The basic kit consists of a body shell plus a roof, floor, and 4/5 Dreadnaught ends. The parts are nicely molded, with visible texture on the simulated wood running board. Its brake wheel is especially fine. The underside of the body includes wood floor detail, and the combination center sill/brake system casting is well executed, save for bowed brake rods on our samples. The only softness I found in the tooling was on the car ends, where the grooves between the boards on the placard holder are not clear. The roof has good detail, but the roofs for both our samples were slightly bowed, with the ends being high. You’ll want to clamp them down until your adhesive dries (Bill Schneider of Branchline recommends Tenax liquid plasic cement).
I had no problems assembling the kit, though I found that I had to open all the holes slightly (except those in the coupler pockets) so that the locating pins would fit. After removing the parts from the sprues, I had a few spots to touch up with paint, but most of those are in relatively hidden locations. Make sure to shave or file off the sprue nubs on the edges of the running board and along the sides of the roof. The doors are a tight fit in the frames; filing the tops just a hair will help keep them from bulging.
The trucks have crisp details (you can even read “Barber S-2” on them), but the metal wheelsets are a tight fit, and the car does not roll well. In addition, some of the plastic axles on our samples were bent so that the wheels wobble when the axle turns, thus going in and out of gauge, and some wheels had flat spots. Branchline will replace any defective wheelsets if you write the company.
The supplied plastic knuckle couplers are a very loose fit in the coupler boxes and twist easily. The knuckles are low compared with the Kadee height gauge when the car is assembled. If you decide to replace the wheels and couplers, start by installing the new wheels, then see whether you need to adjust the coupler height.
Branchline includes two large steel nuts for weights, which could cause the car to roll toward uncoupling magnets. At 3 ounces, the finished car is 3/4 ounce lighter than the National Model Railroad Association’s recommendation.
The car’s dimensions are excellent – aside from being an inch or two wide, they’re all spot-on. While the car doesn’t quite match the detail of its Blueprint Series predecessor, it’s a very good-looking car. The paint and lettering on our oxide red NYC sample are excellent. The lettering on our New Haven sample is also excellent, but its overall finish isn’t quite as good, as the paint on the ends is heavy and that on the roof is somewhat light.
These well-designed kits split the difference between a traditional basic kit and today’s complex, more-detailed kits. The same goes for the details, which fall between the extremely robust moldings of the past and the somewhat fragile high-end kits of today. Despite the minor adjustments and wheel problems we found in our samples, I suspect that many model railroaders will find these “midrange” kits to their liking.
Price: $9.95
Manufacturer:
Branchline Trains
333 Park Ave.
East Hartford CT 06108
www.branchline-trains.com
Description:
Molded plastic car kit
Road names:
44 railroads, each with multiple car numbers, plus undecorated
