They are a very basic kit but a great way to get familiar with the steps involved and skills required to assemble wood craftsman kits of rolling stock. Just follow the steps as George outlined them. If you have trouble with the kit then do not consider a LaBelle, Ambroid. Northeastern or Quality Craft/Gloor Craft kit as they are more demanding and difficult to build. Unfortunately I believe that there are more Central Valley cars still in boxes than on most railroads. Here are several that I built about 43 years ago when I first got into the hobby.





Dennyid="size4">

Janitor in Training

CW Loco and Car Rebuild Shops

WEB site: http://www.cwrailman.com/

Facebook: CWRailman

id="Comic Sans MS"> id="size3">

I have assembled two, many years ago and have several un-built kits. They are a joy for me to build. It'd say it's about a medium challenge for the average modeler.



Bernd

Great thanks Bernd and Denny I will go ahead and assemble.

Denny I looked around your web site and got some great info especially re-motoring engines. Thanks for the effort to set it up.

Carter

Carter,

While in high school in the 60's I built these two:



They are fun to build and not very hard. A little time and patience is mainly what is needed, plus care. I didn't do any enhancements, which I would have done if I were building them today. For example, I would paint all the hardware black or to match the body color.

Mike

I haven't built one of these, but apropos of Mikes comment about enhancements, the factory roofwalk could be sanded down - see if there's a prototype photo in the Early Rail forum here, but if I had to guess, not more than scale 2" thick.

I did the CNJ reefer, too, it was a lot of fun. I added Grandt castings to the door. The problem I had with this was matching the old Floquil Reefer Yellow, even my formally trained artist wife couldn't precisely match that paint.



I need to add the (bottom mounted Tichy) stirrup steps to complete this.

dave

Thank all for the replys. I like the pre 1900 look and they look good. I model the 1935-39 era so they will fit in. It is My layout. Found a few on Ebay but pricy.

Carter

Carter,

eBay is indeed an expensive place to buy these kits. They show up occasionally at train shows and white elephant tables at conventions.

Mike

It’s great to see that others have built some of the Central Valley cars and have them in operation. We have six built and in operation and many more in boxes to be built. You can see the built ones on our WEB site on the roundhouse page.

Thanks for the compliments Carter. Our WEB site was started for just that reason. To demonstrate how to do some of those low cost remotoring projects in a way that might inspire others to do one themselves. The same goes for our cost conscious structure builds and while we are currently working on several small structure build projects we are also developing some articles on cameras and photographing models.

Dennyid="size4">

Janitor in Training

CW Loco and Car Rebuild Shops

WEB site: http://www.cwrailman.com/

Facebook: CWRailman

id="Comic Sans MS"> id="size3">

Thank you for the reply and pictures. I have been able to pick up a couple more and stated to assemble. Matching colors is difficult for sure, so I mix colors that are close (tuscan red) and paint the roofs and details over the original colors. Post additional pictures they are very helpful with placing the details and wood trim. Thank you.

Wrong Central Valley for this forum but just can't help adding to the confusion...

For whatever reason the styrene injection version of Central Valley only ever chose to make and offer 2 freight car models: the stockcar and a flatcar.

I have purchased and laid some of their tie strips, and I often wondered what the stockcar kit was like, I knew Jack Parker was good at mold construction, so I knew it should be a well engineered kit; and it was. However, 2 issues have crept in over the years...

I now understand that his model of the Stockcar was 1 scale foot too wide, okay for me since I don't run any other Northern Pacific rolling stock so there is no comparision, but apparently that was a detail that required correction. Someone at some point offered a resin kit with new end castings to correct this.

Another dissapointing reality is that kit was $7.95 for years on the Central Valley website, now and as of a couple years ago they just bumped the price up to $14.25, which I consider to be a lot for kit that does not have trucks, couplers or decals. The decals must be purchased separately from Microscale, which will set you back another $8.25 + $6 shipping.

At $8 I thought it was reasonable offer, but at it's current position I wouldn't buy another one. It's only a couple sprues worth of injection molding, so I am surprised they chose to double the price like they did.

Some still list for $8 online, so perhaps they are using a strategy of encouraging people to use hobby shops and dealers.


As for the old wood Central Valley kits... I have a box with 4 of them inside awaiting me to sit down with a wave of nostalgia and assemble them like it is still 1958 when they first came out.

I still really like the appeal of them and when I assemble them I plan to just do my best to assemble them carefully, but not update them with lots of modern detailing parts.

I will probably do what I can to make the kit more accurate within 1950s modeling, so I will probably sand down the roofwalk to make it thinner, likewise I may add some wire for brake rigging; but hopefully no major changes beyond simple adjustments.






Blair

I cut my modeling teeth on Central Valley kits. They are a lot of fun and build up into good looking models. I would undate them here and there today. And I still have a kit for a caboose that I hope to build some day.