I am trying to make my own 89' flat cars. I have some photo's that I found on the internet but wonder if some one might know where you can find some drawings. What size are the truck wheels 33" or 36". What MT wheel sets and body mounted couplers should I use? To make 57 ' flat car some of Allen Curtis's has a wider section do you know how much wider that section is?
Wellll.... When I started my 'big' N layout in 1983, the only flatcars available were Rapidos and Trix, and Trix was better, but no piggybacks - only containers. So I bashed up an entire fleet of piggyback flats out of those. Entirely new decks, scratchbuilt. They really were too light and stringlined on longer trains. When I laminated up the floors, they also warped. I pretty much gave up on styrene. When MT came out with 'good' cars, and Con-Cor reran the Trix cars, I ended up replacing all but a couple of the rebuilds. Sold the original fleet. I've got some of everything, my surviving rebuilds, Trix, MT, Con-Cor, Alan Curtis. When MT was running "kits" of 5-packs in TTX, that was a GREAT DEAL and that's what needs to be done again. Short of that, I think that it's hard to beat the N Scale Kits cars for weight, etc, particularly if you're going through the hard work of painting and decaling in any case. I admire you for trying though. Resin could work, particularly if you cast some steel weights into the mold. I also think that if you wanted a 'big fleet', talk to N Scale Kits - if the car you're looking to do isn't already made, you may work out a deal if you do the prototype research and they build it. I did that with the log cars with Alan Curtis. And if you want a lot of cars, maybe you can negotiate a volume purchase.
Need to try to narrow your request down there ... ACF, Pullman Standard, Bethlehem Steel, Hawker-Siddely, Whitehead & Kales, General American, etc, etc and succesors all built 89' flats.
I have tryed to find out the manufacturer but cannot seem to find it. I started using a model in HO scale that I saw at a train show. If you look at the side frames it looks like a c channel and no guide rails down the middle. Allen Curtis did some cars of this type. That is why the question of trucks and couplers. I did not buy the car kit but took some measurments from it. The TTX site I found a couple of photo's of the flat cars but no manufacture infor. The markings where KTTX but even they had several types of cars with those marking and different sides.
Just to confirm, you do know that N Scale Kits offers a good selection of 89' flats in both channel side and flush deck styles, correct? N Scale Kits 89' Flat Cars They even offer the "Triple 57" Long Runner you mentioned with the wider bulge section.... N Scale Kits 89' Long Runner Flat Cars Russ
if i remember correctly, the general dimensions are 89'4" long, 8'6" or 9' wide depending on the car(not sure why, i guess 'cause they can). deck height of 3'6" and truck center of 66'. I scratch built some quite a few years ago and was able to use the drawings off the ttx website, which is now no longer accessable without a login. i probably saved a copy of it, just have to figure out where its at after several moves. there is a good article in the Intermodal Modeler's Guide Vol II dealing with updating microtrains 89' flats to vairous styles of ttx cars such as kttx, rttx triple 28, ttex long runner, using channel side, flush deck and z sill cars. (i have both guides vol 1 and 2 and the intermodal quipment guide from MR). hope this helps feel free to pm me if you have any other questions.
Thanks for the comments! This advice would certainly be worth taking up. We are very busy at present - but are looking at new projects. We do do large order discounts - and we have a four kits for the price of three running at present! Peter Peter Harris N Scale Kits N Scale Kits
