Saturday, June 19, 2010

New toys! R-T-R and otherwise. . .


New stuff! Austrains ELX and Auscision KLY, and detailed old-school Trax/Casula TRC. . .

After a couple of months of true "modeling"--building kits, adding detail, painting, and weathering--of rolling stock and locomotives, it was pretty damned nice to open some packages from Australia the other day and taking out beautifully built, detailed, and painted ready-to-run freight wagons. Too easy!

New to the roster are a pair of Austrains Victorian Railways ELX open wagons (we Yanks call them "gondolas" and a pair of Auscision KLY 55' louvre vans. They're both perfect for my era, the ELX's dating from the early-mid-60's and the KLY's from the second order for these wagons delivered in 1975-76. The KLY's are from the same time frame as the WTY grain hoppers, which wear the "L7" two-toned blue PTC logo. The Aucusion KLY's wear the earlier "Rocking R" logo. I've never actually seen a photo of a second-order KLY with the Rocking R, and found it curious that both logos would be delivered simultaneously. I'm sure Auscision got it right, I've just not seen any photographic proof of it!

Both of these cars are spectacular models. I'm familiar with the quality of the Auscision stuff, so that was no surprise to me. This is the first rolling stock from the new-era of Austrains imports I've purchased, and was quite pleased as well. I'm going to have to come up with suitable loads for these ELX's to hide the lack of detail on the interior sides of the models--the only thing distracting from an overall "perfect 10" in my opinion.

Not all the packages arriving on the doorstop in this flurry of model railway purchasing were ready to run--Joe Callipari got my order together for 10 Casula "S" truck kits with proper .088" SEM wheelsets. I'm waiting for a pair of OCY container flat and a pair of PRY cement wagons from AR Kits and at some point the very cool new RACE containers from SDS models (perfect on the OCY flat on the headend of the North-West Mail!).


Workaday, not too flashy at all: a pair of detailed/scratchbuilt TRC using the TRAX/Silvermaz wagon body. Weathering is still to come.

TRC rebuild

Still lingering on the "to do" list of cars for May's prototype model exhibition but not finished on time were a pair of TRAX/Silvermaz (Casula) TRC refrigerator wagons. I'd purchased one on e-bay for cheap a few years ago and did a basic assembly (sides, roof, top, underframe with couplers and trucks) of it for use on the layout, and picked up another one new from Joe last April. When I finally readied to build one "proper" (with semi-scale couplers and reasonably complete underframe and carbody detailing added), I discovered that the underframe was basically a crude, inaccurate chunk of plastic, and figured I could do better. But where to get plans? I turned to Ray Pilgrim and Bob Stack, who were both gracious enough to scan two excellent Peter Jarvis articles on modeling this car from the June 1996 AMRM. VERY thorough treatment of detailing this very basic model.

I'd just about had the basic underframe assembled from plastic sheet and forms when Bob alerted me to a resin casting kit created by Ian Radcliffe and sold through his IDR line at Hobbyland in Hornsby, NSW. My timing was not quite perfect! The casting kit looks quite nice and hopefully should be readily available soon. (And those KHG brakevan and CF/KF four-wheel flat wagons he sells are my current infatuation!)

I followed most of the step-by-step directions in the article and came up with a quite nice model.

It certainly holds up well next to the Ready-To-Run Chinese wagons, and with the time and effort invested in it certainly gives me a bit more pride in ownership.


Cost vs. value vs. detail vs. modeling time vs. ultimate modeling satisfaction?

It's clear that Australian model railroading has moved light years ahead from what was available when the TRC was originally offered, probably 20 years or more in the past. It's amazing that the rough approximations of under frames not just on the TRC, but, for example, other kits like the Mini-Models BCW's were seen as cutting edge in their time. Amazing still is that these kits are still available new--the TRC from Casula and the BCW from Berg's, the marginally-detailed AR Kits WHX--for a considerable sum, $25+. Are these prices out-of-line for what you're getting, considering both the level of detail on the under frames (or lack thereof)? I'm guessing both of these kits have long since earned back their initial cost of development.

