So are they scale? any help would be appreciated.
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Oh and I was also wondering about the boxcars and hoppers. thanks again.
A quick check, flat cars are typically either 60 or 89'. @ 14", the Menards cars are 41'. Still a great deal.
Gilly@N&W posted:A quick check, flat cars are typically either 60 or 89'. @ 14", the Menards cars are 41'. Still a great deal.
Wouldn't that be 56'?
At 1:48, I get 56'.
Maybe I'm wrong, but a 14" flat car should translate into a 56' flat? Unless the 14" include then couplers, then its more like a 50' flat.
Yeah, he got that wrong. Maybe the flats are 10.5 inches. My grade school math gets me to 41' for that length. 
Dennis
I think you mean 42'.
Length alone cannot solely be used to judge whether a flat car is scale or not. Standard flat cars ranged in length from 30 feet to over 60 feet over the striker plates. Look at the width. A flat car should be 9 feet to 9 feet 3 inches in width which in O scale will be 2 1/4 inches to 2 3/16 inches.
Jan
These flatcars are just shy of 2 3/4 inches wide.
The world now has a 56' flat car, other then the screw holes on the deck it is a real nice flat car for the money, I hope that Mark makes a second batch of PRR cars with different numbers and other roads also. B&O, RDG, RF&P, SP, ATSF and DODX. I am in for MORE!
John P
SP had a spacer flat which was built on one 2 axle ex heavyweight coach truck!
Boxcars are semi scale (same size as the railking boxcars) coal cars are semi-scale too.
I measured the boxcars in relation to my Lionel Vision Line PFE Reefers. The VL cars are 40' reefers and are 10" long. The Menards boxcars are exactly the same in every dimension except slightly narrower, about 1/8". I figure that makes them a scale 40' car. I posted pictures some time back comparing the two.
CPDALY,
Actually they are the same size as the Lionel Scale Northern Pacific GP9 Engines and bigger than the Scale Atlas Box Cars, so they pretty much scale.
PCRR/Dave
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Pretty close to scale. The only distracting thing missing is a handbrake somewhere on he car. Otherwise, they are pretty nice.
UNCLE. I messed up. sorry
(48*14)/12 How in the world did I mess that one up?????????????????
While 56' can be "normal" for a flatcar, they also had shorter cars. 40' flats were common too.
I've found the thing you have to look at in "traditional size" rolling stock is the width.
I had a MTH Railking gondola that I thought was fine until I built a scale gondola of the same type, ended up having to make new ends and floor once I saw how out of scale the MTH car was.
I have 2 Lionel flats that appear to be fine models of cars around 40' long.
In O-gauge, if it feels scale, it is scale That is the freedom of O-gauge!
In HO I can wait a year for a small business to deliver a part that only I will know is there, but I know it's correct for that road no in the year that I model.
Bob D,
Menard's has the 40' flat Cars covered also, I had to replace the original Menard's Trucks, but the Flat Car now runs great with the MTH Primer Trucks, and as a 40' it is darn near scale also. The Atlas Scale Insulated Box Car just behind the Menard's Military Tank Flat Car, shows the correct scale size. However to me as a non-rivet counter, I only care about the quality of the rolling stock not the exact scale size. Now that Menard's has upgraded their Trucks & Couplers, I keep investing in them, especially for my Military Train.
PCRR/Dave
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