I'm going to start by telling you what I'm going to tell you. There is no such thing as ready-to-run for a modeller who wants to model a specific prototype.
This post comes from an email by one of my readers, name redacted to protect the innocent, who wrote asking how I was getting on with building the Sunshine kits that I had bought off him recently?
Ready-to-run, or ready-to-roll, or out-of-the-box, all describe the concept that the model is fully complete and ready to be run in a train on your layout. For definitions of fully complete that include less than full detail, and for ready to run in a train that might require some fettling, this is largely true.
But, as soon as you start setting standards that are different to those specified by the manufacturer, then not so much. The truth then being that the model has all the basics and requires further work. As such I now have a dozen models on the work bench in various stages of transitioning from RTR out of the box, to actually ready to operate on my layout.
Unfortunately, Real Life (tm) has rather gotten in the way of late, what with my contract at work coming to an end and all. So I've been doing easy stuff to take my mind off the hard stuff. Such is life. Anyway, it's summer for definitions of summer that vary from rain, to dull and over clouded, with an occasional spot of sunshine, as and when.
