I have seen a number of the real world “flat car-type” larger scale test cars on Google images, and while I have built the small 4-wheel type that Walthers issued (many years ago), I seem to recall there being HO scale kits of that larger flat car style, the ones with the small scale equipment “house” in the middle of the flat car, on top of which there were angled sides. Who used to make a model of this? Bachmann? Athearn? Model Power? ???
I cannot recall- or is this just my mind playing tricks at my age?
Frank- the 100 ton ones were built on a flat car base with 2 trucks. I think the Bachmann flat car might be a good kitbash starting point for me, but I swear that there were kit models of this years ago!
Years ago Stewart Products offered a Scale Test Car in metal kit form, but I don’t know if the larger sized unit was offered. If you don’t find the scale test car that you’ve mentioned, you can use the cupola from a “Wide Vision” caboose to kitbash a unit. Bachmann produced an inexpensive wide vision caboose than can still be found at swap meets, and on ebay for bargain prices. Here’s a sample:
I have a plastic HO scale test car that was purchased about 10 years ago, but I don’t recall who made it – perhaps Walthers. I don’t believe it was an Athearn or MDC product.
It’s not what you call a “larger sized” car, though – only 4 wheels. I’ve never seen a larger car modeled in plastic by anyone.
I “just happen to have” a scrap drawer wide-vision cupola- thanks for that clue!
The flat car lower sill (between the two trucks) is longer than the Bachmann steel flat car (as per the images of the Overland Model’s brass version), so two flat cars would have to be kitbashed together to create that longer center sill, but the Overland Model’s underside detail permits reinforcement with Plastruct I-beams, as well as fashioning my own custom sized under carriage weight from a lead sheet- now: on to the dimensions!
I still swear that there used to be a real model kit for the larger scale test car- or was it in a hobby shop located in the “Twilight Zone” that I saw it???
I found this post while searching for this exact same model, and I thought that I would bump it up to see if anyone else had any ideas. One of these is down the road from me at the Gold Kist feed mill right now, and I would also like to model it.
By sheer chance I noticed a picture on page 47 of the August 2007 addition of Model Railroader has both the small and the large scale test car. Now I have no way of knowing if it is the brass version or not, but it looks like exactly what we are looking for. I would snap a picture of the image in the magazine, but the owners of this forum might frown on the copyright issues there.
