I have complained about the lack of HO CAR Kits available at the hobby shop in the past and was always told that if you want kits, you should go to Train Shows; or, shop on Ebay and I have done this. However, lately I have found there to be pretty slim pickings at both Train Shows and on Ebay. Further, it appears that Accurail's fine kits seem to be in short supply! I am also a purchaser of Tichy Train Groups wonderful offerings; however, I don't want to have to paint every car on my layout! Anyone have any suggestions, keep in mind I am only interested in kits!
I have found the folks at Accurail, and Tichy, great to work with over the phone. I like working with kits too.
Proto2000 freight cars are often in kit form. I like their PS2-CD covered hopper, but again, out of production and usually a train show or local find. Intermountain has some value line models, I think their Bethgon hopper is a kit, as well as the Scaletrains Evans Boxcar. For highly detailed kits, there isn’t that much out there. Exactrail and Tichy sell undecorated models, but as you said, you don’t want to paint.
Mr. Trainiac, I have many LLP2K models and I love them as well as Intermountain and Red Caboose kits. However, they are just as hard to find at train shows; or, on Ebay as Athearn & MDC Roundhouse kits. I also have a strong representation of Tichy kits on my layout. The Intermountain Bethgon hopper, Evans Box Cars and Scaletrains kits are generally not of transition era equipment, so, not much help for me there either! Since almost everyone basically stopped producing kits 15 to 20 years ago, it would seem reasonable to expect that the supply would be dwindling! I was hoping that I did not know every producer of kits and someone would have a name of a kit producer I'd never heard of. It appears such is simply not the case!
You could try some of the Craftsman style kits like Ambroid and Quality Craft. They are closer to scratchbuilding and you will definitely need to paint them, but they could bring in some new types of cars that you don’t already have from other companies. I have always wanted to build one of the LaBelle passenger car kits, and I have already done both a Quality Craft and an Ambroid.
Yes, I have built many wood kits, mostly Northern Pacific Cabooses and I love building them, also. Thanks for the suggestions!
Look on fleabay under Athearn blue box. MDC under model die casting. They get listed in weird ways. Wish i could help more but i'm in the middle of switching to N scale myself from Ho.
I keep hearing people say this but I just went to the Timonium train show a couple weeks ago and as usual there were lots and lots of kits there, Athearn, MDC , Accurail and Proto 2000. I'll check the next Greenberg show in my area to see if that remains true at those shows as well but the past, I continue to see kits, kits and more kits. I just did a quick check on eBay and sure enough, I found quite a few MDC box cars there. Just one search. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...eDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=model+die+casting+box Maybe your area for train shows is worse? Keep scouring eBay, it's constantly changing but kits are still there.
My original Post in this thread is dated October of 2019. It referred to my observations at the last Granite City Train Show I attended, wherein my search for an Athearn Cupola Caboose Kit took some time as the amount of "Kits" available for sale seemed to be very low at that particular show last spring. Yesterday, I drove down to the same Granite City Train Show & Sale in St. Cloud, Minnesota. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of kits being offered at the show this time! My estimates would be that there where thousands of Athearn, MDC Roundhouse ect. available, at good prices! There where even some very old kits available from Silver Streak, Ye Olde Huff & Puff, Ambroid and other wood kits and I even saw one from plastic Globe Models which it is my understanding wasa pre-Athearn model. I also just looked on Ebay for Athearn Blue Box kits and found there to be 21 pages of listings. Given what I have recently seen, I have to re-think my complaint, as stated in my first post here! Why the spring show was down as far as kits are concerned must have been an anomaly.
I for one enjoy building kits too. I just have a hard time paying the prices people ask for them now a days. A kit list price of 16.95 and people are asking 20.00+ for it like it is gold. This is usually old stock from a store they couldn't sell so now lets ask more money because the manufacture is only making RTR stuff now.
I am a kit guy too, and ask Nick, I build so many kits that I ended up buying a quality laser cutter to make my own kits. I think the absolute best place to get kits is the NMRA meets. They always have an auction at the end where people bring in all the unbuilt estate kits from passed away members, and older members who just armchair model are always unloading great stuff for pennies on the dollar. I'm serious, HO, N, and O stuff is everywhere at these meets. Ambroid, Westerfield, Period Miniatures, Fine Scale Miniatures, bag of detail parts worth hundreds too! Oh, one more thing.. I bet I have build 10 NP cabooses to every 1 anyone else has built. I built about a dozin in HO, at least 25 in N and 25 in Z. I have built 1200 series, 1500 series, 1600 series, 1700 series, and all the metal cabooses NP had. I love them all!
Another one you might want to look into is Branchline. They are now owned by Atlas, but the cars come ready-to-roll as part of their Master Line. No more kits. New-old stock is relatively common at train shows and eBay still. The Pullman sleepers can be found pretty cheap, considering their detail. I am working on one of their 40’ ice reefers right now too. Their cars are pre-painted, which you also mentioned was important to you. You might need to touch up places like the underside of certain parts, but all the body paint and lettering is done on the sprue. One word of warning, the Pullman trucks can be sketchy. The wheelsets are not always perfect, and you can’t glue the brake beams very tightly, otherwise the trucks get squeezed and the wheels bind up. However, the underbody detail and ease of assembly make up for that. The sleepers are easy to find, but coaches are rarer and more expensive. The cars alone serve as good cores for brass and plastic sides if you wanted to make your own types of cars. Since the sides are separate pieces anyways, no cutting is required to rebuild them with new ones.
Mr. Trainiac, I am familier with Branchline, both their Blueprint and YardMaster kits. I have many of them, I also loved Life Like P2K, Red Caboose and Intermountain kits. All of these built into wonderful cars. I had moved away from Athearn and MDC Roundhouse kits when Branchline and P2K where available as kits as they built into such wonderful kits and the fact that they could be "persnickety" to build, enthused the the "MODELER" in me! I even liked to build wood kits and if it wasn't for the "Building Models" portion of this hobby, I would not be in this hobby!
I guess I can be thankful for not having a lot of time over the years, as now I am heading into retirement with boxes of unbuilt kits. I've always enjoyed the old Athearn blue box and Roundhouse kits. They're great when you want a quick and relaxing project, but I also have enjoyed painting and decaling the Roundhouse old timers for my favorite local roads. However, that supply isn't going to last forever, so I think rray has the right idea with the purchase of a laser cutter. Since CAD is another of my interests, I will probably be 3D printing my own cars at some point in the future. Since manufacturers have discovered that there's more proft in having assembly done in China, technologies like laser cutting and 3D printing may very well become the next steps for those of us who enjoy building kits. Also, with these technologies lending themselves well to low volumes/make to order situations, it would be easy to make kits available to others with similar interests.
