I love accurately detailed, low riding flat cars with prototypical decks. Unfortunately, I do not know much about the prototypes or 3 rail manufacturers who make the best car. I would like to add good flat cars to a work train, have farm equipment, military loads, junk loads, etc. One of my goals is to have accurate, low riding cars.
Which manufacturers/cars make the best products for scale hi-Railers?
Are there good sources for the loads? Military loads?
Scrappy
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Lionel made/makes some very nice die-cast 40ft flats with loads; I have one,
and it sits down nice and low - and it's fairly heavy, too. Haven't kept up with
all the varieties and loads, but a 40-footer would look good in work train service,
even now.
The MTH 40' flats are pretty nice once you paint and weather the deck. The lionel pullman std. flats are beautiful cars as well. The MTH flats can be had very cheap (new from a store for about $35-40), but I've seen them on the buy/sell board here in the 20's.
As far as military loads, if you want to build them up, try Tamiya models for an easy start. www.track48.com has a fairly good listing of other available brands that make 1:48 models. The site is more geared towards war diorama modeling, so some of the stuff they show are pretty intricate resin models.
For general flat car loads, try a place like diecast direct.
I vote for weaver. All cars are scale and easy to convert to Kadee couplers.
The Lionel flat cars are the nicest They come with a wood deck and nothing extra has to be done
I've got three of the MTH 40' cars. If you are still running hirail flanges, it isn't going to get any lower than this due to the flange.
The Lionel PS-4 50' flat cars are awesome. Real wood deck, can't wait to give one a treatment of Floquil stain, and then some weathering.
Regards,
GNPNPNUT
The Lionel PS-4 50 foot flat cars are the nicest flat cars I have ever seen, 2 rail or 3 rail and with the die-cast body, they are a great weight for pulling and the wood deck is increadable. When on the track, the space between the top of the track and the side of the car is about 1/4 inch and the measurement from the top of the rail to the top of the flat cat is under 1 inch. I think you will have a difficult time finding a lower riding flat car, even in 2 rail brass.
Good luck, and happy railroading,
Don
Thanks to all you "flat" guys for helping with these answers.
I will try to get flat now.
Scrappy
As others have stated, there are some good flats out there for all of us. Here are a couple of MTH & Lionel pieces and even the postwar 6424 can be painted to look more realistic.
The real wood decking on the Lionel PS-4 cars will benefit from some stain or color to enhance the appearance from board to board. I used acrylics to vary the deck planking to good effect on these three.
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