01-14-2013, 10:30 AM
I remember the title of a clinic at an NMRA event: "Ready to Run it Ain't". The fact is that to do any sort of justice to a ready-to-run car, you need to look at minimum improvements like painting unpainted underframe and truck sideframes and bare metal wheels, replacing plastic couplers, replacing the Athearn clip-on coupler pockets where applicable with Kadee boxes screwed in place, and then paint improvements and weathering. Plus bringing it to NMRA weight. I picked up a Walthers Trainline car over the holidays because I liked the paint scheme, but when I got it home I discovered the $15 car had plastic couplers and trucks that snapped onto the bolsters. Plus the usual issues with the bare plastic parts that needed paint. At least it had metal wheels, which are getting to be pretty universal with RTR. So in a lot of cases, you have to turn an RTR car back into a kit to bring it up to standards and then reassemble it. So I don't make too much distinction between kit as in Athearn bluebox or Accurail and RTR -- they're about the same time and effort. Resin or craftsman wood, of course, are very different.