Model Railroading > Evolution of Coil Car models

I've been enjoying tmotor's posts about the BNSF Coil CARe cars and thought about all the work he's been putting in as I was checking out my new ExactRail coil cars I received for my birthday last month.  I decided to put those alongside the ScaleTrains coil car I picked up a few years ago and some of my Walthers coil cars from probably 20+ years ago, some of which were kits I put together.  I might have a few more coil cars than I need now, plans were to model the USS Posco mill in PIttsburg, CA, but now I'm modeling the Bethelehem mill at Giant (Richmond, CA) and it wasn't as big or as busy.  Anyhow, on to the models and it's interesting to see how much things have evolved over the years.  Today I'm just pulling stuff out of the box with amazing details.  The oldest Walthers cars were kits I put together in college or right after I graduated.  I'm on the fence about kit building, loved putting together the Athearn BlueBox ones.  But part of my problem is I still have unassembled kits that have been sitting around for 20ish years that I need to finish putting together.  So there is a tradeoff.

On to the models, I noticed a few more differences than I was expecting as I pulled everything out of the various boxes, and I'm sure others will point out even more.  I do need weather my freight car fleet, think that's project #1,253!  But I also need to make sure all the cars have Kadee couplers (yeah ExactRail for having those) and metal wheels (yeah both ExactRail and ScaleTrains).  

1 - part of my collection, my two oldest boys commented that I sure have a lot when they saw the storage box I dug out
2 - Walthers Norfolk Southern "Protect II".  2 rounded hoods.  Believe this was a kit, but the shells were decorated/prepainted.  
3 - ScaleTrains Norfolk Southern "Protect III".  Single rounded hood, a lot shiner too!  I goofed installing the yellow "guides" on the base for the hood, need to go back and fix that.  Also, notice the metal see-through walkway compared to the plastic bumpy walkway on the Walthers car

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4 - ExactRail Nortfolk Southern "Protector" car.  Single hood, but very unique shape.  The finish on the hood is more of a matte finish compared to the ScaleTrains hood, looks great.  The hood isn't removable - minor quibble.  
5 - ExactRail Conrail "CoilShield" car.  Singe hood, another unique shape but more plain than the NS one (hood not removable).  I had wanted one of these and missed the original run.  Had to wait to grab it this year and was glad they hadn't sold out.  But since I had this one, I just had to have the NS one, too!
6 - An old Walthers Norfolk Southern (nee Norfolk & Western) with 2 angled hoods.  Believe this was a kit as well.

There's an EJ&E car in the first picture, believe that came in a 3 car pre-assembled set from Walthers not quite 20 years ago and the cars had different hoods and different paint schemes.  It felt heavier than the cars I think were kits.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my new additions from ExactRail, I might have also snagged a chip gondola as well.  :)  Their cars look great, I love the variety they bring to my fleet, and I figure they'll run as good as they look.  It's amazing to see how far modeling technology has come.  My biggest problem isn't a bad one to have - finding the budget to snag all these great models the various manufactures are pumping out lately.  It's been fun to work on my trains again, now I need to really get back to finishing the track on my layout.  I'm a little slow and way behind schedule.  But the kids do enjoy it when I clean things up and we get to run trains, even if it's just back and forth while I fix some of the track issues.

Nathan
 

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Don't have a photo but don't forget the Ambroid wood kit, assembled one in B&O lettering back when wood kits were still out there being sold new.
CR

WM1977 Wrote:
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> Don't have a photo but don't forget the Ambroid
> wood kit, assembled one in B&O lettering back when
> wood kits were still out there being sold new.
> CR

Haven't seen that one CR, thanks.  Things really have changed over the years, haven't they?

Nathan

Great collection of coil steel cars, Nathan.

Rich

There was a newer yet coil car model that was announced by a company on TrainOrders here
some while ago. Would be a neat model, but have not heard any updates in a long  time.

One step I took with the older Walthers coil-car kits, even though I haven't otherwise weathered them, was to paint the metal handrails along the hoods a suitable color, because the bare metal doesn't look right.