Weekend Update 10/1/17

[nkalanaga]

I have an antique AHM autorack still in service.  It's been rebuilt a couple times, including straightening the sidesills, replacing the decks with thinner brass, and repainting it, but still looks much the same.  And I tend to agree with your philosophy.  If your interest is running trains, rather than detailing freight cars, the old, cheap, paid-for cars work just as well as the newest models. 

I also have an original late 1960s CC GN Glacier Green boxcar, with the only changes being Kadee couplers, added in the 70s, and painting the wheels.  The GN never had a 10-panel AAR boxcar, as far as I know, but CC used an unassigned number series, so that's not a problem.  The herald and goat are decals(!), the only N scale freight car I've seen that came factory decaled, rather than printed.  Kato did the same thing with the herald on their early CC GN Empire Builder PA-1.

There are a lot of people still running Lionel layouts for similar reasons.  They never seem to wear out, or derail, and are just as much fun to run as the expensive, superdetailed, and fragile scale stuff.

[OldEastRR]

Ah yes, the "close enough is good enough" theory of model railroading. 



You see high ride height, inaccurate detailing, clunky automobiles coarsely modeled and painted... I see three full auto racks with enough money left over to buy beer for the operating session.

Lee

Are those the old Arnold/Rapido racks?
Well, even ignoring the ride height etc , the thing that really looks wrong is the wide variety of models and car manufacturers mixed among the loads. Ford, GM, AND RollsRoyce? Looks like AMC and VW vehicles lurking around in the lower decks, too. One remedy I had was to put all the same models/styles on the top of the rack, while the lower ones not being as visible could be grouped in similarly styled/sized ones. Since I had multiple racks and could buy auto assortment multiples it was easy. I also painted the canary-yellow plastic ones something less shrill. 

[bman]

Ah yes, the "close enough is good enough" theory of model railroading. 





You see high ride height, inaccurate detailing, clunky automobiles coarsely modeled and painted... I see three full auto racks with enough money left over to buy beer for the operating session.

Lee

And as with anything else, beer makes it look good.....A lot of beer makes it look even better.   

[wm3798]

No, those are MT open racks, which are still pretty coarse by today's standards.  When you model the early 70s though, you can't get away with those shrouded cars that started showing up in the 80s.  A loaded rack has to be loaded.

As for the cars, the farthest rack is an all Mercedes load, I think they were a Model Power or AHM model that was available by the million, and may still be.  The other racks are all Fords.  Fastback Torinos, LTDs, 2-door 500s and Mustangs.  I still have a pile of them in the boxes, I was in the process of "detailing" enough of them to do full racks of station wagons, full racks of Mustangs, etc.  I was also working on a collection of resin pick up truck kits.  I think they were Chevies, to ride on the two-level cars.

The Mercedes weren't too far out of character for WM traffic, as there are lots of shots of racks of VWs loaded at Port Covington...  I was also working on obtaining more beetles and microbuses, but the good ones are Viking, and a little pricier than the big Fords.  I used to troll ebay for junk rolling stock collections with AHM or Bachmann auto racks, and then cull the vehicles then resell the lot without them.  I don't think I made money on it, but I never spent much.

The big problem with using something like cast resin or Mini Metals is the weight...  The old plastic vehicles, apart from being pretty spot on for the era, (the prototype car models were new when the tooling was made! ) were empty shells, and so didn't affect how the racks tracked or the overall weight of the train.  The fact that they were dirt cheap and relatively easy to clean up was icing on the cake.

Lee

[nkalanaga]

Those ARE MT racks, aren't they?  Looking at the stirrups it's obvious.  I knew they weren't Arnold, as I have a couple of them, but I thought they were probably Bachmann.  I don't think the Arnold racks came with autos.  I know mine didn't, they now have Kato Toyotas.  When I bought the Toyotas, 20 years ago maybe, they were relatively cheap, and they look "typical" enough for early 70s cars.