N
NP2626
Guest
Have you built any Branchline Blueprint Passenger cars and if so, what did you think?
I have built many Branchline Blueprint or Yardmaster kits and they are one of my favorite kits to build. I love all the detail parts and they're fit to the car. Other than some parts being very small and fragile, I have enjoyed building these kits immensely! I also liked the fact that more of the tiny-fragile part than was needed, where provided with each kit! Atlas the owners of Branchline kits does not seem to be producing these kits any longer. Atlas may have purchased the Branchline line of model kits to get rid of a competitor, I don't know. But, at Atlas's website no Branchline kits seem to be available, anymore.
Other than seeing the Branchline Blueprint passenger cars in advertisements, I had never bought one and so, needless to say had never assembled one. I assumed that they would be very high quality with many detail parts. Recently I purchased a New York Central Pullman Sleeper off of Ebay for $8.96 Buy it Now price. This was an extremely good deal as most of the other Branchline Passenger Car kits where selling for from $20.00 to $50.00!
Since I model the Northern Pacific, the first order of business was to repaint this car. This car would likely have been done by the N.P. in their Butter Knife/Pine Tree paint scheme; or, if later than 1954, the two tone green Lowey Paint Scheme would have been used. I elected to go simpler than this with the car simply being painted in Olive Drab/Pullman Green. Re-painting and adding the decals was completed and I started assembly. I was right the kit is very well done and has many optional parts to build specific Pullman Cars. I did find some parts that did not really fit in their locations and was quite confused by where equipment was supposed to be located on the underside of the car, until I flipped one page of the instruction over and found the right diagram explaining part locations! Work progressed to a point where I could mount the trucks and I fount that due to the slant of the double I-beam main members of the underside, interfered with truck swing and pushed the inside of the trucks up so they where canted and rubbing on the main beams. I wondered if I hadn't seated these beams into their slots correctly; but, this was not the case! Also, this is a 60 foot car, not a 72', 73' or 85' foot car as was normal for N.P. Passenger cars! My smallest radius is 22 inches. I wanted to stay with 60 foot cars as my layout is a mountainous one and 60 footers look better on my winding track work! So surgery will be necessary to the undersides of this car. It makes me think that the designers at Branchline designed this car to run on large radius curves; or, maybe to simply be display models!
I have built many Branchline Blueprint or Yardmaster kits and they are one of my favorite kits to build. I love all the detail parts and they're fit to the car. Other than some parts being very small and fragile, I have enjoyed building these kits immensely! I also liked the fact that more of the tiny-fragile part than was needed, where provided with each kit! Atlas the owners of Branchline kits does not seem to be producing these kits any longer. Atlas may have purchased the Branchline line of model kits to get rid of a competitor, I don't know. But, at Atlas's website no Branchline kits seem to be available, anymore.
Other than seeing the Branchline Blueprint passenger cars in advertisements, I had never bought one and so, needless to say had never assembled one. I assumed that they would be very high quality with many detail parts. Recently I purchased a New York Central Pullman Sleeper off of Ebay for $8.96 Buy it Now price. This was an extremely good deal as most of the other Branchline Passenger Car kits where selling for from $20.00 to $50.00!
Since I model the Northern Pacific, the first order of business was to repaint this car. This car would likely have been done by the N.P. in their Butter Knife/Pine Tree paint scheme; or, if later than 1954, the two tone green Lowey Paint Scheme would have been used. I elected to go simpler than this with the car simply being painted in Olive Drab/Pullman Green. Re-painting and adding the decals was completed and I started assembly. I was right the kit is very well done and has many optional parts to build specific Pullman Cars. I did find some parts that did not really fit in their locations and was quite confused by where equipment was supposed to be located on the underside of the car, until I flipped one page of the instruction over and found the right diagram explaining part locations! Work progressed to a point where I could mount the trucks and I fount that due to the slant of the double I-beam main members of the underside, interfered with truck swing and pushed the inside of the trucks up so they where canted and rubbing on the main beams. I wondered if I hadn't seated these beams into their slots correctly; but, this was not the case! Also, this is a 60 foot car, not a 72', 73' or 85' foot car as was normal for N.P. Passenger cars! My smallest radius is 22 inches. I wanted to stay with 60 foot cars as my layout is a mountainous one and 60 footers look better on my winding track work! So surgery will be necessary to the undersides of this car. It makes me think that the designers at Branchline designed this car to run on large radius curves; or, maybe to simply be display models!
