Just wondering if anybody else is disappointed with so many manufacturers offering plastic grabirons on freight cars. For years, many of us complained about the cast-on grabs on cars from Athearn and MDC and what a chore it was to shave them off and replace them with wire. Eventually, the die work improved, as seen on cars like Accurail's USRA doublesheathed boxcars. Even so, many of us continue to carve them off. Now the car manufacturers are trying to impress us with free-standing plastic grabs, as seen on Proto 1000/2000, Intermountain, and Red Caboose. While impressive examples of the die-maker's art, they still fall short with regards to durability and fidelity to prototype. And they're a lot more trouble to replace with wire than the old cast-on type. Because they are oversize, the holes in which they are mounted are also oversize, which means that you first have to refill the hole with styrene rod and then drill it out to accept the wire. Simply shaving off the plastic grab and leaving the mounting pin doesn't work very well if the grab is made from engineering plastic, like Delrin. The stuff doesn't glue and trying to drill a hole in it usually results in it falling out. I recently purchased 6 Proto 1000 Fowler boxcars, bodies only, for $1.29 each. A good deal for a good looking car that fits my era (late '30's) and up until now has not been available other than as a craftsman kit. The complete cars, RTR, were out of my price range at between $30.00 to $40.00 each, especially considering the multitude of plastic grabirons to be replaced. For a buck-twenty-nine, the problem looked more manageable. 36 grabs per car, plus the roofwalk corner grabs, plus 6 dropsteps per car (Canadian prototype) plus replace the brakestaff on each car. (I wouldn't have bothered with the latter, but they all broke with all the handling.) I also discovered that the roofwalks are too short, but that's a different subject. Making new frames and floors is fairly easy as is the brake gear, and re-lettering is my choice. As was the decision to purchase the cars in the first place: so what's my complaint? Well, cast-on grabs would've been easier to replace, and they probably could have been rendered closer to scale. Not only would the cars have looked better but they would have been cheaper to produce and the model could have been offered as a kit, which would have pleased a lot of us reasonably capable but financially challenged modellers. And while some of us would have preferred no grabirons, just dimpled drilling guides, that would have shortchanged the majority of purchasers who want detailed cars, ready to roll. Does anybody else out there share this viewpoint, or am I just being a grumpy old guy again?
