Accurail vs New Walthers AAR Boxcars

While I have lots of other brands on my layout, my 40-foot AAR boxcar of choice since they came out more than 20 years ago has been the Accurail plastic kit. This has been upgraded over the years, but I've always liked its basic features -- pretty much the best paint job going, readily available, and low cost. Weight as built from the box is up to the NMRA recommended value of 3.75 ounces, which works for me, and which I try to follow.

It also has features that are good for an operating layout -- separate grabs and ladders tend to get damaged in ordinary handling, so the cast-on features are great, and the cars photograph well.

They do need Kadee couplers and metal wheels. So let's figure typical cost as of summer 2015: 40-foot Accurail boxcar on sale at MB Klein: $12.79. 4 Kadee wheelsets, roughly $3.00. 1 pair Kadee 158s, roughly $2.25. Total, about $18.00.

Walthers lately came out with a 1944 AAR 40-foot boxcar with very similar features to the Accurail, good paint though still not quite up to Accurail's, cast on grabs and ladders (good features for operators), cast plastic steps slightly better than Accurail. It has metal magnetic couplers and metal wheels. Price at MB Klein $18.79, so it's roughly comparable. Its weight is a little over 3 ounces, so it needs more to come up to NMRA recommended weight.

Here's a recent-run Accurail car:

Just for fun, here's a shot of the underframe, with Accurail's fairly recent brake rod detail upgrade:

Here's a Walthers 1944 AAR car:

Here's the Walthers car underframe:

The roof of the Walthers car snaps out. I added a self-adhesive half-ounce weight to bring the car up to NMRA recommended value (except that the self-adhesive weights eventually come undone, so I stuck it on with some caulk):

In both cases I painted the trucks to match the body color; for the Accurail, I also painted the underframe.