1960's-70's piggyback trailers & decals

[amato1969]

You are talking about the company known as "Wheel Works" I believe.  They offered some decorated trailers too back in the day.

  Frank

[wazzou]

That's it.  I was trying to think of them in relation to the little service station they had before Micro Engineering bought that line.

[Spikre]

 
  Durango Press did multi piece 45' trailers in HO,they came in small,
  flat,white boxes. should still be several boxes here.
   they did N Trailer kits also,but not sure if they were 40' or 45'  ?
  they had cast soft metal wheels and some under body parts.
  EL--UPS:
   EL made plenty of money off the UPS trains as PC couldn't match
  ELs on Time deliveries.having the UPS terminal across County Road
  from the EL Croxten Trailer terminal also was a plus.
   but if EL was LATE,UPS penalized them,not sure how much,but it
  did cut into EL's profit margin.
   it also kept the trains moving.
    XTRA on the Waffle Vans ??,OK,thought it was REAZ,but that must
  have been a different Mont Switzer article.
       Spikre
         

[sirenwerks]

REAZ from Switzer?  You sure it wasn't an article by Vic Roseman?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

You are talking about the company known as "Wheel Works" I believe.  They offered some decorated trailers too back in the day.

  Frank

Yep!

I have a set of Conrail Trailvans in-progress from them too.

I think they were related to Microengineering in some way.

[randgust]

Yep, that's it.   Wheel works.   Found a box of them on Ebay (closed auction)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-Scale-The-Wheel-Works-40-Trailer-Kit-/151612284428?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item234ccbde0c

I rather like them because with those metal wheels, they add a little weight to TOFC cars, and it's nice and low.  Compared to the old Con-Cor/Roco, they're a much nicer trailer, but they don't hold much of a candle to the current TrainWorx and Athearn offerings.   But, then again, you don't have to take out an equipment lease to buy them, either.

[wazzou]

That must be why I subconsciously thought of Lee Town because of the "Lee Way".

Lee Town did manufacture HO Scale Metal trucks and trailers though.   

[Spikre]

 
   Sirenwerks,
     REAZ leased trailers and containers from the 50s on.
  some pics show Passenger trains with flats with 4 Green
  20' Containers in Mail,Parcel or Mail Storage service.
  while freight trains will show REAZ trailers leased to RRs,
  or companies .
  Mont Switzer mainly did Freight service trailers.
  Vic Roseman mainly did passenger service REA items and
  services,Express Reefers,in a passenger oriented vain.
   both are Great Authors !!
     Spikre
       

[jagged ben]

I have some Wheel Works kits I intend to assemble.    The ones I have (printed with Sante Fe and IMEX schemes) have an uneven rib-pattern which looks plausibly like some prototype photos I have although not the same.

Randy, your Clipper trailer (nice job BTW) has an even rib pattern.  I think it would be more suitable for a number of schemes.
Anyone know how to tell exactly what your getting from Wheel Works kit on eBay?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

That must be why I subconsciously thought of Lee Town because of the "Lee Way".

Lee Town did manufacture HO Scale Metal trucks and trailers though.   

Pretty sure they also made n scale drop frame parcel trailer too. I have a sample somewhere.

[Spikre]

 
    the Lee Town UPS Trailers were Originally the TK Models Lead Kits,
   in HO and N scale.
   lost track of Lee Town after JAKS acquired them about 20 years ago.
      Spikre
         

[nkalanaga]

Wheel Works sounds familiar.  And, yes, S&R is the one that reissued these with the Atlas wheels.  I'd forgotten the names of both of them.  Is S&R still in business?

[randgust]

I have some Wheel Works kits I intend to assemble.    The ones I have (printed with Sante Fe and IMEX schemes) have an uneven rib-pattern which looks plausibly like some prototype photos I have although not the same.

Randy, your Clipper trailer (nice job BTW) has an even rib pattern.  I think it would be more suitable for a number of schemes.
Anyone know how to tell exactly what your getting from Wheel Works kit on eBay?

Check the length on the trailers - I'm wondering if you might have 45's instead of 40's.   I know all the 40's I ever got were even-rib sided.  As far as I know, the 40's were only available in Norfolk & Western, BRAE Corp (white) and undecorated.   I looked in my old Walthers catalogs and couldn't find them, so I'm still completely guessing though.  I think I remember that the Santa Fe trailers had the blue script sided "Santa Fe" on them and they were 45's, too new and big for my use.   I did a batch of the undecorated's in the red "Santa Fe" with Micro Scale decals and they still look good enough that you have to stare at them to figure out which ones are the Wheel Works and which ones are TrainWorx.

I also remember that all-metal UPS drop-bottom trailer kit.  Holy smokes was that thing heavy.  I got one and it was too heavy to put on a car, even after I cut holes in the frame and milled out the center with a Dremel (the things we did that modern N scalers can't imagine!!).  There was also somebody that made a solid-resin knockoff of the assembled kit, a little lighter.    I still have one of each.

There's two Wheel Works kits out on Ebay right now.  Amazingly inexpensive compared to current RTR stuff and they are well proportioned. 

At one time I also had a relatively big fleet of the Rapido/Con Cor metal 85' piggyback cars with the big clunky cast rib down the center.   I'd stripped them and repainted them TTX, and redone a lot of the Con-Cor/Roco trailers - taking off the round mud flaps, painting detail, etc and repainting those, mostly in the ATSF winged herald scheme - still have a bunch of those repaints around, even if the cars are now long-gone.   I'd also taken the container decks off of three Trix 85' flats and rebuilt those into piggybacks - with styrene, and they later warped horribly and were so light they stringlined at the slightest provocation.     

[prbharris]

Wheel works.   Found a box of them on Ebay (closed auction)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-Scale-The-Wheel-Works-40-Trailer-Kit-/151612284428?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item234ccbde0c

Its been relisted! Don't all rush at once

Peter

Peter Harris
N Scale Kits
www.nscalekits.com

[wazzou]

Is S&R still in business?

I'm not sure.  I remember some years back, 6-8 or so, the owner, on Trainboard, offered a couple free kits to those that wanted some. 
He just asked that the respondents posted pictures of them built and painted.