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Dependable Performance from
Inexpensive Car Kits
by Dan Osborn
drawing courtesy of Athearn,
Inc.
"Shake the box" kits have long offered good
quality at reasonable prices. Although a number of
manufacturers, including Life-Like Proto 2000, Atlas,
Intermountain, Kato and Red Caboose,
now offer "upscale" (more expensive) plastic
models, Athearn still provides the best value,
especially for the beginning modeler. Even with their
recent price increases, MDC/Roundhouse, and
especially Athearn, are still the mainstays of
the model railroad market and the backbone of most of
our fleets, and are so popular that hobby shops often
have packaged Athearn kits into starter sets.
While fit and finish are important to us, a car that
leaves its coupler on the right-of-way, or picks a
switch during an open house or operating session, is
more than just an embarrassment – it’s a major
nuisance. Usually such a car either ends up in a
"dead" pile or back in your fleet, its
problems forgotten until the next time the car ends up
in a consist and produces another headache. These
"shake the box" kits can use some minor
tweaking to improve their dependability and performance.
The problems and headaches only multiply if your goal is
to assemble as many car kits in as short a time span as
possible. Remember, this is a hobby! Model railroading
is fun! This is not a race or a production line! There
is an old saying that "there is always time to do
it right the second time." In other words, take
your time, do it right, and enjoy your hobby. Let’s
get started.
If you don’t own an NMRA Standards gauge, now is
the time to get one. You will also need a #11 X-acto
knife, a needle-nose pliers, a small rule with one end
marked in 64ths, a needle file set, a large flat file,
at least one Kadee coupler height gauge (I use two), a
coupler trip-pin pliers (unless you feel comfortable
bending them with your needle-nose), #0 phillps and
1/8" straight blade screwdrivers, a good
side-cutting pliers, some sort of tweezers, a variety of
drill bits (and holder), a 10-32 tap, a postage or
dietary scale, and your favorite weighting material
(lead weights, sheet lead, etc.). You also need a
variety of glues. I prefer Plastruct liquid cement,
Pro-Weld, 3M silicone glue, Super Glue brand Thick Gel
CA, and Zap-A-Gap CA+ by Pacer. You will also need a
"shake the box" car kit. We will discuss Athearn
as they represent the majority of my large stock of
cars, and I have probably built well over 300 of their
kits in the last five or six years.
Every car that I have ever encountered (including the
fancier ones by the new guys) has needed molding flash
cleaned off somewhere. Take your #11 knife and gently
clean off any flash that you can find. Carefully check
the underframe, the back side of sideframes, any place
you can see a parting line. This is extremely important
along the sides of the coupler boxes! Be careful not to
remove the ears that the coupler covers clip over. Now,
check the bottom edges of the car ends where the
couplers protrude and clean any flash or excess paint.
Cars that use a lower underframe need special attention,
as they have little pins on the upper sides. The pins
are what is left of the casting gates from the
manufacturing process and can interfere with proper fit
of the frame into the car body. Boxcar floors need to be
shaved along their long edges. Boxcar doors usually have
flash on the back side and inside the lower guide ears,
as well as along lower edges. Check your other small
parts as well, as they usually have some flash. And all
cars generally have a little nib in the coupler box
which is needed for proper operation of horn-hook
couplers, but is unwanted when installing Kadees.
Carve this nib out carefully. Handrails on tank cars
should be adjusted for squareness, and all holes should
be drilled through where ends of the handrails enter the
carbody. This tips goes for Athearn engine
handrails as well.
Have you noticed that there has been no mention of
assembly? We’re not ready for that yet! Get the
wheelsets out and examine them. Remove any little nibs
from their back side, then roll the wheelset on
something flat, like a glass tabletop. If they roll
smoothly, install them in the sideframes and roll them
on the flat surface again. If there is any indication of
hop, check for flash on the wheel flange, and then test
roll on a piece of track. If all checks out, move on to
the other set. Athearn wheelsets are usually
close to gauge, but most are also unacceptable for
intense operation. The NMRA standards gauge is used to
accurately check wheel gauge. I usually set my wheelsets
to the widest possible setting, while still remaining
within gauge. You must also check to see that the wheels
are centered on their axles. This is where the small
ruler comes in. If the wheels aren’t centered, they
will climb rails, points, joints ... anything they can.
Next, let’s move on to the underframe bolsters. This
is where I reduce wobble. Remember those horn-hook
couplers you threw away? Get one out of the trash, check
it for flash around the pivot hole, and placing the
round pivot end over the bolster pivot, bottom it on the
bolster pin. Take your #11 knife and carve off any of
the bolster pin that is sticking out past the horn-hook.
