MTL 60' Boxcars

[bbussey]

The tooling on the 40' hi-cube boxcar is very nice.  The best feature is that the body height is not compressed to compensate for the excessive ride-height, so it allows modelers to lower the car as they see fit without having to compromise.

[MichaelWinicki]

I'm still a ways from being at the "I need to detail all my freight cars and get them to ride at the right height" stage, but darn... There is certainly a lot of finagling with some of them.  Dealing with both the body mounted coupler and the ride height at the same time might drive me to drink.  I might have to deal with the ride height first and then go back through and deal with the body mounting stuff.

Ugh, for me dealing with trees and buildings seems easier. 

[bbussey]

It's actually easier to do both at the same time.  The bottom edge of car ends on most N scale models are too high, to allow for coupler swing.  Most people don't notice that because we don't see the ends of a car as readily as we do the sides of a car.  If you lower a car with truck-mounted couplers and don't body-mount simultaneously, you may be forced to compromise the ends more than they already are.

[wazzou]

Except for the fact that they tooled the car with a peaked roof when in fact the roof was flat on the prototype, though outside of that, well tooled.

The tooling on the 40' hi-cube boxcar is very nice.  The best feature is that the body height is not compressed to compensate for the excessive ride-height, so it allows modelers to lower the car as they see fit without having to compromise.

[Mark5]

Ok guys, this has pushed me over the edge - time to unload all my MTL 60' Hi Cubes!

The offending (vertically compressed) cars are in the 102, 103, and 104 series, right?

Thanks!

Mark

Bluforfd HiCube (86') on left, MTL on the right - you can see if you properly lower the car it will be too low. 

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And then there's the coupler draft gear issue ...

[bbussey]

Except for the fact that they tooled the car with a peaked roof when in fact the roof was flat on the prototype, though outside of that, well tooled.

This argument was pushed when the model was first released.  It's not that the tooling is incorrect.  It's that most of the schemes issued on the car are from the flat-roof prototype. One can always salvage a roof from one of the 60' cars to make the appliance car closer to the prototype for the schemes used.

[ljudice]

Bryan - thanks for the list...

I am not so sure though about the Red Caboose Center Partition Flatcar though....

- Lou

[GaryHinshaw]

Bryan - thanks for the list...

I am not so sure though about the Red Caboose Center Partition Flatcar though....

- Lou

Right, these need to be lowered.  IIRC, the BLMA trucks pretty much take care of that, though I think some material needs to be milled to clear the wheels.  (I haven't looked at mine closely for a while).  These cars should top out at about the same height as a covered hopper, and lowering them makes them much closer (lowered is left, stock is right):



-gfh

P.S. The truck wheelbase on the open and single-panel models is wrong too... but they are still worthwhile.

[bbussey]

Bryan - thanks for the list...
I am not so sure though about the Red Caboose Center Partition Flatcar though....

I forgot about the centerbeam flats.  Yeah, they're too high.  They're might be some other cars I mistakenly included, and some that are correct that I inadvertently left out.

[unittrain]

Ok guys, this has pushed me over the edge - time to unload all my MTL 60' Hi Cubes!

The offending (vertically compressed) cars are in the 102, 103, and 104 series, right?

Thanks!

Mark

Not just those I believe the 50' ribbed side boxcars are also compressed    I'm not sure about the smooth side boxcars though.

[bbussey]

Yes, the four MTL FMC boxcars are height-compressed.  But FVM has correctly proportioned versions of the single-door and double-door prototypes. 

The MTL PS-1 cars have the proper height.  The 40' cars have some issues regarding the roof stampings, but the 50' carbodies are fully accurate as far as I know.

[Robbman]

This argument was pushed when the model was first released.  It's not that the tooling is incorrect.  It's that most of the schemes issued on the car are from the flat-roof prototype.

Anybody have a picture of a P-S car with a peaked roof?

[wazzou]

Anybody have a picture of a P-S car with a peaked roof?

I haven't seen a 40' PS High Cube car with one...

[ljudice]

Those prototype 40' high cubes look too high off the rails. 

[sirenwerks]

So are the roof stampings on the 60' cars right to give the 40' PS cars the proper flat roof? I have both and am thinking, rather than unload the 60-footers (which I got real cheap), just turn them into sacrificial lambs for the 40-footers.

I think this has been asked already, but is there a photo resource that shows what roads got flat roofs and which peak roofs on the 40-footers?