Large Scale Central

What the ....Scale question

Modeling
#1

The other day I was out at a local hobby store, looking for something to pull behind my accucraft Ruby. They had a Bachmann 20 foot boxcar on sale so I bought one, and also grabbed an Aristo 20 foot gondola

Bachmann lists that boxcar as being in 1:20, but right away I could tell that was wrong. I measured the door, and it came to less than 2.75 inches, which in 1:20 would make it about a 55 inch door. Was this a boxcar used to transport dwarves? It would only be a reasonably sized door in 1:32! I didn’t even start on the aristo gondola. Weirdly, the Bachmann car is 12 inches long, which makes it the right length in 1:20

It looks fine behind the Ruby if you aren’t paying attention, and I weathered it up and it made my wife smile, which was the original point. But what was Bachmann thinking? The car has nice detail for a very low price, but it’s loony in terms of scale.

My assumption is that Kader, the parent company, has a bunch of molds and tooling they’ve acquired and they want to sell them. It sort of works if “whimsy” is the goal, but in any kind of sense of accuracy it’s nuts

#2

Mike,
Bacvhmann lists the car as 1/20.3. However, they also list it under their Big Hauler line and not the Spectrum.
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=770

That being said…many older boxcars were rather short in height.
There was a thread a while back with pictures showing the various sizes of box cars. Some were very short in height.
Ralph

#3

The 20foot Bmann cars ARE 1/20…maybe, if they were 2 foot gauge.

These go way back before Bmann had any real 1/20 stuff, they were ment to be a smaller option than the big full size freight cars for guys like me who have very small layout, they were originally listed as 1/22.5 but are optimally better at 1/24 scale, they work fine on my 1/22 layout. Supposedly they were based on Maine 2 footer protos

The Aristo cars are complete NKPs ( No Known Prototypes ) they are popular overseas were they have been easily modified to closer to Brit or Euro profile. I really disliked them as built. the spring loaded suspension and the body mounted couplers tend to easily derail on R1 curves and switches. The ones I have, boxcar converted to regular trucks, and caboose w/ track cleaner block that derails on a whim

#4
Victor Smith said:
...The Aristo cars are...popular overseas were they have been easily modified to closer to Brit or Euro profile...
Sir - living in both worlds as I do, and having passed many years playing trains in both of them, I can advise you that there is not a single Aristocraft freight car of any kind that bears anything more than a very distant resemblance to any British freight car that I have ever seen. The only similarity, AFAICS, is that many modern British freight cars also have eight wheels. I've just looked through the AristoCraft catalogue, too, and there is nothing there that rings a bell. Since I also model in Euro H0 as well as US/Can H0, I looked there, too.

No banana, Sir.

It would be pretty neat to see some examples, please, so that I can be certain of my facts.

tac
www.ovgrs.org

#5

I like the Bachmann car, it looks nice, but it’s kind of crazy, even in two foot gage. Who wants a boxcar with a door 4.5 feet high?

#6

I always thought it was a 36 ft boxcar, which would make the door a reasonable height.

#7

Mike,
origin of the cars depends on who you talk to. Some say the Bach-Man (who apparently designs/paints a lot of their stuff), simply penned the dimensions and rough drawings on a small piece of paper. Others say there actually is a prototype and that the cars were based on them. The Sandy River & Rangely Lake R.R. (2 foot gauge) did use boxcars with doors barely five foot in height, in the early days. Possibly, the size is right but the gauge is wrong?

#8

These cars came out right about the same time as the Shay. A mixture of first- and second-hand info suggests the following: Due to the popularity of the Shay, Bachmann decided that these cars could be labeled as 1:20 in an attempt to ride the wave. They would later admit the marketing gaffe, but did nothing to correct it. If I recall, they were models of 24’ prototypes actually done to 1:24. They actually work very well for 1:29n3, all you need do is regauge the trucks to O gauge.

The bottom line, there were “never” narrow gauge cars built to those proportions when measured in 1:20. The earliest Billmeyer & Small 8-wheel stuff was 6’ x 23’, and that quickly expnaded to 7’ x 25+’. The flat and gon work okay for industrial stuff, but the box car is far too low.

Later,

K

#9
Terry A de C Foley said:
Victor Smith said:
...The Aristo cars are...popular overseas were they have been easily modified to closer to Brit or Euro profile...
Sir - living in both worlds as I do, and having passed many years playing trains in both of them, I can advise you that there is not a single Aristocraft freight car of any kind that bears anything more than a very distant resemblance to any British freight car that I have ever seen. The only similarity, AFAICS, is that many modern British freight cars also have eight wheels. I've just looked through the AristoCraft catalogue, too, and there is nothing there that rings a bell. Since I also model in Euro H0 as well as US/Can H0, I looked there, too.

No banana, Sir.

It would be pretty neat to see some examples, please, so that I can be certain of my facts.

tac
www.ovgrs.org


My dear sir, I NEVER said they were ACCURATE models… :wink:

#10
Victor Smith said:
My dear sir, I NEVER said they were ACCURATE models... ;)
True [snegro].

tac
www.ovgrs.org

#11

And this one? Accucraft 1:20.3

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/jebouck/accubox.jpg)

#12

John, that’s a c. 1870 Billmeyer & Small 4-wheel box car. The prototype was a mere 14’ long. I don’t know how Accucraft’s model scales out, since I’ve never seen one in person, but they were most decidedly small cars. Assuming the ties are roughly spaced 2’ apart, then the model is 14’ long, too.

By 1871, B&S had gone to supplying the D&RG with 23’ x 6’ eight-wheeled freight cars, which were the first 8-wheeled cars built for narrow gauge railways in the US.

Later,

K

#13

Kevin,

In your latest GR article, you used that popular EBT photo of the Mt. Union freight transfer shed. From memory, do you know the length of the standard gauge PRR box car?

#14

I’m fairly certain it’s a 40’ box car. If I’m reading the on-line roster correctly, it’s PRR X-29 class box car.

Later,

K

#15
Kevin Strong said:
I'm fairly certain it's a 40' box car. If I'm reading the on-line roster correctly, it's PRR X-29 class box car.

Later,

K


Thank you. 40 footer, huh? Hmmmm. I’ve always thought that would be a great diorama for any model railroad. Just one standard gauge car on a piece of dual gauge trackage. I think of that and that EBT transfer picture always comes to mind. Another project.