I know months and months back (maybe years back), there was a thread on the Rocket Express kits for the Rock Island wood outside-braced automobile boxcar kits. Well, I inquired via the rocketexpress.biz site back in December whether or not the kits were still available, and I was told they were, so I ordered two. However, new molds had to be poured because the old molds had dried out. So it took until today to receive the kits.
The body is nicely done. The master appears to have been made from a combination of existing manufacturers' and scratchbuilt components. There are add-on components included and some already are attached, such as the Micro-Trains brakewheel and stirrups. A Micro-Trains wood roofwalk also is included. Old-school InterMountain trucks are included, but they will be discarded for probably Atlas S-2a trucks and body-mounted MTL 1015 couplers. Decals are not included. I'm assuming that if anyone is interested, there currently is not a seven-month lead time to receive the product given that fresh molds were poured.
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The directions and diagrams are for the car as-built in 1930, but I will be decorating it as it appeared in 1956, which is still valid as half of the fleet was still in service. I'm assuming they were out of automobile service by then however, so if anyone has photos of cars from the 160250-160599 series in the late 1950s that they could point me to, I would be appreciative.
