When was your last Athearn kit?

[nkp_174]

Based off of Trolley fan's post in the upper berth section...

When was the last time you built an Athearn Blue Box kit?

I believe my last passenger car was in the mid-1990s, my last freight car was probably in 2001. While I still think of them as being my favorites, I realize that I haven't bought or built any for a long time. My last HO car was a P2K stock car 6 months ago. Before that, a Bowser caboose 18 months ago. I really spend far more time looking at my HO models than anything else (caveat: I have done some HO car scratch building).

[nachoman]

I have been heavily into HOn3 since about 2001. The last BB kit I built was probably around 1999-2000. That's not really an applicable answer because I changed gauges, and because I didn't move on from BB to other kits or RTR. There also arent many BB kits that fit my era, otherwise I would build a few more.

[shaygetz]

Since I buy mine second and third hand, it couldn't really count. I bought my last new kit of any kind from a hobby shop in 2002, after that I went to swap meets for my buying.

[Steamtrains]

I haven't reached my last....I've got 2 or 3 still in their boxes......

[csiguy68]

i bought about 3 athearn blue box kits this past thursday. two of them were boxcars and one was a covered hopper . the price was right only 6.00 per kit. i havnt built them yet though.



Todd

[jglfan]

I painted and decalled a couple boxcars maybe about 6 years ago. I still have a bunch of kits on the shelf, not sure if I'll ever get to them, so much other stuff to be done.

[eightyeightfan1]

This is the last BB I built. Just last December. It had been sitting on my "To Do" shelf for almost four years though.
Why didn't Athearn add glass for the windows?

[ray_m]

I bought an unbuilt Blue Box kit at the last train show I went to a few weeks ago.
Like Shaygetz, I usually buy second hand kits or cars that need a little TLC.

[tomustang]

Just a month ago, 6 of them.

Don't expect me to buy anything made by them anymore, it's bad they went overseas to cut their costs, but worse when they cut it altogether.

[Brakie]

The last kit was 2005.

However..

While looking for something else I unearth more BB kits!! hock:

[Russ Bellinis]

I have a bunch that are still not built in the box. I'm experimenting to see if I can find a way to make a couple of ice reefers I have into something closer to scale and less toy like. If not, I will probably be pretty much destroying them in the attempt. The biggest problem with the reefers, of course, is the totally out of scale hinges for the ice hatches. The box cars and such I will probably go ahead and build eventually, and just replace doors and door tracks with something closer to scale.

[doctorwayne]

I have a bunch that are still not built in the box. I'm experimenting to see if I can find a way to make a couple of ice reefers I have into something closer to scale and less toy like. If not, I will probably be pretty much destroying them in the attempt. The biggest problem with the reefers, of course, is the totally out of scale hinges for the ice hatches. The box cars and such I will probably go ahead and build eventually, and just replace doors and door tracks with something closer to scale.

While my Athearn reefers have been sold off, I lessened the visual impact of those over-size hinges by first shaving-off those huge "bumps" on the roof, then "plating-over" the resulting holes with .010" styrene - this applies both to the hatch hinges and the one for the latch/support bar. I also sliced off the projections on the hatch hinges that fit into those bumps, leaving the rest of the projecting hinge casting intact. After installing the hatches, I used strip styrene of a width similar to that of the remaining hinge projections on the hatches to build-up (atop the patch previously installed over the hole) until the hinge projections were fully supported. For the latches, I simply bent brass wire (.020", I think) at a right angle, then drilled a hole in the patch over the hole for the original hinge, and inserted one end of the wire, trimming the other end to suit. If you want the hatches in the "ventilator" position, adjust the angle of the bend in the wire accordingly, and cement everything in place.

While these aren't very detailed, they're certainly a lot less conspicuous than the original set-up, and look much better under normal layout viewing conditions. Here are some pictures:












I'd actually forgotten about those cars in the first four pictures :oops: - I still have them, so if you need a roof view, let me know and I'll take one.

Wayne

[Russ Bellinis]

Thanks Dr Wayne, I was thinking of trying something like that. I'm still debating what to do. I model Santa Fe and During my era I don't think that PFE reefers showed up in Santa Fe trains very often since S.P. or U.P. went most of the places that the Santa Fe did. The Athearn reefers are a lot closer to PFE prototypes than Santa Fe. The Santa Fe rebuilt a lot of old truss rod reefers and put fish belly under frames under them. I could probably replicate that with some 40 foot flat car frames. I think the only ice bunker reefers that they had with a more conventional frame was the 50 foot cars that Athearn came out with in r-t-r a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly from the Southern California Citrus Modelers Yahoo group discussions, most of those cars were used in sea food transport service. I would like to see some roof shots of your work though.

[doctorwayne]

Here are some roof-top views, Russ:






This is also an Athearn reefer, although I've back-dated it by adding a scratchbuilt roof, trying to replicate a steel-sheathed wooden roof. The hatches and platforms are from Tichy:


Utilising the stock Athearn roof, you could probably remove all of the hatch detail, including the hatches themselves, then, after shaving-down some of the roof ribs, add the Tichy platforms. With a minimal amount of work, you should be able to reverse the hatches so that they open outward, like those on the Intermountain car shown below - you'll note that it's a steel car but still uses the hatch platforms:




For a fish-belly underframe, the one from the Athearn 40' flatcar would work (with modifications to the outboard ends of the intermediate crossbearers) or you could order the fishbelly centre-sill from Accurail - it's two pieces, one for each side, but with no crossbearers or bolsters. Notched at appropriate points where it meets the underfloor, it would work with the existing Athearn frame.

I thought that Intermountain also offered a Santa Fe wood reefer, but I just checked, and am mistaken. They do have the Caswell gondolas, though.
Tichy has a very accurate model of the wooden R-40-2 PFE cars:


Wayne

[Russ Bellinis]

Thank you Dr. Wayne, I model the Santa Fe in the mid 1950's, so the ice reefers would be steel. I think the Santa Fe had rebuilt all of the fleet to steel by the mid 1950's. I didn't know about the Accurail fish belly underframes. I have a bunch of the Intermountain Santa Fe reefers, which is one reason I was concerned with trying to do the Athearn cars. The Intermountains are so nice, that I was afraid that the Athearn cars would look really bad next to the Intermountains. If I can do as well as you did, they should look fine.