Another Detailed Heavy Duty Flat Car Kit


D&J RailRoad

D&J RailRoad

Professor of HO
This kit is an F-38 Pennsylvania car by Eastern Car Works. It's a plastic kit so should be less brittle than the previous model.

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The instructions are from a perspective of someone who has put this together. Obviously lacking information that would help someone who just dumped the parts outa the box.
An illustration is on the one page instruction sheet but looks like it was scribbled by someone as a last minute thought. Prolly would have cut into the profit margin to be a bit more detailed.

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Got the deck assembled. I can use the welding glue on this model. Once I got the deck together, I flipped over the instruction sheet and it mentions adding weight before glueing the deck together. Dang!
The car takes four Buckeye trucks. They provide the truck frames and JayBee 33" wheels. I had some other Buckeye trucks already assembled so I decided to use them instead.


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An interesting point on this build.
The king pin on the bottom of the car fits through a socket on the truck bolster but doesn't extend all the way through.
The kit doesn't provide anything to complete the connection there and the instructions seem to imply there is nothing else to secure the mount.
I drilled a hole in the pin as a start to use a screw. As I dig through my spare parts bin, I don't have anything that would be small enough in diameter but with a large enough head to mount the bolster. A screw that would have a large enough head is as thick as the pin.

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D&J RailRoad said:
An interesting point on this build.
The king pin on the bottom of the car fits through a socket on the truck bolster but doesn't extend all the way through.
The kit doesn't provide anything to complete the connection there and the instructions seem to imply there is nothing else to secure the mount.
I drilled a hole in the pin as a start to use a screw. As I dig through my spare parts bin, I don't have anything that would be small enough in diameter but with a large enough head to mount the bolster. A screw that would have a large enough head is as thick as the pin.

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Strange, could it be a design fault do you think?
 
Got a work around for the kingpin issue.
The kit doesn't provide a means of securing the car body to the truck bolster. It's just supposed to sit on the bolster.
I drilled then reamed out the bolster pin on the car body then tapped it for the screw.

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The brake cylinder is supposed to mount on a beam that is glued to the bolster, covering the hole where the pin is. The pin doesn't protrude all the way through the bolster.

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The screw is small enough to thread into the pin and when I drill through the brake cylinder mount, the head of the screw keeps the mount and the bolster in place.
This is the screw in place, going through the brake cylinder mount then through the bolster then into the king pin.

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D&J RailRoad said:
I had to cut then shave a shim for the coupler pockets. Couplers were flopping up and down in there.
Got the bolsters mounted to the body. Now just a few more detail parts then the decals and this one will go into service.

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What is the minimum curve radius for that flat car? The way the trucks are designed doesn't look like it can take much
 
I've wondered about that myself but seeing as my empire has a minimum 48" radius, I don't think there will be a problem. I do have a curved turnout on an industry that this car might serve that might be a problem. I wish broader curved radius turnout that are more than the street trolley 22" was available.
 
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