I recently picked up the 1983 Wester River Railroad model kit on ePay. I debated whether or not I should assemble it: the box was trashed, but the kit itself is in pristine condition.

I decided to go ahead and build the thing; it's consistent with my philosophy of "burn the fancy candles, use the guest towels and drink the good wine". That is, I don't believe in turning functional items into art, or saving things for a "special day". If something was meant to be used, it should be used unless there's some overriding reason, such as it being a historic artifact.

While rare, I don't think this model elevates to quite the level of "arc of the covenant", so I'm going to construct it. I'll post photos of the construction here as the project progresses.

First up: I needed to decide if I am going to build it as originally intended or "plus it" a bit. The main components are molded in color and it is billed as "ready to assemble", so (in theory) one could just start cutting and gluing. But the colors aren't quite right and some pieces are just plain wrong. For example, the boiler and smokebox/smokestack are all one piece, molded in red. That would look terrible if assembled as is, so I have to paint at least that section. So, if I'm painting some of it, I might as well paint all of it and try to make it as accurate as possible... or at least as accurate as my humble modeling skills allow.

I also considered making it an Ernest S. Marsh rather than a Rio Grande. However, even though both engines are based on the D&RG Montezuma, there are some very significant differences between the Marsh and the Rio Grande. For example, all of the Tokyo locomotives have forward steam domes. I didn't want to have to take the scalpel to too much of the model, so the Rio Grande it will be.

I'll post photos of the kit as it came out-of-the-box later today.

Looking forward to the build, Michael!

Contents o' the box:

I have a pretty big collection of model kits of all kinds but have never seen that one! What range $$ are they going for?? What manufacture is it?? Thanks for posting.

If only Disney sold model kits nowadays. Unfortunately, there's no demand for it...

Dave, the model kit was made by Tomy, the original (and, to my knowledge, current) sponsor of the Western River Railroad. Tomy also made several HOn3 electric models (one for each engine) and some die cast toys of it. I actually had the HOn3 model of the Rio Grande, but decided to not keep it. As for this model, it wasn't cheap. But, I figured that I was only going to have the chance to build one of these in my life, and I couldn't pass this one up.

Sam, truer words haven't been spoken. Kids just don't build models anymore. When I was a teen, model building was all the rage. Now, people expect stuff to just run right out of the box. I'm sure there are exceptions, but model building just doesn't have the market it once did. It costs a company between $50K and $100K just for the tooling of a model kit. Unless they are going to sell a bunch of units, the numbers just don't work out. I know firsthand that Disney would like to sell models; it's finding a manufacturer that wants to invest in the tooling that's the trick.

I learned from this site that the rods are fixed, as the model comes. So if you want the model to roll, or you're planning to motorize it, you'll need to make appropriate changes.

While I may make it so that the wheels, rods and valve gear can move, I have no desire to power it. It's going to sit under a cover once built.

You're speaking of injection-molded plastic kits. There are other kinds of kits. For instance, Disney could offer a wood kit of the Main St. horsecar.

thanks for the info guys!! Cool stuff!!