Need a depressed center flat car for the late 1930’s. Found one of these offered but don’t know anything about the time frame it represents or the length. I want a highly detailed model but that just dosn’t seem to be out there so I thought with some work, this might work? Don’t want to start from total scratch.
Devore goes way back and there are instructions and a picture of the car on the HO Seeker website which I assume you are familiar with. It looks to be very similar in prototype to the Red Ball (later Canonball Car Shops) 40 foot four axle depressed center flatcar kit. Both kits have the rounded steel molding leading down into the depressed center with vertical steel plates to permit the load to be secured with rods. But it looks like the Devore kit has fewer separate parts than the Red Ball/CCS version which is good news because those separate parts never fit together terribly well.
I suspect if the kit was cleaned up carefully (with due regard for the rivet detail as warned in the Devore instructions) and some details replaced with the current after market parts it could look OK. And being metal it should track well even if underweight.
Cars like that had a pretty long life span and I recall seeing similar flat cars into the 1980s. Both the Devore and the Red Ball originals probably date to the late 1940s as kits so I am sure the prototype car they followed is of your era or close to it.
Model Power had or has a nearly detail free depressed center flat in plastic in their trainset line and perhaps rivet decals could improve it. Roco offered a six axle depressed center flat that they offered in DODX lettering as well as railroad lettering and it may indeed have been a DODX prototype. Bachmann offers a similar looking car that may be the same tooling, also with military loads. Walthers seems to have allowed its depressed center flats to go out of production.
So pickings are slim for 40’ four axle depressed center flatcars at this time.
Dave Nelson
The kit looks like it is a model of a car from the late '30s, early '40s. It looks to be a casting that would require detailing with grab irons and such. This car looks short,riding on four wheel trucks. A highly detailed four axle car is available from Exact Rail but it is a modern car from the 1980s/1990s. A six axle car is/was available from Bachman but is at the lower end of the spectrum of models. At one time there was a metal kit for a six axle, depressed center flatcar made by Howell Day and sold under the Red Ball label. Model Railroad Warehouse in Indiana has/had a lot of the Red Ball stuff available so, if it is a six axle car you want I would check with them. If it is a four axle car, a plastic one was available from Eastern Car Works a few years ago. It may fit the bill as a four axle car. Good luck.
Yes, alot of things on my wish list are out there, but poorly done, or a compleat build up of sticks (can do but would rather not). Took me awhile to collect my poultry cars and I have only one container car (a compleated wood kit). Everything I buy has to end up being close in quality to todays RTR from Intermountain etc. Found one company called Concept Models that has kits, but the quality is, to be PC, not up to my standards, by a long shot.
I got this Authenticast depressed centre flatcar in the mid-'50s. A cast-metal car, it came with wire grabirons and sill steps (I replaced the latter with A-Line parts).
The rivet detail is well-rendered for its time, and the end platforms have board detail cast into their decks, while the drop portion has three dimensional details representing, I think, holes or pockets for tie-downs.
I also replaced the original cast metal trucks with Delrin ones.
Wayne
I may look into that one also, the Devore has holes for grabs too.
This is what the Eastern Car Work’s kit look’s like when assembled.
If you can find one, they go togeter very well. But, you will have to do a bit of work to get the kit supplyed truck’s to be usable.
I replaced the truck’s with a set from Kaydee. I had to do some modification’s to the bolster to get the truck’s to sit right. And I had to carve off some of the center sill ( one on each side of the bolster ) to allow the truck’s to swing.
But, the resulting car is “Totally Worth It” !
The folks on the Steam Era Freight Car List believe that the Roco depressed center flat is a US Army flat made for use out of the country. Thus they wouldn’t operate here.
The non-depressed center Roco flat (the one with six wheel trucks) is also a US Army (later DODX) flat. They were used in the US.
Ed
As I mentioned 9 hours ago on the Red Ball “brass-hybrid” topic, the Red Ball depressed center flat with 6-wheel trucks is a model of the PRR F29 car. When I built mine in 1964, I was impressed with the results.
Ed
Have you looked into any of the Funaro & Camerlingo kits? They offer a Pennsy depressed center and well car:
http://www.fandckits.com/HOFreight/8170.html
http://www.fandckits.com/HOFreight/6940.html
I’m not a huge fan of resin kits but I have managed to cobble together a few with reasonable results. Here’s how the Well Car turned out:
IMG_9796_fix by Edmund, on Flickr
Might be worth a look.
They offer a neat, little B&M Well Car also:
http://www.fandckits.com/HOFreight/6590.html
Regards, Ed
Wow, the well car looks an older vintage than the depressed, even though it isn’t. Has Funaro improved, they were not very good when they first started out but that was a long time ago. Hey thanks for all the imput, much harder to do resurch now adays on google, they always have non related stuff pop up alot sooner on the list than they used to. That has become a problem on e-bay too, hard to do misspelling searches there now.
The Eastern car works looks promising with some changes.
The Walther’s Gold 90 ton DP flat makes a pretty good starting point, IMHO. It is die-cast metal so runs pretty well when empty.
IMG_9718_fix_web by Edmund, on Flickr
IMG_9711_fix_web by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
Agreed. It has been discontinued for some time now. Sometimes that means it is gone forever but with Walthers sometimes things reappear when you least expect them.
Dave Nelson
FWIW, MFCL says:
The Walthers 4-axle depressed center flat is a model of SOO 54003, 54005, 54007. Bought to ship transformers out of Milwaukee. Later to: WC 35850-35852.
Ed
Well, I watched that flatcar for almost three weeks thinking about it, and I just pulled the trigger and bought it. I could not wait any longer.
I will post pictures of how the kit goes together.
-Kevin
The Devore depressed center flat arrived today.
First glance is very impressive. The one piece metal body casting is a lot thinner and lighter than I expected.
It came with a dozen freight car truck bushings. These will be handy for future projects. The cast metal dummy couplers look very good, and these will find their way into other projects.
The coupler boxes are set up for Kadee #4 couplers. These will be replaced with insulated plastic coupler boxes and 20 series insulated couplers.
I do not think the trucks included are what came with the kit originally.
The brake wheels and staffs are very impressive.
I will start construction in a few weeks.
-Kevin
those couplers work by the way, they are just not Kadee
My Authenticast model of a depressed centre flatcar appears to be identical to the Devore model, and mine likely came with the same couplers, as I have a few of those type in with some older parts. My car was assembled and painted (likely by my Dad) when I got it for Christmas in, I think, 1955.
However, it, and all of the other HO freight cars and locomotives which I received at that time were equipped with Kadee K-type couplers, which featured remote mechanical uncoupling.
I searched in vain for a connection between Devore and Authenticast (Comet Metal Products Co. Inc.), but learned that the latter was established in 1919, and during WW II, produced “identification models” of ships and tanks for the U.S. military.
Here are some better photos of the Authenticast car…
The trucks were originally all-metal, with individual springs, but I replaced them with the MDC ones shown. The original sill steps were wire, while the replacement ones, shown, are from A-Line.
The car came with two cast-metal ship propellers as a load (not exactly qualifying as a “high” or “wide” load), along with the instruction sheet showing four cast-metal models of American tanks. List price, shown as part of the instruction sheet, for the flatcar was $2.50.
Here’s the box…
[IMG]https://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/doctorwayne/Freight%20Cars%20-%20Part%20III/100_7624.