Do this to both ends.
Now we will mount the couplers in the box. Examine
the Athearn retaining cover, making certain that
it has been bent squarely and that the legs are equal.
Put in the bronze centering spring and the coupler
according to Kadee’s instructions and then
place the Athearn cover over the retaining ears.
Using the needlenose pliers, squeeze the cover tight to
the frame on both sides of the coupler box. Do this for
both ends. If you are dealing with one of Athearn's
quad or twin hoppers, you will probably need to clip a
small amount off of the cover leading edge, as it
interferes with the underframe and will not clip on
correctly. I have also found that hopper car bolsters
are not square and level, requiring some carving around
the pivot to level the truck. If this is not done, when
the truck is attached, it will tilt the truck, lifting
the lead axle, causing the wheelset to ride up and
derail on just about everything.
 Place the trucks on a piece of
track and place the frame over the trucks. Do not screw
together yet! Put a Kadee height checker on the
rails and push the frame toward it (this is where two
height checkers come in handy - one on each side of the
car). If the trip-pin hits the height checker, bend the
trip-pin up until it clears, after checking to see that
the coupler is at the correct height. If the coupler is
low, Kadee has two thicknesses of fiber washers
for placement between the truck and the frame
(0.10" and 0.16" thickness). If the coupler is
too high (doubtful, but possible), you will have to cut
a shim for inside the coupler box, above the coupler.
After coupler and trip-pin heights have been adjusted
for both ends, weigh the entire car - couplers, trucks,
body and all. Notice that I have not said to assemble
anything yet! According to NMRA guidelines, cars should
weigh one-half ounce per inch of car length, plus one
ounce. On enclosed cars, I use automobile wheel weights
to bring the weight up. On open cars I use sheet lead or
"Heavyweights" from T&J Rail Services
(strip lead in different thicknesses). Glue in the
additional weight.
Now assemble the car. Glue parts, when possible, from
the inside to reduce the chance of marring the finish of
the car. Trim the shaft on the brake wheel in half so
that the wheel fits close to the carbody. Tighten the
truck screws until any wobble disappears, but allow them
to pivot freely. Now set the new car in your yard, as it
is finished.
Passenger cars need attention too. The Athearn
streamline cars have a heavy coat of paint in their
window openings that must be removed if you want the
windows to fit. As with the other cars, remove all
flash. Check and adjust all wheelsets. Use a razor saw
to cut the windows into more manageable pieces. Use
liquid cement from inside to carefully glue in the
windows, taking advantage of capillary action to draw
the glue into the joints. Glue sparingly! This goes for
the heavyweight cars as well. Correct the weight of the
cars, then move to the trucks. Using your side cutter,
remove the talgo coupler tongue from each truck. For Athearn
passenger cars, I use the complete #5 Kadee box
and coupler. Making certain that the coupler clears the
carbody, mark the location of the coupler box. Then
drill and tap for 10-32 screws. I use nylon screws from Detail
Associates. Dry assemble (no glue) the carbody to
the frame and attach the coupler and trucks, then check
the coupler and trip-pin height and adjust accordingly.
If the coupler is too high, shim with styrene. If low,
shim the truck or carve material from the floor of the
car at the coupler mounting location. I know of no one
that makes shims for the Athearn style passenger
trucks, so you're on your own.
MDC and Walthers cars are very similar and
need many of the same adjustments. The most common trick
is the bolster pivot pin trimming. Flash is very common,
and cleaning this off adds to the look as well as the
fit of the car. On MDC metal frame cars, the
large file is a must, as well as the #11 knife and the
needle files. I clean the underframes and file the
clearances until the frame slides easily into the
carbody, as painting the frame will close these gaps
quickly.
I especially like the Walthers sprung trucks. Walthers
provides them in a variety of styles and bearing
configurations, but they require a little
"tuning" work. Most difficult is the area
where the bolster slides in the sideframe, in the spring
area. Work this area with the #11 knife until the
bolster slides smoothly, but do not damage the spring
retaining pins. The springs are a little stiff, but you
can play with them by clipping a turn at a time off of
them with a small sidecutter. Kadee coupler
springs also fit well.
I usually sit in front of the television with my
wife, after my daughter goes to sleep, to assemble cars.
It generally takes me about an hour to do an Athearn
or plastic frame MDC, and about two to three
hours for a metal MDC frame car, so I can usually
get two a night into shape. The payoff comes when my
trains run almost flawlessly on the Columbia Club's
modular layout for hours at a time.
Happy kit building!
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