What did you folks wind up putting on your Alan Curtis spine cars (the original release, not the looooong ones)? Thanks, Bill K.
Maybe he's thinking of the flat cars? They're kind of long. I'm currently drawing some 53' trailers for mine. I'm sticking to the use of the paper that I'm using for my Top Gons (which I need to get back into finishing up! ) They should be very light weight - that was the issue I had with the Top Gons. But for spine cars and flat cars, light weight is good. I'm hoping to have the first one finished and assebled sometime this week (time permitting) and if all goes well, I'll post pics when I'm done. - Phil
Now after reading my own post, and actually thinking for a minute, I'm going to have to shorten the trailer design to 45' or 48' for the spine cars - shouldn't be too much work, though! But I'll keep the 53 footers for the flats!
I am using the Marklin intermodal set that comes with bunch of container and three complete set of trucks. I also have one trailer chassis from the intermodal city, that I glue to a MTL container. I also have one Mark4 Desing Pup, so I have enought trailers for the whole five car set. I have tried Nanse Street intermodal set, but its way too heavy.
I have the 25' Arrowhead Scale Models trailers, and they are a bit heavy too. Solid resin. I was thinking of hollowing them out a bit, but I would rather have 40' trailers on my 2 sets anyways. I have some of the european trucks in kit form that might work, but I have yet to build them. -Robert
Bill, For both the spine cars and the flat cars, I've been using a combination of Marklin containers with chassis, and DCP 1/256 trailers, which are definitely undersized, but they look better than empties. Actually, I've had some trouble running the spines empty, but the flats run fine either way. Am I satisfied with this arrangement? Not at all. Will I keep it up until something better comes along? Yup. What is your idea?
Phil, I was just thinking the other day that your technique you used on the CoalPorters would be great for trailers for just this purpose. I guess you were thinking the same thing. I wonder what the best weight for the trailers is though. When we were running Bryan Keyser's spine car set we noticed that if you run them empty, the cars sometimes ride up and separate at the articulation joints, but if you get too heavy on the loads, then you can't pull much. Perhaps a composite would be best, metal or resin chassis on the trailer with Paper sides and top. This would keep the center of gravity lower as well. I'm sure Bryan will chime in when he gets a chance. Randy
Actually, Mark4 design trailers are the perfect vehicles for the spine cars. They were suppose to come out with additional desings. Also, Tim's trailers would be very nice.
Randy, What's that they say about great minds? I haven't actually gotten a layout put together yet, so I don't have anything to test other than your basic oval of track. But if the paper works out well (design-wise) then it shouldn't be too hard to add a few BBs to increase the weight if need be. And let's not forget about Searails' chassis. I've seen many an empty chassis on the spine/flat cars passing by here on the NS line. - Phil
Sorry Alan. You are clearly correct. You only made one version. And I have 5 sets of them. What do you recommend for trailers for them? A nicely done product, by the way.
Robert, they are hollow, and very light. They also are well detail. I just wished they come with UPS decals.
John, I am with you on the UPS decals. I'd love to have a bunch of those to decorate my 20' trailers, as those are at least 30% of the trailers I see on the rails here.
Yeah, I wanted UPS decals too until I heard that UPS was aggressively going after any trademark infringements found, and that ALL modelmakers who have asked to make such decals have been turned down. It's a bit of work to do their truck logo, but it would look cool. I am more of an REA kind of guy anyway, so that is the trucks I would want. -Robert