Model Railroading > 1982 MDC-Roundhouse TankTrain

With the new Athearn Genesis HO-scale TankTrain release, I thought some might be interested in seeing the old MDC/Roundhouse offering. I dug up my sample of Model Die Casting/Roundhouse's 1982 released TankTrain HO-scale model. Pretty basic and no picnic to build. Looking at the walkways across the top, they are all fine cast styrene and the posts had to be cemented to the walkway underframe and somehow kept straight, then a wire handrail had to be attached along the walkway. Thin plastic handrails, with no locating slots on the walkways also had to be secured in place. This is just one element of this semi-challenging kit. This sample I obtained already constructed, but it appears to be all there, right down to the included rubber hose! Looking it over, one can see how you could quickly make a mess of this kit.

I am researching and building a Model Die Casting/Roundhouse HO-scale Trains Resource website, but it is still some time away from being online.

Thanks,

Tony Cook
HO-Scale Trains Resource
http://ho-scaletrains.net/

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Tank car and kits just don't go together! Never was a fan of any tank kits especially Walthers. It seems that Walthers items never fit together without sanding and putty.

Shannon Crabtree
Fredericksburg, VA
Virginia Midland Railroad Blog

I forgot about those "Horn Hook" couplers until I saw them! Makes me glad that nearly all of the major manufacturers have the Kadee-type/Kadee-like knuckle couplers on freight & passenger rolling stock today.

Not bad for its day.

The MDC tankcars were never a good model. That bottom part of the tank never mated up correctly with the main tank shell. I had better luck with the Walthers cars, but they still tended to be fragile.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Perhaps OK in it's day, but what's up with the ridiculous plastic hose? Could connected cars negotiate typical 18", 24" curves of that era?

Cool model for it's day. I agree with the comments about Walthers Tank cars. I hated those kits with a passion. For a while, Walthers ran a "grab bag" assortment where you could get their pick of 6-8 freight car kits for a pretty low price. Of course they always seemed to contain 50% tank car kits.

This kit does look pretty involved, especially for a Roundhouse car. I always remember them as being slightly more challenging than an Athearn blue box. The hose connection is a unique idea, though far from prototypical. It's amazing to see how far the hobby and manufacturing have advanced. Of course this kit probably cost 1/3 of what they do now.

Sean

Oh Yeah, those things were rough!
I recall I saw a vendor at a train show back in the 90’s selling those for 8 bucks each.
I picked up one and he said “hey kid, I’ll make you a deal on the other 3, how does $20 for all three sound?”
I said SURE! And took all 4 of them for $5 each!
I put them together very carefully, put metal wheels in the trucks, added some extra weight and ran the 4 of them for several years.
They went onto the storage shelf for several more years before I unloaded them on that evil auction site about 10 years ago.

As it turned out, I made a very good return on my investment!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/13 11:22 by SantaFeSammy.

Tony, I do enjoy your "then and now" comparisons, both here and in Model Railroad News. You do us all a service, and for that, I thank you. Fun stuff!

-Tom