hello,
My layout is based on conrail in Western New York between the years of 1990 and it’s end in 1999. Part of my layout is an old 4’ x 6’ section that was my first model railroad. As you can imagine that section has 18" radius turns. On that section I have a lumber yard that I’m looking for rolling stock to service it. I want to stay away from the center beam flat cars because of their length and my 18" radius on that section. I kind of wanted to use 50’ flat cars with lumber loads like and article I saw a few years back in Model Railroader. My question is, were 50’ flat cars in service duirng the 90’s? If not is there any other option for rolling stock that would not be much more than 50’ in length?
50’ double door boxcars were also used for building products and finish lumber.
Dave H.
Hey Shyguy, you may want to look into shorter bulkhead flatcars. To this day some shorter ones still fly through here, and, I’m guessing in the early 90’s they would’ve still used 48’ FB’s. You’ll have to kitbash 'em, but might be fun (Kaslo Shops also makes shorter bulkheads, but I can’t recall offhand how short).
Walthers has 50’ bulkhead flats that came out last year, They are a litttle underweight but other than that they are reael nice cars.
Andrew
I see Norfolk Southern using 50’ Flat all the time even in Intermodal trains
I have a couple pics of the NS 50’ intermodal cars. Real neat prototype. I was surprised when I saw them.
Andrew