This might sound odd, but I have never built an Accurail kit before. At a train show two weekends ago I picked up an undecorated 41 foot AAR gondola car.
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I have always heard that Accurail kits were "shake the box" kits similar to Athearn Blue Box or Roundhouse.
I was impressed when I opened the box. The gondola had interior wall details, the brake rigging was a nice seperate casting, and the brake wheel looked good. Much better than I was expecting.
The car body had thin cast on grab irons, and they were easy enough to remove. Everything fit like it was supposed to, and I was able to bring the car up to 4 ounces using sheet lead in the cavity under the floor interior casting.
Overall, I have been impressed with this kit. I will finish installation of the free standing Tichy grab irons tonight.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Kevin,
I have eight of the Accurail 41' gondolas and they are nicely detailed. Did you also add the supplied metal plate the comes with the kit and fits on the underside of the gondola floor?
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
SeeYou190I was impressed when I opened the box. The gondola had interior wall details, the brake rigging was a nice seperate casting, and the brake wheel looked good. Much better than I was expecting.
I have always been impressed with their rendering of wood grain on their outside-braced or double-sheathed box cars. One of the best I've seen in plastic. Even if wood cars are not your era you should have some hanging around the yard or "de-trucked" and used for storage sheds.
Here is a handy tutorial on the newer underframes:
http://www.accurail.com/accurail/INSTR/36ftUnderframe.pdf
Cheers, Ed
Nice job on the gondola. "Shake the box" is best understood as the original reaction by those who had grown up in the "box of sticks" era. Those guys even looked down on the kits where essentially everything had been done for you and all you did was cement the pieces together (Silver Streak being one example) - kits which came to be regarded as craftsman kits due to the cementing.
True, the original Accurail kits were more "shake the box" of the Athearn/Model Die Casting type than the newer era of Accurails are, as that tutorial about underframes that Ed posted a link to indicates. I see that the Milwaukee Road rib sided boxcar I bought at Trainfest has separately applied ladders for example (but Accurail bought that tooling from another manufacturer).
Having said that the old Accurail double and triple deck autoracks call for a lot of steps - not really difficult steps, just a lot of them, and the kits seem "fussy" as a result. For some people a large number of simple steps becomes a difficulty, maybe more a matter of attention span than physical or mental (or emotional!) challenge.
Accurail's old friction pin method of holding the trucks to the frame and the couple draft gear box together often needed to be reworked, so shaking the box was not enough if you were fussy enough. But then some folks also reworked the coupler mounting on every Athearn blue box, not to mention the erroneous placement of air brake parts on the underframe. The most "shaky" of shake the box kits can become an interesting challenge if you want it to.
Dave Nelson
Among the shake in the box kits (Accurail, Athearn, MDC, Walthers, E&C/LBF/Hubert) I would put Accurail and Walthers both at the top of the list.
The main Accurail I have experience with are:
- CF4600 covered hoppers - which go together nicely and are great "runner" models
- 89' TOFC flat cars, which were are first available car of that type until others came along; Accurail did a good job of upgrading the tooling they inherited from the predicessor company Windmill Hobbies. (I have heard Accurail intends to retire the 89' TOFC flat car and 89' auto rack series.
My interest lies in running a fleet of freight cars that match real freight cars, and the models don't all have to be super detailed, and I have found with some effort you can find Accurail box cars that are good visual matches for some real box cars. To that end I have found some of the 40' box cars are good matches for some NP and GN and a few others and have added them and plan to build them over the winter months if I can peel myself away from house projects now and then.
Bottom line, I do agree that Accurail kits are better engineered than some of the other shake in the box, especially Athearn, MDC and E&C/LBF.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Kevin, looking good!
It looks like you didn't run into the problem I had with this car kit, the stirrup steps like to go flying off into Neverland, I haven't gotten around to replacing it so I have a gondola missing a step.
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
Paint and weather the truck frames first if you plan to do that. Get metal wheel sets (Intermountain 33 inch work fine) and of course Kadees.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Another shout out in support of Accurail kits. They don't offer much that I can run in my contemporary era, but when I run some 1960-ish trains, I'll look for Accurail kits.
- Douglas
Accurail did a nice job with those gondolas, and I have several...
I also bought, used, several of the older Mantua/Tyco gondolas for a multiple-car CNR kitbashing project, but only belatedly realised that I should have been looking for Model Power gondolas. While the detail on the Accurail cars is superior to the much older Tyco cars, they're both representing pretty-well the same prototype. Since I replaced the grabirons on both types and added brake gear to Tycos, the main difference, appearance-wise, is the giant rivets on the older cars...
