I am hoping for an honest opinion on how well made, heavy and detailed they are. Obviously, a control is needed for the comparison to have value. In my opinion, Atlas are the most well-made, heaviest and detailed. I think MTH is a close second. I find the Lionel steam era freight cars to be the lightest and flimsiest of the three - but still a very nice car. If you have a similar opinion on the Atlas, Lionel and MTH car, this creates a "control" for comparison and I would like to hear your opinion on how the Menard's car as I'd like to buy more than just their buildings. Thanks.
The Menards cars are certainly robust as far as the "flimsy" comment. They are few "added details" such as you find on some other cars, most of the detail is in the molding. While this may not suit some folks, there's also less "added detail" to break, which I find to be an issue with Lionel and Atlas cars. They have all metal trucks, including the couplers. They do not have the fast angle wheels, the wheelsets are similar to post-war axles with straight bearing surfaces. They roll quite well after lube, but probably not as freely as the needle point axles in the other brands. In an interesting twist, the side-frames of the trucks are screwed on, so you can remove them, somewhat unexpected. The ones I got appear to be scale sized, when compared to the new Lionel PFE reefers, the only difference I see is about 1/8" or less width difference. Several folks have said they got a couple with coupler issues, the first ten I got all worked well with no issues. The unique numbers are accomplished using decals.
Bottom line, at least for me, a really good value for a $20 retail priced scale sized car. They look great, and I can have ten cars for around the price of three of the high priced spread. They're not for everyone, but I'm not unhappy I picked them up, and I'll likely buy more.
