Roundhouse car kits ?

Does anyone know if roundhouse car kits come with trucks? If they do what kind of couplers? How is their quality? I have seen several on Ebay lately and am trying to decide what they are worth. If they don't come with trucks or don't have the right kind of couplers I need to get them separately and the cost to get the cars on my layout car goes up.
 
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lester perry

I have many of their cars. they are a good quality car. The detail is not of today's standard.They are much like Athearn blue box cars. They do come with trucks, the couplers.... the last one I bought had hook horn. But that has been a few years ago. I just went to Horizon Hobbies,http://searchtrains.horizonhobby.com/index.jsp?N=0&Ntt=round+house&S=HH Trains&sid=11F8C5B54C12. The cars I looked at here are not the old Round House I have. they are much better and have knuckle couplers. I just realized this is N-scale area. Sorry I am HO
 
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lester perry

hamrI know, Shoot me train97 please. I would think it would be the same answer for N-gauge.
 

Boilerman

Member
Their cars are of excellent quality, detail that is up to par and do come with trucks and their own knuckle couplers however I use body mount MT's
 
The pre-Horizon Roundhouse kits are OK. Athearn upgraded some of these when they re-released them, some more than others (some, just the price was "upgraded"). Newer trucks and generic magnetic knuckle couplers are now standard with these items.

The Roundhouse trucks are decent but you need to check wheel alignment and gauge. Depending on how old they are, they will either come with Rapido couplers or their "Mighty Darn Compatible" knuckle couplers. The "MDC" couplers have not had very good reviews.

There used to be some major blowouts of Roundhouse kits on eBay, but not so much any more. I can't really use any of these but if I were I would consider about $5 each for them "to my door" that is including shipping.
 

GWoodle

New Member
I bought a few Horribly Oversize Roundhouse kits. They used to make some decent HO cars. Later, they released some Normal size kits. Most of the kits are easy to build: glue the weight to the frame, glue the brake wheel, press on the couplers, get the frame in the car. Some were sold in 2-4 car "sets". Detail may be similar to some A1G cars.

Depending on the release date, they came either with Rapido or MDC couplers. You can easily replace them with the MTL trucks/couplers. You have a choice of what style roller bearing truck to use. Most of the time, the short shank will be fine. Medium shanks make the cars look like the cushion underframe style. MDC couplers are junk.
 
Their cars are of excellent quality, detail that is up to par and do come with trucks and their own knuckle couplers however I use body mount MT's

I have been body mounting my own MT's on any cars where I need to upgrade the couplers as well. I didn't like the results I got with trying use the MT conversion kit that mounted on the trucks.

There were a number of CSX kits that were right about at the range of what I would consider paying for kits (I like my bargains though!). I think I might pass on the kits in favor of doing a DCC upgrade though.
 
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