I'd certainly like to add more TRC's and BCW's to the fleet (that article in a back issue of AJMR about super-detailing the BCW really has my attention), but the costs of such crude kits give me pause before ordering more. But what can you do? You either accept that these are the only models of these cars available and pay the price, or you wait on the hope that one of the R-T-R importers will bring in a much-pricier--but much-better-detailed--car in the future. . .whenever that will be. What's the pride of ownership worth to me in a kit that I took to a much higher level of detail?

I'm not sure of my own answer to this one. I certainly like just popping a box open and having a nearly-100% accurate car, right there, in front of me, ready to go onto the tracks. At the same time, I like the fussing with wire, and styrene, and brake cylinder castings, etc. I appreciate that the "classic kits" are still available, and that small businessman/modelers like Ian Radcliffe are supplying smaller-runs of specialty modeling kits.

I do know that if I devote much more time to building up my fleet of wagons (let's see--10 S trucks, at least six more WHX's, and another half-dozen assorted Mini-Kits BCW's and AR Kits models on queue!) I'll never get the railroad itself built.

And the layout, now that i've got all these nice cars to run, is what REALLY needs the immediate attention!


That chunk of plastic on top of my model is the original underframe supplied in the TRAX/Silvermaz TRC kit. With the proper reference materials, I came up with something a bit better. . .

6 comments:

South Coast Rail said...

Blair,
your finished TRC is certainly well better than the original kit. You're right we have come to expect more from our kits and RTR nowadays.
When Ray found out about the TRC bases he went to the store and cleaned Ian out.
At the Thornleigh exhibition Ian had a future production model of the 24 ton fishbelly MLV. Would look good on the North West Mail
Bob

IainS said...

Hi Blair,

as a card carrying modeller of the Victorian Railways and a former employee of the State of Victoria (with the Victoria Archaeological Survey) I have to note that it is the Victorian Railways i.e. the railways owned by the State of Victoria.

BTW there are faint grooves on the inside of the ELX's where the doors are which help detail the interior once scribed to make more prominent. There are now tarps on the market to cover the interior.

IainS

B. Kooistra said...

Iain--so noted and corrected re:Victoria(n).

As for the faint grooves. . .yep, those are FAINT grooves! I don't have many photos of the inside of ELX's, so I can't vouch for the prototype having any detail features or not, but they look pretty blank to me.

I'm sure putting panel detail, rivets, side members, top chord, etc. on the inside of the model would add to its cost. But how much would it add? I wouldn't mind paying a few more bucks for that highly-visible part of an open wagon being detailed as well. The lack of detail i'd guess would be a function of how the model was designed, i.e., as a plastic tub vs. two ends and sides assembled together. Heck, my AR Kits BDX's have interior detail. So do all the US prototype models of gondolas and hoppers I've owned above a basic Tyco/Bachmann/Lifelike product line.

I'm guessing the second run of these cars are bare inside as well--a real shame, as all those ribs would look really cool!

Gary Laker said...

As a fan of highly detailed kits Blair I must say I have been impressed with your efforts lately !(particularly the WHX's).
Our hobby has so many facets it is a brave man that would define a "modeller" and what aspect(s) of the hobby his or her efforts should be focused on to maintain that title, eg rolling stock, loco's, layout, etc etc. You've had a shift away from the layout with some great results, I've had a shift to and of late am modelling in colourbond, concrete and steel beams!!
Can be tough trying to strike a balance and making the most of our "modelling" time in whatever area we choose. I'm hoping to nail down my first bit of track within the next 12 mnths after nearly 25 years in the hobby! It's all good mate ;-) Good luck.

GL

Sarails said...

Blair,
Fantastic work on the upgrade to the TRC, not a kit that I've ever built or likely too, as I'm attempting to model the railways of South Australia (SAR), but I get your point on the detail quality of the kits available, as an SAR modeller the number of RTR equipment can be counted on one hand (with fingers to spare) and the majority of the kits that we have is minimal and now often hard to get, or of a standard where a better result can be obtained completely scratchbuilding what you want/need to model a particular era.

Iain

Lindsay said...

Hi Blair.
Boy was my timing bad! I've been working my way through your blog from the start over the last couple of weeks. At the same time, I've been working on a pair of those old TRCs ... and today came across this post from five years ago!
You've done a great job on them. My own are pretty rough - as you'll see on my recent blog posts http://weddinjct.blogspot.com.au/
Cheers,
Lindsay Lucas