Batch-building freight cars - 2
S
everal years ago I set out to upgrade the rolling stock on
my layout. I had been visiting layouts in the area and had
noticed that many of them featured very realistic rolling
stock. After some investigation, I went out and bought some
highly detailed kits by Intermountain, Red Caboose, Proto
2000, and others. My heart sank a bit as I opened the boxes
and discovered lots of parts, and sprue after sprue of very
1a-1b: The difference between kits is in the details.
This side-by-side comparison shows the dramatic
difference between the better-detailed refrigerator
car in the middle and the blue-box model on the left.
These differences are especially noticeable in close up
photographs.
1a
Tips and tricks to
building detailed
cars quickly ...
small parts. I was more
familiar with “shake-
the-box” kits that go
together in under an
hour. These looked like
they would take days to
finish one kit. Hmmm….
While I do enjoy build-
ing car kits, the number
of cars needed for the
layout made me real-
ize I needed some tech-
niques to speed things
up a bit. Over the years,
I learned some methods
from very skilled local
modelers to help in the
efficient construction
of rolling stock. In this
article I offer some tips
for building more detailed cars in less time. We’ll start by look-
ing at some kit building techniques, and the process of building
kits in batches. We’ll follow this with a step-by-step demon-
stration of some of these ideas in a batch-build of four Proto
2000 stock cars. To start, let’s take a look at what we mean by
“highly detailed” and how that idea applies to three basic cat-
egories of rolling stock kits.
What makes a kit “highly detailed?”
A highly detailed kit builds into an accurate model of the pro-
totype that features finer parts and correct dimensions. These
kits feature separately applied grabirons, running boards, lad-
ders, and stirrups. The rivets and cast-on details are molded in
1b
2: Notice the high level of detail
possible in the craftsman kit
compared to photos 1a and 1b.
2
MRH-Mar 2014
