Have you ever had a thought pop into your head that made you say to yourself, "Huh!". Well, I was watching this week's Cody's Office. During his "Hopper-palooza" segment, Cody was reviewing the N-scale 33' Twin-bay hoppers by Micro-Trains. As I was noting how small they were (compared to HO), I was all of a sudden taken back by the thought: "Does anyone actually make N-scale rolling stock kits?"
I just put together my 5th Proto 2000 10K gal Rivet tanker (HO), which gave me 5-6 hours of assembly entertainment. (At $15, that would come to $2.50 - $3.00/hr. Not bad.) I very much enjoy and prefer kits. However - until this morning, I had not given much thought to rolling stock kits in N-scale. As much as I enjoyed assembling my Proto 2000 tanker, I can not fathom trying to do the same thing in N-scale.
I know that there are some details in HO-scale that don't scale down to N-scale - e.g. grab irons, ladders, etc. I guess that's just another confirmation that HO is a good fit for me.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I've got a couple of N scale wood flatcar kits that I bought many, many years ago. I started to assemble them and never got finished. Maybe I should finish them some time. I wonder if all the pieces are still there.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
I purchased 4 Intermountain CNW reefer kits a while back. Two are almost complete and the other two are still in their jewel cases. I love building structure kits, but I prefer RTR for my rolling stock. The grab irons and ladders are very small and it can be frustrating at times.
Scott
tstage Have you ever had a thought pop into your head that made you say to yourself, "Huh!". Well, I was watching this week's Cody's Office. During his "Hopper-palooza" segment, Cody was reviewing the N-scale 33' Twin-bay hoppers by Micro-Trains. As I was noting how small they were (compared to HO), I was all of a sudden taken back by the thought: "Does anyone actually make N-scale rolling stock kits?"
I can't say much about today, but back in the 70's Kadee (now Microtrains) offered some of their N-scale rolling stock as "shake the box" kits, similar to Athern blue box kits. I bought one, an ACY boxcar. I don't remember there being a particular price advantage to purchasing rolling stock that way, and I don't remember that there was a whole lot of selection of product. I believe that Kadee eventually stopped offering the kit option in favor of RTR only.
I also about that time purchased this craftsman-style Thrall-door Weyerhauser car kit. I do not remember who made it. It has a body built up around a wood block, metal fittings, and came less T&C. The hardest part of it was the multiple coats of sanding sealer required to get the wood to look anything like metal. That and forming the wire bits that constituted the door hardware.
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
I think with these shaky ol' hands HO is about the smallest scale I can hope to scratch build anything. I'm with you Tom, HO seems to be a good fit for me too......
Wayne
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
I wish more kits were available in N scale... especially one very needed set of passenger car sides. I also wish more basic scratchbuildinbg supplies were available in N scale-- wood sections for clerestory wooden passenger cars in N like the old HO LaBelle and Northeastern kits. Cast metal bolsters to apply to scratchbuilt cars. Unpainted cars (a few still available here and there...)
I do a lot of what I call kitbashing rolling stock- except that I usually do not have kits to start with. I usually work with R-T-R.... ready to rebuild. Ready to strip paint off. Ready to file or trim off detail that doesn't fit what I want.
This thread got me to wondering about my N scale rolling stock. How many kits do I build? I found I have 58 bashed freight cars on the layout. Some are just repaints or redetail modifications. Some are splice and chop projects.
By comparison, I have 7 kit-built freight cars...and 28 unbuilt freight car kits? Why twice as many bash projects as kits? Probably because I bash something when I want a particular car and I want it to nfit a particular prototype. On the other hand, a kit may be something I will buy when I am in a hobby shop and I want to buy SOMETHING but they don't have anything that fits my special cravings. So I wilol buy a kit that I think I may be able to use. But building it is not high priority, not nearly as high as my special project. Kits are just not as much challenge or satisfying as taking a "ready-to-Run" model and making it something I really want to run.
In the passenger car fleet, I had ONE built kit (brass car sides), one radical bash from a "ready to rebuild" car, and 15 unbuilt kits. The passenger story is a little different. I am accumulating cars for three specific prototype Santa Fe trains as they ran in Texas in the mid-1950s--- the Texas Chief, the California Special and the de-named ex-Ranger mail and express. The layout I had for the past 25 years did not have broad enough radius for passenger cars. As soon as I get a circuit of 18 inbch radius track going on the layout ubnder construction, I imagine those passenger cars will become a priority.
Of course, one of the advantages of N scale is that it is so small, you can cheat on some of the details.
tstage "Does anyone actually make N-scale rolling stock kits?"
"Does anyone actually make N-scale rolling stock kits?"
