Beings I picked up a bunch of the Ertl cars cheap and have built just Westerfield USRA DS cars. I have never paid any attention to the Accurail car.
The toughest part of building any kit for a car from this time period is the ladder stiles on the ends of the car. Some resin kits offer resin stiles that break when drilled. Modern resin kits include etched brass you're supposed to be able to bend. BS! I've done it, sort of... I would think that if the Accurail car has the grabs modeled on it would be easy to scrape off the grabs leaving the rivet detail and replace them with wire ones using the molded stiles.
I just made two DS cars with Details West 4/4 ends. I used a 1x4" for the inside stile and a 2x4 for the outside (closest to the side of the car). They were the narrowest styrene I had I could drill without breaking.
Of course, I build models to runon my layout. Not for contest.
