I only have 10 Intermodal cars, but I am very happy with the Walthers ones I do have. They are weighted quite generously and look pretty good. The best part is they are cheap for that model railroader that has a choice of eating, or buying some freight cars. Happy Railroading! Dane N.
Hi Dane! Good to hear from you again I have some Walthers well cars, I changed the trucks to Microtrains, and made new kingpins/connectors in brass on my lathe, as the originals were not long enough to connect the adjacent car securely. They run very well. I also have a Deluxe bulkhead 5-unit stack car set, this is way too light, but with weighted containers in the bottom, it runs ok. No way it can be run empty, though. Same thing with the MDC wells, they look good, but are very light and have to have weighted containers.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mtaylor: Drill and Tap????? Explain please. What has to be drilled? and what do you mean by tap?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Matt, What Gats said above, plus check out the December 2000 MR Page 133 has a Back to Basics article on drilling and tapping. It's alot easier than it sounds or looks. One word of advice when drilling or tapping metal: Lubricate. Use a light oil and it goes much easier.
Intermodal - now your talking about my favorites! I have MDC and Con-cor cars. I like the MDC better although I agree they're light (so are the con-cor). The good thing about the con-cor is the wieghted containers that come with. I think the MDC cars are better detailed though. I have had an interest in some of the higher quality cars ya'll have mentioned including 5 car sets, but have stuck with these due to my needs. 1) I'm not as serious a modeller as ya'll 2) I have a small layout with short trains, so I like the ability to break apart a train between any two cars. Not very prototypical I know.
Colonel, I have an interest in those MDC cars you want to sell. You can email me at: squint@uwbmt.org
Fine N Scale has a kit for a five unit Thrall articulated set with photo etched details. I have one set, but have not yet assembled it. Looks like it has great potential, though.
Hello Daryl, a warm welcome to TrainBoard, and especially to the N scale forum I think I read somewhere that Dick Billings of Fine N Scale has been ill, and unable to fulfill orders. Do you know if they have a website, or where information about their products can be found? What material are the stack cars made from? Thanks in advance.
I believe they are made out of resin of some sort. Don't know of a website. I got mine from End of Track Hobbies in IL a couple of months ago.
Not sure what a 12 degree curve is, but they will all go around my 11" minimum curves ok, which I suspect is somewhat less The larger the curves the better they look of course. Hope that helps. As they are cast in metal, they track very well, even when not loaded.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by A&A 6183: hey alan, do your models(spines, TOFC, etc) track well in tight curves? say 12 degree radius?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now that's a question from out of left field! For those of you who haven't worked it out, a 1° curve has a radius of 5729.65 feet. A 12 degree curve is 5730/12 or radius of 477' - equivalent to 935mm or around 36" in N. Gary. Edit - slight caculation issue above. 935mm/25.4=36.8. oops! [ 17 April 2001: Message edited by: Gats ]
Thanks for the method of calculating the degree of curvature so we can now see how unprototypical our model railroads are. I know it has always been an issue so when I planned my layout I tried to keep the minimum radius to be 20 inches for my N gauge railroad. It doesn't always work out that way and I do have a couple of 15 inch radius curves. If I ever build another railroad I will definitely stick to a 20 inch minimum radius. Freight cars look acceptable on a 15 inch radius curve but passenger cars look terrible. On 20 inch radius curves passenger cars start to look reasonable. For some reason we always try to put too much in the space we have and curves are always an issue. Thanks for the method to calculate what degree our curves are.
I went to my local hobby shop today and look what I saw in the display case I'm just wondering whether Alan will chat with us now he is an International distributor hehehehe
