1 BLM130016 BLMA F89-J 89' Flat Car RTTX 6 Pack $126.29 Shiiping confirmation sent today. Christams in April!!!
Well..good news/bad news for me on the F89's. Good News: My order of 24 that I've been waiting on since April of 2010 has shipped. Bad News: They're outside my modeling era..too 'new'. I obviously didn't do my research well enough prior to ordering two years ago. To make matters worse, I also completely overlooked the era-appropriate TTX version that was announced last fall. Guess I'll be attempting to sell the RTTX fleet... my dealer is checking to see if he can still get in on the order for the 70's yellow TTX. Oops.. :embarassed: Mike Pittsburgh
I got my six. Some sellers fail to keep their websites up to date and you call and they forgot to take it off their website. The reliable source I use seems to keep his up to date. I havent seen them yet, but I'm sure they will be the Best Looking Models Around!!!!! dave
These are beautifully done models, what else would you expect from Craig and BLMA. The detailing is incredible as usual. One little tip......if you glue the hitches on the deck, you cannot put it back in the box without cutting the plastic inserts where the hitches are.
These are some of the finest N scale models yet. The hitches on these have scale size kingpin holes which look great when running empty but any manufactures stock trailer won't fit without modification to either the trailer or fifth wheel on the hitch. I've thought about drilling out a larger hole on the fifth wheel but due to where it lines up on the hitches on the ends of the car the vertical support would still interfere. On one car I cut off the kingpins on the trailers and used WS scenic accents glue to glue the trailers to the hitches. I don't know that I really like this approach as I'd like to change out the trailers with different ones from time to time rather then having them permanently on the car or having a group a modified trailers that are specifically for use on these cars. So what methods have others been using to load up these awesome cars with trailers from Atlas, Athearn, Trainworx, Deluxe and MT?
What if you use a tiny dot of rubber cement? I've not tried it but I'm guessing it would probably give enough tack/holding power to prevent the trailers from sliding off, and if you wanted to swap out trailers from time to time or run empty the rubber cement should peel off without causing any permanent damage. Mike C.
I cut the pin off the trailer with a flush cutter, then drilled and inserted a piece of .030" rod, drilled out an appropriate hole in the hitch (not deep) and it works just fine. Sweet cars!
George, Not sure if I can agree with that statement. He didn't say but if that price includes shipping then it's pretty good. Even if not, still not a bad price...less than $1 per car more than you are advertising, and that's hardly unusual. And hardly "overpaying". If he's actually getting what he ordered, that's about all you can hope for these days. And if he's getting good service, then I say he should "overpay" all day long. And to not completely hijack this thing... I have a couple on order and am interested to see what they look like. The photos so far are incredible so I doubt I will be disappointed. I'm truthfully so busy working on the layout right now that I may not even notice when they get here.
Don't think I like the fact that the hitches can't handle any trailers that are already out there...without modifying the hitch or trailer.
I don't either---I think for those of us who actually run our trains, we may be getting just a bit too much detail.
Ike, I'm not gonna get my panties in a wad over something like this. Every time I get a new car, I go over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure it will perform as I expect it to. It's not at all unusual for me to find something like this, and when I do, I fix it and move on. The kingpin on most N trailers is woefully out of scale, so it didn't bother me a bit to take the five minutes to cut off the big one and glue in the .030" rod. And if I want to use Atlas code 55 switches (which ARE to NMRA specs), then I'll simply have to go lo pro (which I did long ago). I honestly don't expect a R-T-R to truly be RTR...shoot, to me that's what modeling is all about - solving the problem!
I'm not gonna get too upset over it, just find it odd that BLMA decided to make hitches that are not compatible with any of the trailers on the market today. I'll just drill out the hitch so my trailers I have fit, don't want to force however many trailers to only be able to ride on these flats.
I got mine today, and they are just awesome! Nice and heavy. As for the hitch issue, maybe Craig has trailers coming out soon that will fit perfectly. In any event, like Jim said, nothing is perfect, so just figure out a way to make what you have work.
Thanks for the kind words and support everyone. There comes a time when it's appropriate to move beyond standards set years ago. For this reason, we've moved to body-mounted couplers, fine-scale wheels, accurate trucks, and overall vastly superior attention to physical and paint detail. Our goal at BLMA is to create scale miniatures of prototypes with extreme accuracy. With that, we can't be bound by decades old standards that might inhibit the prototype accuracy of the product. If/when we produce a trailer, you can bet it will fit in the hitches on the F89-J. Otherwise, please take your concerns to trailer manufacturers who (for whatever reason) have insisted on using grossly over-sized mounting pins. For those looking to use older trailers on our cars, I suggest to remove the over-sized pin and use a small dab of non-permanent glue on the hitch to secure the trailer. Again, the support and kind words are appreciated!
Next up as the most sought after nonexistent n scale item... 53" modern trailers.. None, nadda, nothing out there right now. Lucky if you find a few DI ones around. As for the 89J flats, they are another awesome product from BLMA. Thanks Crag! I agree on breaking the mold and using scale hitches.
Seeing as how I complained to TrainWorx about the size of the hole in the DROPPED hitches on the deck, it seems that I shouldn't be complaining here. I think I own a drill bit if I want. I ordered mine quite a while ago, haven't heard any confirmation on the TTX brown ones yet. The TrainWorx ones hung up like crazy on 11" curves and took a lot of grinding to modify as the wheels ground into the frame. Worked fine after that, but they didn't clear 11". Looking forward to see what Craig has so I can retire some more old Con Cor flats.
