax, McKean, and others), I decided to go back and upgrade the Athearn and MDC stuff, too, so that it would fit-in better with the more detailed cars which were becoming available.Accurail really accelerated that programme, as the one-piece bodies were so nicely done that they almost begged to have free-standing grabirons, even though I've seen well-painted and skillfully weathered versions, with cast-on grabirons intact, which look like they've been re-done with wire.For me, that was my first step down that slippery slope of detailing freight cars (I'd already succumbed to diesel detailing, and when I backdated my layout to a late '30s era, went quite willingly into the same for steam).
Selling-off the diesel era stuff was somewhat difficult for me, mostly because of the work put into it, but it went quickly and for very good prices, which helped to fund the backdating. There are a few that I wish I had back, but they've gone to good friends, and can be seen when I visit.There was, of course, some stuff which remained useful for the earlier era, mainly hoppers and covered hoppers (the latter weren't all that common in my new chosen era, but I've always liked them, so free-lancing a progressive railroad makes them acceptable exceptions to reality).However, a friend who moved his modelling era to current day sent me some surplus Proto "War Emergency" hoppers, which are very nicely detailed (the design of the prototype is actually a pre-war design, so they're perfectly acceptable in my time period, and even moreso because I lettered them for one of my freelanced roads....
I simply wiped-off the AT&SF lettering, adding my own dry transfer reporting marks, numbers, and herald. The dimensional data is all original.However, this made my Athearn hoppers ($1.50 apiece, from Hobbies For Men, in Beacon, New York - some bought mail-order, and some in-store, too) look somewhat lacking. Just last night, I added heap shields to some Athearn, Stewart, and Varney hoppers (the latter from my first HO trains in the '50s), and it reminded me that most of my open hoppers still have their cast-on grabirons, as do most of my covered hoppers (I have over 60 open hoppers and perhaps 20 covered hoppers, mostly lettered for my freelanced roads. I'm not sure I'm ready to re-do them with wire ones....perhaps when I finish my current projects for others (then my own, and get some work done on the layout, too).
I did redo some of the MDC covered hoppers, though, and thought that they turned out well...
...and while the two Varney cars with the new heap shields still have their giant rivets...
...they have had the sill steps and grabirons replaced with wire ones. I cheated by using Tichy ladders, though.
As "better" models become available, I'll add them as I see fit, and while they'll occasionally replace older ones, more often than not, the older ones will be upgraded...not, perhaps, quite to the standards of the new stuff, but enough to not look out of place. The two Varneys (and an upgraded tank car and metal boxcar) all have sentimental value, so are unlikely to be replaced.
If you have some time to waste, you can see how I wasted mine on some TYCO cars, some LifeLike (formerly Varney, but known to me as Proto-No-Thousand), and Train Miniature and Athearn "shake-the-box" kits. (The links are to multi-page threads, with lots of how-to info, especially the third one.)
I've done craftsman-type kits and scratchbuilt freight cars, too, and going back to shake-the-box kits to redo them in a more thorough manner is simply a result of seeing things in a different light, realising that we can do better than we did previously.
If shake-the-box suits your needs, shake it, but don't be afraid to discover your abilities: adding a couple of grabirons or some brake gear to a cheap car from a garage sale can be the first step down that slippery slope, but for many, it can be one really enjoyable slide.
Wayne
dknelsonBack then the bare unpainted metal floor of MDC Roundhouse kits was the way I built it.
That's the way I built mine. It didn't even occur to me to paint it. But truth be told, except for the stirrup step, I didn't see the bottom anyway once it was on the track.
I did, however, go to metal wheels and KD couplers early on.
They were the first car kits I did. I still have them, even though I'm in S now and the plastic kits have a lot more separately applied detail.
Paul
I just looked at River City Railroad site and they still have many MDC shake the box kits for sale including unpainted project cars.
34 Overton available again.
All plastic.
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.
I never understood why people detail the undercarriage of rolling stock. It's not seen like the car body, so why bother? I'm not disparaging anyone who does, but I see no point in it.
I've been buying some Athearn and Roundhouse boxcar kits lately, and see their molded in grab irons and other warts as a warm reminder of the past.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Hi all!
When I switched from HO to N scale I had some Athearn BB freight and passenger cars that I just could not bear the thought of selling or trading off just because of the fond memories I had with them of getting started in this hobby. Almost all were upgraded with KD's and metal wheels although I have a least one with hornhook couplers and the original plastic wheels. I can still remember my first Athearn train I put together with two B&O Chessie GP35s, fat bodies, no handrails yet installed, one powered with the "bonfire" in the cab and the other a dummy and both with the same engine number and thinking "wow, they look so real!" Now those were the days!
Ralph
MARTIN STATIONAlmost all were upgraded with KD's and metal wheels although I have a least one with hornhook couplers and the original plastic wheels. I can still remember my first Athearn train I put together with two B&O Chessie GP35s, fat bodies, no handrails yet installed, one powered with the "bonfire" in the cab and the other a dummy and both with the same engine number and thinking "wow, they look so real!" Now those were the days! Ralph
Ralph,Back in the days of BB,Roundhouse and other like kits I fully believe the hobby was more I dunno innocent perhaps?
When I sold my BB and Roundhouse cars I kept several of my favorites like Berwin Mills Railroad,Akron & Barberton Belt 50' boxcar, Louisville New Albany & Corydon modern 40' boxcar and several others that was hard to find since there are no replacement cars with those road names.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
mikeGTW Dave was that Robins Rails car in a Athearn box ? Reason I ask is I still have about 90 Bev Bel cars still on the shelf Some of the boxes say BevBel / Athearn some say Bev Bel / Millenium Series and some Bev Bel / C.-C. I just figured that one out ConCor edit not sure now looked at 4 of the ones marked C.-C. and they are athearn ??
JumijoI never understood why people detail the undercarriage of rolling stock.
.
I like to do a lot of model photography at "eye" level, so underbody detailing can add a lot to an image.
If you are not into photography, there is no reason to detail the underbody. I never detail the underbody of cars with fishebelly side rails. Then I really don't see the point.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
riogrande5761 Dave, Cliff notes of your main point from the original post?
Back in the days of BB,Roundhouse and other like kits I fully believe the hobby was more I dunno innocent perhaps?
Larry, that was a great way to put it. This was before the days of the internet, fourms and all web sites we use for research today. All I learned was either standing track side, hanging out at the hobby shop or from magazines and books at the library. But also Athearn BB and Roundhouse were about all the local hobby shops here carried and compared to the toy train brands these were the "Chevy Impala"of the day that just about everyone could afford and customize to their own need. If it had my favorite road name or looked close to what I saw, I bought it and was happy.
Innocent? naw, just more limited in scope, perhaps. The ready availability of detail parts and the era of kitbashing, along with some feature magazine articles started the demand for a higher level of detail.
Don's comments amused me more because, I was recently in the process of repairing and upgrading an old custom lettered BB 50' box. I was actually going to relocate the AB equipment, and install some piping, then thoughtbetter of it whenI found the broken coupler tab. So I fixed the couplers, replaced the wheels, and put it back to work. Still needs a shot of dullcote though.
As I once said to a fellow club member, "If you can see the underframe of one of my gondolas, things have gone seriously wrong."Of course, my primary interest is operations, and that affects my perceptions. When I'm switching, I could almost be using wood blocks with reporting marks on them.