athearn rdc

[Paul M.]

Besides, the regear kit might be pretty advanced... a Proto 2000 RDC would be "out-of-the-box"

[Guilford Guy]

And will have more detail!

[Atlantic Central]

A few thoughts:

The Proto RDC is a nice model, but over the various production runs the finishes do not al match, some are very silver while other are sort of bronze or gold looking?

The Proto model is only slighly better detailed than the Athearn model.

The Proto model does run nice and depending on what road name and body style you want, can be had at very low prices.

Personally, I have a small fleet of Athearn ones with the regear kits and can motors - I prefer their selectively compressed shorter length. But I will admit, building them to run well with these aftermarket parts was not cheap.

Sheldon

[Guilford Guy]

The bronzish gold is meant to represent stainless steel, and is more prototypical than the whitish gray.

[Atlantic Central]

Guilford Guy,

That may have been their intent, and you may think it looks more like stainless, but I have seen the real thing, many times, and the simple silver paint looks much closer than either finish on the proto models.

Sheldon

[Woody Elmore]

Model the Penn Central. I once saw a former NH RDC pulling into Danbury, Ct. It was several shades of grey. The sides were so grimy  that I couldn't make out the little PC worm logo on the side of the car. The orange stripes on the cab ends were a liitle cleaner than the rest of the car. (I have to confess that this was in late February after a snowy, slushy winter so the RDC car was filthy.)