As you folks know, I model present day Japan. Quite a few of the leading manufacturers offer rolling stock kits. Modemo, Greenmax - brands lttle known outside of Japan - offer a huge number of kits, from passenger coaches to EMU´s and DMU´s. World Craft has brass kits of steam and electric locos - a daring challenge to assemble.
tstage Have you ever had a thought pop into your head that made you say to yourself, "Huh!". Well, I was watching this week's Cody's Office. During his "Hopper-palooza" segment, Cody was reviewing the N-scale 33' Twin-bay hoppers by Micro-Trains. As I was noting how small they were (compared to HO), I was all of a sudden taken back by the thought: "Does anyone actually make N-scale rolling stock kits?" I just put together my 5th Proto 2000 10K gal Rivet tanker (HO), which gave me 5-6 hours of assembly entertainment. (At $15, that would come to $2.50 - $3.00/hr. Not bad.) I very much enjoy and prefer kits. However - until this morning, I had not given much thought to rolling stock kits in N-scale. As much as I enjoyed assembling my Proto 2000 tanker, I can not fathom trying to do the same thing in N-scale. I know that there are some details in HO-scale that don't scale down to N-scale - e.g. grab irons, ladders, etc. I guess that's just another confirmation that HO is a good fit for me. Tom
NO!!! Not the infamous 10k gal rivet tank car!!! May your soul rest in peace!
I once walked in my LHS, found 10 of them on the shelves at discount prices, lettered to Canadian Petroleum Tank Line, thought it was a good deal and bought them all... Imagine my deception when a fun 1 hour expected assembly time turned out to be such hell... I put them on the layout without grab irons... thinking I would add them later... when my nerves would return to their normal state... It's been 3 years... and I have much more projects to do than this! ;-)
Matt
Proudly modelling the Quebec Railway Light & Power Co since 1997.
http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com
http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com
With age and wisdom I think I'll stick with RTR for any N scale I get, do enjoy HO kits for the most part. Got some of those 8,000g and 10.000g kits to put together durring a recouperation period about ten years ago. Doc did a good job, so recoup wasn't nearly as long as expected. Did do one or two of them, would do a better job today as I have some new tools, specifically with them in mind. Next one I will try will be a timesaver kit. Got more of those cars than I really need.
Have fun,
Richard
I actually enjoyed building the Proto 2000 HO 8000 gal tank cars. IMO it was 6 hours well spent. The secret to building these cars is to ream out ALL the handgrab mounting holes,..... and a bit of patience . LOL I cant even imagine trying to build them in N scale though ! We could use more Blue Box type kits for N scale.......Mike
While some are not for the timid, there are indeed a lot of rolling stock kits, including freight cars, passenger car "core" kits, cabooses, and even steam locomotive retrofit kits. Even some RTR items come with add on details.
With a little care, a bright desk lamp and a pair of reading glasses, you can actually end up with a nicely detailed piece. Here's a couple of examples of kits I've got rolling around on the WM Western Lines:
A B&O wagon top from a Precision N Scale resin kit with brass details
A B&O Wagon top caboose from a JnJ resin kit with etched stainless details
I've got a gadzillon of these MDC/Roundhouse 70 T. hoppers. These are closer to "shake the box" kits, although I take the time to body mount MT 1015 couplers on them. Roundhouse also did a "modern tank car" kit that I have several copies of, and their 50' modern boxcars were the backbone of my fleet before I back dated the layout to 1970.
I've also got several of these Intermountain boxcar kits on the rails, and a few more to build.
Back in the day, just about every Micro Trains body style was available as a kit, but they got away from that claiming the market for them had dried up. The last MT kit I purchased was a three pack of their 89' pig flats back in 1990 or so. Red Caboose's outstanding coil cars were also offered as kits, and I'm still kicking myself for not getting more when I could. You basically got two for the price of one when you built it up yourself.
So, yeah, there are kits in N scale, and some darn nice ones. The RTR stuff is certainly nice to have, but for me it takes some of the fun out of it when all you do is open the box.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
There's quite a few N scale kits out there.
I have a couple of Fine N-Scale Products 36' Truss-Rod Wood Boxcars waiting to get built & lettered for my cannery.
N-Scale Kits has mostly intermodal kits, but also some good 25' & 35' flats & logging cars.
Randy Gustafson (Randgust) makes some great cast resin kits. For rolling stock he's got some pre-1900 V&T ore cars, and for locos he's got kits for 13-ton & 18-ton Climax (fits Kato 11-105 chassis).
And Republic Locomotive Works has a whole line of great wood kits, including a bunch of pre-1900s boxcars, conductor cars, stock cars, etc. While a lot of their stuff is for Nn3, much can also be used in N. My favorite are the 20-ton coal cars:
I painted & added the grab irons, NBW details, and load. Well made, and only take a little reaming of the bolster to take N trucks. They look good on the layout!
Hmmm... need a bit more weathering.
And I think Micro Trains offers "kit" versions of their 40' & 50' boxcars in various forms.
Lots o' good stuff in N!
M.C. Fujiwara
My YouTube Channel (How-to's, Layout progress videos)
Silicon Valley Free-moN