My Review of Bachmann flatcars in kit form

[kstrong]

Dave,

I would imagine that for 7/8" scale, you can build right on top of the existing plastic body, keeping it on the frame. No need to discard anything, and you have the advantage of a solid surface on which to build your "real" flat car. (In fact, you could easily do that for a 1:20 car, too, since the kit--as built--scales to a relatively narrow car, just over 6' wide at that scale.

Later,

K

[Train 284]

Interesting! Thanks for the review Dave!

[FJ and G]

As some of you know, I have an outdoor O gauge garden railroad. I'm going to be adding a 7/8" scale 45mm gauge quarry line in a different part of my yard. I'm putting together a live steam engine kit and decided that a couple of rolling stock would be needed for the fledgling and revenue struggling line.

To get started, I purchased 4 flatcars from Bachmann in kit form, scaled to 1:20.3 (3 ft narrow gauge). The total cost for the 4 cars was about $60. That, my friends, is $15 a piece! And a true bargain, IMO. (to scale them up to 1:13.7 will require some modifications such as a larger handbrake, but I digress).

The total time it took to build each car was about 15 minutes. Here's some photos. The only problem I experienced was one of the cars was missing a strut (the long thin braces that run the length of the underside of the car to brace it -- but are just cosmetic on the model). I'll be sending an email to Bachmann notifying them of this.

One other "problem" is that the handbrakes flop around. To seat them in their holes, a dollup of plastic exterior glue would fix that in short order.

The instructions were not very good at putting the kit together. However, just looking at the photos makes it really obvious which parts go where (I think that the thing lacking in the instructions is telling which parts to put together in the proper order; for example, the struts or bracing must be put on prior to the underside detailing screwed to the chassis). The stakes above should be put in last as they get in the way when putting other detailing together. Anyway, after you do one, the rest are a snap.

The flatcars track well and the couplers work. Two types of couplers are offered; the ones shown here, which resemble toy train couplers and the hook and horn style couplers. It seems that G gauge trains are plagued with too many types of couplers and some standardization, IMO would be desireable; just an opinion, mind you.

An admission now. I dislike plastic, sometimes called styrene or ABS etc. All of this model is made from plastic, except for the metal wheels (thankfully). Therefore, the flatcars are on the light side. Even the truck sides are plastic.

What I may do in the future, is to discard the chasis and plastic stakes and cut my own wood for the flooring and stake poles. Also, I may add brass wire detailing where appropriate. I suppose I could have just purchased the parts separately and scratchbuilt my own--which I plan to do in the future.

However, the wheels and underside detailing still make the purchase worthwhile for a major kitbash later on.

For those who like plastic this is a real bargain.