I don't have any of Accurail's 36' doublesheathed cars, but looking at the link showing the underbody assembly, it does appear that the brake gear is the same as that on the 36' singlesheathed Dominion/Fowler cars, which does not include the rodding which connects (on the prototype) the handbrake wheel with the lever on the B-end of the brake cylinder.To rectify that situation, I added a rod made from .012" phosphor-bronze wire to the 11 Accurail Dominion/Fowler cars ...
I modified 10 of mine with "metal" roofs, and different (longer) runningboards, which include the later-applied laterals, along with wire grabirons. I didn't, however, change the ladders....
Some cars, like the one above, got different doors, too. I've always liked Accurail's offerings, partly because they have a lot which fit my late '30s-era layout, and partly because they're kits, which makes alterations easier than most r-t-r cars.
Wayne
I always thought that Accurail kits were a level above Athearn and MDC Roundhouse. I only have a few piggyback flatcars but they look pretty realistic compared to the Athearn kits.
Accurail skews too old for my primary interests, but I have a last days of steam set for running on my modular club. I have a lone Accurail PS-1. It was the first kit I'd done in a while and the very first Accurail. I just did a Bowser kit last night too. The Accurail one was nice and I liked how they did the brake gear. Plus I didn't have any flash to clean up. The Bowser kit had a ton on the roofwalk.
This past weekend, I finished my third Accurail autorack, an open tri-level. The other two were partially enclosed bi-levels. I think their kits (now out of production) are great and add a nice variety to the enclosed Walthers autoracks that I've been running.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
I did not use the metal weight that came with the car. I use only lead to weight my cars. The only piece of my freight cars that is magnetic is the coupler trip pin.
I added the Tichy grab irons last night. I must say, this little car is going to fit in with the fleet just fine.
SeeYou190....I added the Tichy grab irons last night....
That's coming along nicely, Kevin!
I grew up putting together Athearn Blue Box kits, which still run on my layout. I find the Accurail kits to be fun to put together--and they take me back to childhood memories of saving up my allowance money, picking out one Blue Box kit at the hobby shop, and putting it together at my desk. Good times, then and now.
One thing I find on many kits (including Accurail IIRC) is that the truck bolster pivot (short cylinder on the frame) is usually a tad too long. Given that, tightening the truck screw all the way bottoms the screw against the cylinder, with a fair amount of vertical play for the truck.
Great, except that usually allows more wobble than I like. So I typically file the pivot cylinder down enough so that the screw can begin to tighten the truck itself, instead of tightening against the cylinder. I can thus adjust the truck wobble to that preferred. As often suggested on the Forum, I tighten one so that it pivots freely but barely wobbles. I allow a bit more wobble capability in the 2nd truck, so that the car can readily handle any reasonable track imperfections, but constraining excessive side to side wobble.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
More than half (and modeling a coal hauler in the 50's, I need a LOT of hoppers) are Accurail kits. They even form the basis for kitbashed covered hoppers, exactly following a prototype practice of adding a roof to older open hoppers. I've always felt they were a step above BB kits, while nt really being any more difficult to assemble. Their boox cars, expecially the single sheathed ones, are quite amazing for plastic castings, there's wood grain in there! Plus they are so kind as to periodically change the numbers on the decorated kits, meaning I have a large number without any duplicate numbers - the number on the side is easy enough to repalce but the teeny tiny number on the ends, not so much. And with their six packs you get a coupon for renumbering decals, which is also nice. I will ahve touse these, and actually do the tiny decals, because I'll never have enough just using the factory numbered ones.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
What is the difference in weight between the steel sheet in the kit, and lead of identical dimensions?
I have not noticed a problem with steel-weighted cars being drawn into uncoupling magnets. Kadee's between-rails or #308 below-track magnets aren't excessively strong, and most car weights are pretty high above the railhead.
Graham LineWhat is the difference in weight between the steel sheet in the kit and lead? I have not noticed a problem with steel-weighted cars being drawn into uncoupling magnets.
The "No Magnetic/Ferrous Materials" rules dates back to my N scale days. Steel weights would cause lots of accidental uncouplings with those super-free-rolling Micro-Trains trucks.
I kept the rule for my fleet when I swicted to HO. It might not be necessary, but it will not do any harm.
I also use Kadee 308 uncouplers with the ties removed, so the magnet come right up to the bottom of the rail.