These cars look real nice and thinking of adding one to my fleet, but read a review saying the model is too fragile for use with removable loads. I like operating with removable loads and considering the price of this car would appreciate any experienced opinions before hitting the buy button.
Thanks and regards, Peter
Peter,
I haven’t seen one in person and have seen only one video review. It mentioned the warning about not picking up the car by the center partition, as it is very scale in cross section and thus fragile.
My take would be is how careful are you in handling rolling stock? I’m in narrowgauge, so it’s second nature to grab things carefully. This care has a very specific caution, which for me would be easy enough to follow as far as handling the car. And that’s inevitable when working with open loads that you probably can’t just set something downon and leave be. That’s hard to do with the design of this car. Even the prototype had special cautions about how it was loaded to keep it from tipping.[;)]
If one is willing to take the necessary care, it should work fine with removable loads IMO. Just don’t pick it up by the partition, whether or not it’s loaded.
I have two and if you handel it careful you will be ok.
I have two and so far haven’t had a chance to run them but they probably aren’t much more fragile than their other highly detailed models. If you want a 60’ Centerbeam for late 1970’s and later, it’s either ER or find a McKean or Front Range kit, which those are a challenge to build. I think with the ER cars, you should be careful of the ends mainly and you’ll be ok.
Thanks for the input. Santa’s on the way. Pulled the trigger last night and ordered one, had to take advangage of Exactrail minumum purchase free shipping offer and so threw in one of their wood chip gondolas too. These will be my first Exactrail RTR rolling stock.
Wasn’t that long ago I wouldn’t even consider forking out the moola’ for fancy RTR rolling stock, but after recently collecting a few Intermountain, Foxvalley and Athearn RTR models I’m becoming spoiled. I make excuses for this self-indulgence, like failing eyesight and limited hobby time, but gosh, this RTR stuff sure looks good and the detail is great. The danger is that they look too good, especially compared to much of my old kit based fleet.
regards, Peter
The ExactRail Centerbeams are very nice, although unlike most of their products, the centerbeams did have some QAQC issues so check yours to make sure the flat car part isn’t warped and the centerbeam section fits down into it with no daylight. ER stands behind their products and will replace it at no expense to you if yours does have issues.
If you model the late 80’s, the Walthers Centerbeams are pretty nice too, although the ER cars are more detailed.
As for fancy RTR rolling stock, I’ve bought plenty of kits over the years, but I am pleased with much of the nice stuff from Genesis, ER, Intermountain and Foxvalley, even Athearn RTR. I’ll mix them both, old kits and new RTR however. I only have one SOO box car from Fox Valley but expect to add more eventually. I have to pacemyself for the nice stuff as it is costly. My latest orders were for a few of the new ExactRail Rio Grande Bethlehem 3483 coal hoppers. Wish I could afford a unit train but again, have to spread it out and they will be gone in a few more weeks.
Riogrande, Thanks for the reply and the tip about the Exactrail CB, I’ll give it a good eyeball when it arrives.
I did consider the Walthers CB, but I’m modeling the early 80s and have always liked the looks of the opera window cars. Those 3483 coal hoppers do look nice and they certainly would make a nice unit train. I know what you mean about pacing the rolling stock expenditures, I’ve gone a bit overboard lately.
regards, Peter
Yes, era is key for some types of Freight cars. Maybe I’m crazy but I’m covering 70’s and 80’s but the ExactRail Centerbeam represents cars first built in 1977 according to articles I’ve read in Model Rail Journal (they are on www.trainlife.com). The Walthers 72’ CB cars were produced a good 10 years later around 1987; because that is so late in my modeling era, I only have 4 - but might pick up a couple more as they were prominant on D&RGW bridge traffic trains.
Prior to the release of the much anticipated ER CB cars, the only game in town were some difficult to build Front Range cars, which were later improved slightly and released by McKean. I bought and built a Front Range CB car painted for Western Pacific but the side sill came out wavy due to difficulty in getting the parts to mesh flat and clean. If built well it was a decent car when finished although some parts like the grab irons were chunky and thick. That WP CB was incorrectly painted dark blue and I had to repaint it the proper black color - I still have it, more as a conversation piece than anything. I sold my only other car - an unbuilt BN McKean kit when the ER cars came out. The glory of this hobby is there are a lot of kits out on the secondary market so those who are always complaining out the lack of kits being produced need look no further than their local swap meet, HO Interchange list, or auction site!
I was surprised to find that my cars did not include any tie down cables. These are needed to secure a load on these cars and are very visible on the empty prototype cars.
Mark
You are the first person to mention being surprised at not having the tiedown cables. Do any RTR cars have tiedown cables out of the box? I don’t recall seeing any. I was not surprised. The ER cars are very nice but adding those would have probably increased the cost significantly and they weren’t cheap as it was.
For some things, there’s still no substitute for actually rolling up the sleeves and doing some modeling. Consider just how thin these tie-downs would have to be, even just to look scale, let alone be that thin in HO. They’re be like gossamer. They wouldn’t surviev or even allow loading unless they’re flexible. I have some balck elastic that makes pretty good tiedowns if you don’t look closely as it makes it easy to stay taut. But it would probably scale out to at least as big a the hose on a gas pump, maybe larger. If ERused it, people would complain about the out of scale tie-down cables.[oops]
Mark, Thanks for the reply. Visiting the “The Funnel”, Sandpoint, Idaho last summer I saw many CB flatcars and the tie-down cables you mention were prominent. Though modeling actual tie-downs would certainly look good I would think it difficult to use them with removeable loads. I did read a review of the Exactrail CB car that advised against using removable loads and that the car should be used either permanently loaded or empty.
Have yet to receive my Exactrail CB car and maybe I’m looking for trouble, but plan on bucking the reviewer’s advice and scratch build two removable one piece lumber loads. This car will only see low speed service on my small switching layout, so I’m hoping that if the loads have enough heft and aren’t too tall they will stay put.
regards, Peter