Has any body received these yet? I am curious how the new loads look and are they removable without harming the flat car?
Pictures would be great.
Thanks
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Blue Streak,
I do not understand why manufacturers insist on putting loads on flatcars, Lionel, MTH, Atlas all put loads on their scale flatcars. Leave them off and lower the price by $5. I have pulled off more factory loads than I could count. Did not order any of the most recent offerings. Gave away a lot of pipe loads from the Atlas Trainman flats. Found a vendor in York who used to sell MTH Preamier Flats un-boxed for $10 each bought a lot.
JohnB
I received a flyer from Charles Ro several days ago saying the flat with loads were in.
I will be purchasing the Southern version because it is the only scale Southern flat Lionel has offered.
I do sometimes purchase flat cars because of the nice loads. Not everyone is good at finding loads and correctly placing them on the flats. sometimes it is nice to just purchase a car, take it out of the box and enjoy running it. Personally at 69, I have enough projects in the que to last till I am 100. Unfortunately many will never get accomplished.
Happy railroading,
Don
Yes, I received mine yesterday....Will look at them this weekend. I sure hope the Wait was worth it.....Happy Railroading
If they are like the 40' cars there will sadly be mounting holes thru the deck.
If you can take the sight of the rivet holding down the truck, Menards has some flat cars with no loads for sale on their website.
Apparently there are two kinds, the first being the kind with the brake wheel on a stalk on the side, similar to MPC, the second looking more like Standard 'O', and apparently hidden coupler trucks; the hook is in my mouth, but I have yet to bite down.
Some are available as four packs.
Hopefully Menards does not mind me hotlinking a pic from their site:
The Lionel scale PS-4 flatcars were originally produced without loads, in a large variety of road names. I have about ten of them waiting for me to get the time to mount my own loads. MTH also has made their 41' steam-era flatcars without loads, although I'm not sure how recently. I have a whole bunch of those too. I also buy flatcars on the secondary market and dump or resell the loads in order to make room for what I want to put on them.
Originally Posted by JohnB:
Blue Streak,
I do not understand why manufacturers insist on putting loads on flatcars, Lionel, MTH, Atlas all put loads on their scale flatcars. Leave them off and lower the price by $5. I have pulled off more factory loads than I could count. Did not order any of the most recent offerings. Gave away a lot of pipe loads from the Atlas Trainman flats. Found a vendor in York who used to sell MTH Preamier Flats un-boxed for $10 each bought a lot.
JohnB
Thanks for the response. I look forward to some pictures or at least some eyes on the products. I am interested myself in the Denver & Rio Grande and maybe Southern Flat cars. I bought the Rio Grande flat w/ snow mobiles on the second hand market and that is a great car because the snow mobiles were just wired on and easily removed w/ no damage to the flat car.
The load appears to be firmly attached. I tried wiggling the load to see if it would give and it really does not move much. Looking at the underside of the car I don't see any screws holding the load on unless the screws are hidden by the under frame. Here is a picture of the Southern Railway flat car.
Neal Jeter
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If the load is held in place by screws or prongs, the heads should be visible from the bottom by looking at various angles. The decking on the Lionel PS-4 flatcars appears to be glued onto the frame. I looked at one of mine, which doesn't have a load, and there were no screws holding the deck in place and the bottom area was open enough that anything sticking through from above would be visible. It is possible that the load is glued in place, but I have never seen that on a Lionel flatcar, ever. It might be held in place with prongs and you have to know where to squeeze the load to undo the prongs.
Originally Posted by Lionlman:
The load appears to be firmly attached. I tried wiggling the load to see if it would give and it really does not move much. Looking at the underside of the car I don't see any screws holding the load on unless the screws are hidden by the under frame. Here is a picture of the Southern Railway flat car.
Neal Jeter
Thank you Lionlman for posting the picture of the of the Southern flat with load. I was planning to purchase just to have a Southern flat car but the load looks totally out of place on such a long car. And it sounds like one would damage the car deck if the load were removed.
I guess I could say you saved me $75.
Thanks and Happy railroading,
Don
Originally Posted by DGJONES:
I was planning to purchase just to have a Southern flat car but the load looks totally out of place on such a long car. And it sounds like one would damage the car deck if the load were removed.
Don
If someone wanted the car, an alternative might be to add a couple of additional loads on each end to fill up the flatcar.
Thank you Lionlman for posting the picture of the of the Southern flat with load. I was planning to purchase just to have a Southern flat car but the load looks totally out of place on such a long car. And it sounds like one would damage the car deck if the load were removed.
I guess I could say you saved me $75.
Yep, you saved me $75 as well. That load looks bad and if it will not come off without damage than I do not need it. I was thinking of adding chains or something to spruce it up but the loads really kill this run of flat cars for me.
Thanks guys for the pictures, etc.
I e-mailed Lionel and they said the load is glued to the deck of the flat car. There is no way to remove it without damaging the load or the flat car.
Neal Jeter
Neal Jeter
Lioniman,
Don't know why your worried about damaging that load, can't really tell what the heck it is supposed to be.....a wide screen TV? Take a razor knife slide it between the deck of the flatcar and the load and cut the glue away. Think of it as weathering the deck if you put a few scratches or nicks in it. For major damage use plastic wood to repair. Good luck we are all counting on you.
JohnB
Originally Posted by JohnB:
Lioniman,
Don't know why your worried about damaging that load, can't really tell what the heck it is supposed to be.....a wide screen TV? Take a razor knife slide it between the deck of the flatcar and the load and cut the glue away. Think of it as weathering the deck if you put a few scratches or nicks in it. For major damage use plastic wood to repair. Good luck we are all counting on you.
JohnB
One of the original complaints was that the load was too small. A larger load would probably cover any damage to the deck anyway.
I agree with the guys above. Try an exacto knife and go slow working the blade between the load and deck. Take a look at the real decks of flat cars. They are some of the most abused surfaces around. A few scratches and or gouges would only be an improvement in my book.
If you try it post some photos here so we can see how it turns out.
If you try it post some photos here so we can see how it turns out.
We have these in stock and on our website for your orders. Thanks.
