Brass Flat Cars: would you buy?

$300 to $500 for a FLAT CAR????   Not this guy.

would you pay $275 for a painted accurate car with trucks?

Probably not a good place to ask a brass-only question Brad. 

According to the handy dandy "Postwar Freight Car Fleet", flats made up 3.5% of the postwar fleet.  Tankers made up 7.1% and Gons 16.5%

The NYC 496000 there on page 201 is the Red Caboose car you were talking about.

And the majority of the fleet was lumber carriers like SP and MILW. 

Me, I'd like to see a PRR F30 car.   The brass advantage is that you can run the flat empty.  Worth $300?  To me, yes.  To others, no way.

And a UTLX X3 tanker, another car missing in O scale. 

Any interest in Gons? Anyone?

Before Intermountain started producing their highly detailed injection molded kits, brass or scratch building was the only way to get decent detail. Today brass rolling stock rarely compares even at ten times the price. Look at Kadee or Rapido rolling stock. It would be tough to match that in brass at any price.

Pete

Unfortunately there is no O scale equivalent of Kadee, at least in RTR.  In kit form,  the two San Juan Car Company box cars are the only truly state of the art plastic cars in O scale.  Their tooling is state of the art. even though their molds are probably ten years old.

That is sad since this scale could showcase scale-sized cars with accurate details.

Nope. I purchased an old Max Gray big, depressed center flat (50 foot?), with three axle Buckeye trucks and a real wood floor, off the Bay, for $102 including shipping. I plan on using it as an empty, since it is nice and heavy. The underbody detail, i.e. air brake piping, isn't there but nobody can see that anyway when the car is in train.

I also have a few NKP, Red Caboose 40 foot flats, which also look quite good as empties.

My point is, I will NOT pay very much over $100 for ANY flat car!

I have an abundance of brass flat cars.  Most are 50 footers, off the used market with Auel trucks.  I have a difficult time imagining paying more than $20 for a brass flat.  I also have more well flats than makes sense.  Most are aluminum castings.

Bob2,

If you have some surplus---email me I would like a few!

The 1950 breakdown for the Pennsylvania Railroad was Hoppers 38 3/4%, Boxcars 32 1/2%, Gondolas 25 1/2%, Flatcars 1 3/4%, Covered Hoppers 3/4%, Stock cars 3/4%.

a little up scale (1:32)...

i picked up two of these Samhongsa flats for $135 each (w/ brake detail) recently.

well worth it, i thought.

Personally, I buy rolling stock for it's prototype fedelity, and it's operational reliabilty...what materials were used to achieve that end are secondary. A brass flat is nice in that the weight of the brass helps it to track well as an empty, but loaded flats are more interesting in general and as such plastic or wood flats serve as well. A car collector will probably be more interested in a brass car than a railroad modeler who operates his layout.

Worth resurrecting this thread. As-usual excellent article by Richard Hendrickson.  

This was posted elsewhere and it's excellent to see these items online: 

http://www.trainlife.com/magaz...january-1997-page-53

Still hoping; I had a friend locate a Pac Ltd flat for me this week at a very fair price---I am thrilled to be getting it.     But I still believe its a gap in the market; I own some RC models and they are very nice, but I do like the weight and essence of brass models.

The PL cars are nice but like many of the earlier PL car they are K brakes only.  A bit too early for my liking.

K brakes can be replaced.  I'd start with the Intermountain brake parts spru.

ChipR

The prototype for the Pacific limited 40 ft flatcar is a Nashville Chattanooga and St. Louis prototype.  The was also the the prototype for the Tichy HO flatcar.  I have a couple that I have painted for the NC&StL.  

Steve DeLoach

They can, if you have the ability to fabricate an accurate mounting for the AB brake components.  Not so simple for brass cars.

If it were plastic, I'd use the San Juan Car Company AB components.  They're the best of the best.