http://www.buynscale.com/blw-box-40.htm Just saw this find of the day.Do these cars really ride that high above the trucks??? Joe D
Yes. The photo of the WM car correctly as seen at a direct horizontal view of the IMRC cars. Interestingly... the 'trick' photography on the other cars pictured have them leaning forward to obscure the actual appearance.
This etailer once had an incredible, up-to-date site. I doubt that he has truly updated the inventory on the website for over two years. They answer emails, so they are still in business. But I would email confirm EVERYTHING before attempting to buy.
If we are talking about BLW then I can say that I order from them at least once a year with great success. I think they do update their site but mostly by adding new stuff, sometimes they simply allow pages of old inventory expire and disappear rather than putting an "out of stock" statement on it. However, a good deal of their inventory is properly tagged in terms of stock status. They handle a lot of pre-order business and are pretty good about tagging items as "cancelled" when a manufacturer craps out, it doesn't cost anything to pre-order through them, they don't charge you until it ships.
I have noticed that N scale rolling stock typically looks taller, riding higher above the trucks, than any other scale. Why is this? I thought about filing off some of the bolster on the underframe but then the integral coupler on the MT truck would interfere with the underbody. Other than changing over to body mounted couplers, what is the alternative?
Let us not run afoul of the TrainBoard retailer discussion policy: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?106711-TrainBoard-Policy-on-Posts-About-Retailers
That is something that I have noticed on only a few cars as far as the appearance of riding high. Might be of interest to try and find the build info on the 1 to 1 cars in question as far as distance of the frame and body from the top of the rail.
N scale cars ride high to accommodate truck mounted couplers. At least that's what I've been told and what I observe.
Riding high? I think just about every gondola made in N scale rides too high. I haven't seen any of the new ones from the "new guys on the block" so maybe they have proper height gons. In real life, the gon body rides so low it obscures the top of the wheels. The Atlas 42' gon looks like a hay wagon.
That is the reason, most N scale uses a Talgo truck, therefore it needs extra clearance for the coupler to swing. Switching to body mount would allow the car to be lowered onto its trucks more. Ever see a real car with a Talgo mounted coupler?
I was just thinking that if I were to go to body mounted couplers, then lower the body then I would probably have to get the "underslung" type MT body mounted couplers because when I lower the body I will also lower the height of the body mounted couplers.
I think N scale cars ride too high. Covered hoppers don't look so bad. The worst offenders to me are flat cars and gondolas. I lower these as I have time and keep the talgo coupler. Thus they are not prototypical, but they do look better to me. Example: MT flat car already lowered on left; GHQ flat car on right. Both of these are body mounted. GHQ flat car on left; stock MT flat car on right. Body mount on the left; talgo on the right. Stock MT on left; lowered MT on right. Both are talgo.
On the last picture, the flatcar on the right that is brown, how did you lower the flatcar and still have a talgo coupler on it? Did you carve away a portion of the flatcar so that the talgo coupler can travel through its movements?
Yes. I curt away a small portion of the end. I use pizza cutter wheels so I have to grind away clearance for them under the metal chassis. Now I'm using the mid-size flange axle so now I would not have to grind away as much.
Well, at least we are seeing more cars with body mount couplers now. Like to convert all mine, and with Z905's, but $ prohibits. But I do applaud the "apparent" change. Joe D
