In this era of top-quality ready to run flooding the market, it’s easy to overlook the pure pleasure that comes from building a model from basic materials. This stock car – a Maine two-foot gauge prototype built in O scale – is a good example:
As with most older craftsman kits, this was a good starting point: The manufacturer did some of the research and gathered together plans and quantities of basic materials and detail parts to save the modeller a bit of work, then provided an idea of how to proceed.
Doing a good job on some of these older kits requires the modeller to undertake some research of their own, as well as measure and cut parts, shape materials and – as the age of the original kit increases – substitute better choices for some of the provided components.
This stock car started with a kit from Sandy River Car Shops – an important supplier of rolling stock when I modelled my freelanced Maine two-footer in On2. Here’s what greeted me when I opened the box:
I thoroughly enjoyed building this model. There’s real satisfaction to be had in assembling something from basic materials, such as sticks.
If you want to know more, I wrote an article about building this car, which appeared in the April, 2009 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine…
The Model Railway Show 