Roundhouse N Scale Boxcars (Retro Release Review)

Some old Roundhouse 50' boxcars assembled and ready to go.

A few years back I was fortunate enough to buy the Roundhouse run of Sandersville 10,000 series boxcars, released back in 1997.  More recently, I bought a 'run' of Railbox boxcars from Costa Train Connection, who makes up runs of cars, which is just perfect when wanting to make rolling stock consists - with great service from this eBay vendor.

With my wife doing her Masters at night, I have a few hours to get stuff done on the MRR, so I thought I'd have a go - production line style - of getting these cars ready to run.

Out of the box, the cars come as a body shell, metal chassis, and wee baggy of trucks and couplers.

I weighed the entire contents of each kit as they would be on the track. Some were light given NMRA recommended practices, despite the metal chassis, so I got out my weights-for-adding-to-rolling-stock (split shot lead fishing sinkers) and added to the unassembled kits until the all components were at the right weight.

1.1 oz for 50' n scale rolling stock. I'm not a stickler but for me, cars just run better when weighted.

I sprayed the metal chassis matt black, let that dry, gave that a coat of Army Painter Anti-Shine varnish, and then assembled the trucks.

The metal frames/chassis came unpainted, so a splodge of matt black paint was needed.

Some of the trucks needed the couplers assembling which was, to say the least, very fiddly. But once everything was assembled and dry, I fitted the trucks to the chassis and then added the weights.

Weights superglued to the frame.

I've watched a few videos and read in blogs and mag articles on weighting rolling stock. All of them have said that adding weight over the trucks is best for flat framed rolling stock. An even distribution of weight, centrally,  is also crucial for smooth running and no 'lean', as is keeping the load low down - so the lead weights were unceremoniously smashed flat with a hammer.

At some point during the first assembly, I realised the brake wheel was separate and needed fixing to the shell. Happy with my recent purchase of super fine tweezers, with a dab of super glue, they were also attached.

Brake wheel assembly was easy with the right tool - my fingers are too big for N scale!

With that done, the body shells could be added and seven new boxcars were ready to run. The shells fit very snuggly so some gentle persuasion was needed with a thin flathead microscrewdriver to get them to sit right.

A bit of a milestone for the Sandersville & Tennille MRR, actual Sandersville rolling stock.

The Railbox cars were from a fallen flag Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C & O) and CSXT, but I wanted reporting marks I've seen on more recent Youtube videos around Sandersville and Tennille.

Trovestar says the CSXT and C & O cars were released in 1979 and 1986 respectviely, so not the latest of releases 😆, but still look the part.

As part of the custom decals made recently, after a bit of research on rrpictures, I created some marks for various RBOX cars. I'm still waiting for the decals to be printed so will add them at a later date.

I'm pretty sure the boxcars aren't the exact right model, but they're 50 footers, which is good enough for me.

I know these are both old releases, but after weighting, they ran smoothly and now I actually have some Sandersville rolling stock.