I purchase two of this car kits: Kit 4161 and Kit 4163. These are based on CMSP&P (Milwaukee Road) rib sided cars. I opted for single door cars; but, double door kits are also available. Both are very nice kits, maybe just slightly more difficult to assemble than Accurail Box car kits. They have some small parts to install such as diagonal braces under the ends of the roof walks and under the brake platform. The kits come with decals for the car ID. numbers so you can literally have any car number you want. The trucks have blackened brass wheel sets and the trucks themselves are sprung. Both my truck sets could be more easy rolling and eventually I will replace them with more free rolling-solid (UN-sprung) trucks and likely replace the wheel sets with my P2K wheels I’ve used on everything else.
The completed cars are very nice looking and for $19.39 + $3.00 shipping for up to 3 cars I feel the price is reasonable for these unusual cars and their not over charging for shipping, either.
If you like to build your rolling stock, give Rib Side a try!
Very nice kits, straight-forward assembly, reasonably priced. A definitive improvement on the previous widely available kits for this type of car.
You really can’t realistically model mainline action from the 40 to the 60s without having at least one Milwaukee rib-side boxcar pop up in a consist from time to time.
I see that FVM announced 50-foot versions of the rib-sides in N scale back in January. I hope this means that we’ll see some in HO sometime soon.
These are very nice kits. I replace the roof walk with a Kadee one, and replace the molded-on grabs with metal ones. IIRC, my first kits did not have Tahoe trucks. I used Accurail trucks with I-M wheels.
I built 4 of these recently. I’m also very happy with the results.
One very nice feature is that the cars are lettered, but come without road numbers. A decal sheet is provided, along with a listing of which numbers are appropriate for which cars. The kits have both steel and wood roof walks, so you can consult the info sheet and make sure you get the right combination of roof walk, road number and built-on date.
I too, have enjoyed these, as I found them in an LHS in LaCrosse, WI.
Although, at the moment I do not have any postable pix, I can load them if requested.
For me, I pretty much built them box stock, except for wheels & couplers.
Although I did make a custom sawdust load for the wood chip car, representing new cut chips.
I’ll take/post pix on request.
I enjoy the uniqueness of these models & appreciate the folks that took the risk to produce them!
Thank You!!!
I had bought one of the Intermountain kits of a Milwaukee ribbed-side car, but later found that it was too modern for my late-'30s layout era. It was one that lacked the full-length ribs. When the Rib Side Cars kit became available, a friend ordered one, then swapped the un-built kit for my already-built Intermountain car.
I added some brake rigging and Detail Associates bracket-style grabs, along with modified A-Line sill steps and home-made roofwalk grabs, but wish that I would have got a Champ decal set and re-lettered the entire car, as the number and “NEW” weigh info is too distinct in comparison to the rest of the car’s lettering. The October 1939 BLT date places it just barely within my era (although my scenery better represents an earlier time of the year [:-^] ) and the car should represent one on only its first or second revenue trip, with very little weathering.
The sprung trucks which came with the kit look quite similar to those once offered by Lindberg or a later version from LaBelle, although I would have preferred the ones from Tahoe.
I have built two of these kits and have five more left to build. Mine came with wire grabs and separate ladders, the trucks were by a company called EB and I understand they are the old Lindberg trucks.
This is one of two cars purchased by the WP from the MILW. They modified the car with 10’ sliding doors and Spartan Easy Loaders. They were used in the appliance pool for Amana in Iowa. Decals are by Detail Associates.
This is the second kit I built, it is stock and I chose to paint and decal it in the middle scheme, the decals were provided with the undecorated kit.
Great rules, Rick J! Seems to me that imagination is sort of taking a back seat to reality these days! I certainly see no reason that Free-Lance can’t be a choice, anymore.
