WOT SP 53'6" Welded Flats.

[wcfn100]

So I finally got one of these cars last week and based on the other thread we had, wanted to dig into them a little deeper.



And for the burning question of the deck board thickness, if you had 5 1/8" (.032") in the pool, you win (and everyone loses  ).

But in the big picture, the deck is a joke anyway and needs to be replaced regardless of the thickness.  Fortunately, the floor does come up with some coaxing.



I'm going to try some .020" scribed styrene when I get a chance.  This will cut the thinkness by a third, plus give better board width.

I don't like how heavy these cars are.  I tried to remove the top* (see below) weight, but I think I'd break the car before it came loose.  Unless I can get it apart, these may have to run empty or some real wood load that's fairly light. 

Finally a shot from the bottom.  The under frame is very underwhelming as far as detail goes and is basically sacrificed to get what I'm assuming is a smaller (unwanted by me) second weight.  Also seen is the one piece deck.



Nice cars I suppose and certainly a welcome addition to the fleet.  Obviously a lot of thought went into the design even if I don't like many of the decisions. 

Jason

[central.vermont]

Looks like this would be a good candidate for someone to do a laser cut wood deck. 

Jon

[Chris333]

I think you can go down to .015" with wood. Thinner if you use that laser board stuff.

[Cajonpassfan]

I don't like how heavy these cars are.  I tried to remove the top* (see below) weight, but I think I'd break the car before it came loose.  Unless I can get it apart, these may have to run empty or some real wood load that's fairly light. 
Nice cars I suppose and certainly a welcome addition to the fleet.  Obviously a lot of thought went into the design even if I don't like many of the decisions. 

Jason

Umm, so just how heavy are these? Often, we have the opposite problem...
Otto K.

[wazzou]

I just got a couple Milwaukee Road flats from Chuck but haven't looked at them all that closely.

[nkalanaga]

Otto:  They seem to be about the same weight as the Athearn GSC flatcars, which isn't surprising, as they're the same size.  The lack of underframe detail doesn't bother me, as most of it can't be seen when the car is on the track, and I like heavy flatcars. 

Wazzou:  I have the MILW 64073, and a prototype picture in Morning Sun Books' "MILW Color Guide Vol. 2" of the same car.  It's a good representation of a MILW car, if you're not a prototype modeler.  The stake pocket spacing is wrong, as the model has 16, and the MILW car only 15, but the color seems close, at least to me, to the MILW's 1943 freight color, and all of the lettering seems to be in the right place.  It's not a model of the MILW prototype, but for a stand-in, it looks close.

The thick deck is disappointing, but not surprising, as the earlier bulkhead versions were the same.  Jason's suggestion of 0.020 styrene would be almost perfect for the GN, which seems to have used 3 inch boards on many of their cars.

My only real gripe is the GN Big Sky Blue.  Like many releases, from various manufacturers, in the last few years, it's much closer to Conrail Blue then GN.  Way to dark, and no easy way to fix it.  With problems from Centralia Shops, Atlas, and now WOT, I'm beginning to suspect they all use the same factory.  They couldn't all have the same colorblind graphic artist!  Even Athearn's F45s are too blue, but not nearly as dark as these, so they look better.  The closest commercial BSB I have is an ancient ConCor 40 ft boxcar, probably made around 1970, and the W&R brass F45s, from the early 90s(?).

[wcfn100]

Otto:  They seem to be about the same weight as the Athearn GSC flatcars, which isn't surprising, as they're the same size. 

It's 43% heavier than the Athearn car.

Here's a chart of some flats.

Athearn 53' GSC .7oz 20g

TWX 85' flat 1.1oz 30g

BLMA 60' GSC .8oz 22g

WOT SP flat  1.0oz 28g

It's completely unnecessary to be this heavy.

Jason

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks for posting the weights, Jason, much appreciated.
Proper car weights are another topic, but I happen to like my flats on the heavy side, as on my railroad they tend to go back home empty and I use rear end helpers. That's very hard to do with a lightweight car, and adding loads for weight  doesn't work in my case (like running loaded hoppers to the coal mine).
My problem with these is they are just a tad too modern...dang
Otto K.

[sd45elect2000]

I just ordered a set of 8 Milwaukee cars. I think I should be able to remove the re-weigh date and leave it a 1943 car. I am also a little disturbed with the thick deck, that was the first thing I keyed on when I saw the photo's . I wonder if I couldn't sand some off the bottom if I attached the deck to a block.

Randy

[SD452XR]

I like the weight of these cars.

[wcfn100]

I'm certainly not going to begrudge a preference towards heavier cars.  I do wish it could be up to the modeler to add whatever extra weight they want.  My preference is toward pulling prototypical length train with a single locomotive.  My NW-2 and SW9 aren't going to be able to pull 15-20 cars of this weight especially when you add about 80 JD tractors as loads.


Jason

[pdx1955]

I guess these are suited well for the SP modeler who might run many of these empty behind multiple locomotives. An ounce is right about what the NMRA standard is for a 50' car so if your cars are weighted appropriately then there shouldn't be many problems running them. The weight will keep a good low center of gravity so and loads won't make the car top heavy. I got my 10 pk this week and while I appreciate the concern about the thicker deck, it just doesn't seem that noticeable at normal viewing distances. Enlarging a N scale car to HO size or more in a picture will show lots of things that are thicker than they should be.  I thought about scribing the end board detail but I can't really see it if the car is a few feet lower and further from my eyeballs. I'll definitely weather the deck though.

Peter

[sd45elect2000]

I actually just got mine in the mail today. One thing that I will need to fix is the rolling quality. All of my cars have the wheels hitting the underframe, I think instead of shimming the trucks I'll need to grind out a bit of the weight.

Randy

[Cajonpassfan]

All of my cars have the wheels hitting the underframe...
Randy

Well, that's disappointing 
Otto

[bbussey]

I actually just got mine in the mail today. One thing that I will need to fix is the rolling quality. All of my cars have the wheels hitting the underframe, I think instead of shimming the trucks I'll need to grind out a bit of the weight.

Or, just swap in the standard tread FVM wheelsets. All of the manufacturers that OEM the FVM wheelsets use the wide treads, which have larger flanges.