I bought the 4 car set of the long flat cars. I'm putting together a first responder set to go with my SD60E 9-1-1. I stained the cars dark for the fire engines to stand out and better match my Gargraves ties I'm using as wheel blocks. Here are a few pics.
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Chris, they look great. I have a member in the club that has ordered 8 flatcars for his Chicago Fire trucks made by Corgi. He needed an ambulance so he bought the Ambulance on the flatcar, I haven't seen the train but from what I heard from other members it is a cool looking train.
Very nice loads for the Menards flatcars. Menards low price rolling stock certainly is filling a need for folks fed up with $70 to $80 rolling stock from the other manufactures.
Bill T.
I received my Menards flat cars today. Excellent value. They are scale, or close to scale length, real wood deck, die cast and sprung trucks and the trucks do spring. Many cars have sprung trucks but they do not spring. Operating couplers are standard and the car rides low to the rails. Some of the detail that Lionel PS-4 cars have are missing, but easily added. Grab irons are cast in but could be added and a brake wheel is easily added. I will weather these and use them on my military train. Thumbs up for Menards. $99 for four and they threw in the shipping !!
I love them!
These look great. I will be in when they make them for NYC. Anyone who also has the Lionel PS-4s, any chance the stake pockets have same spacing as the Menard's cars?
Pete
Looking at a CNW version I recently received, I noted the "wood" deck appears to be masonite with the top treated to look like wood. That's ok. I think the car needs to be dressed up a bit, so I plan to tweak it a little by first painting over the large "Built by Menards" signs and putting CNW logos in those spots. Another thing is cutting a couple wooden stir sticks, staining them, and gluing them crosswise across the deck to hide the truck screws. Finally, the exposed screws on the top of the deck that hold on the masonite will each get a dab of brown paint to cover the silver, to help them blend into the deck.
I just ordered the 4 pack military helicopter set and the 4 pack bucket loader set. Can't wait to get them.
Norton posted:These look great. I will be in when they make them for NYC. Anyone who also has the Lionel PS-4s, any chance the stake pockets have same spacing as the Menard's cars?
Pete
Don
Every-time we meet at York your always on the lookout for flat cars. Guess you found them
BTW I have the 4 pack from BNSF
Scrapiron Scher posted:I received my Menards flat cars today. Excellent value. They are scale, or close to scale length, real wood deck, die cast and sprung trucks and the trucks do spring. Many cars have sprung trucks but they do not spring. Operating couplers are standard and the car rides low to the rails. Some of the detail that Lionel PS-4 cars have are missing, but easily added. Grab irons are cast in but could be added and a brake wheel is easily added. I will weather these and use them on my military train. Thumbs up for Menards. $99 for four and they threw in the shipping !!
I ordered the Pennsy 4 car pack on Wednesday, scheduled to arrive at the end of next week. I must have missed the free shipping offer though. Either way, how can you go wrong.
Mike
I think the cars look great also. What is holding me back from buying these are the couplers. How do yo get them to open. I don't see any type of tab that can be moved to open the coupler. Let me know what I'm missing. Thanks.
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