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Piko American freight cars


Jim Miller
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  • 2 months later...

I have been running them for 6 years now  as I read in old Outdoor Modeler articles that Gary Raymond said they were pretty near 1/32 scale. The hoppers (both ribbed or offset sides) are near scale and a great buy for the money. As Jerry said now you can just screw the Kadee couplers on. I also added somebrake cylinders and air reservoirs and some brake wheels on some of mine. The box cars and the reefers are about one inch too short which is a problem when included in a train with MTH or Accucraft (or brass) scale cars. Furthermore the reefers are box car height that is too high. The length can quite easely be corrected by sacrificing one body and cutting slices to lengthen both the body and the roof, however on the reefers it is quite a more complicated job. Some have spliced reefer sides onto box cars to make them scale length.

 

I hapened to have three reefers one of which I had already cannibalised partly to make a couple of Gondolas (for the dreadnought ends and the trucks and brake gear.) that left me with an incomplete body and enough to make two scale reefers. I wanted some Fruit Growers Express reefers but no one makes any, I was able to locate some decals for it, I decided to attempt a "salami" kit bash, as I call it.  There are two slices on each side to make the sides correct length (one 6mm long and one 10 milimeters long), and then I took about 11 millimeters of under the roof. The door was a problem as it had to be lowered too. so I cut two horizontal slices out of them. I used my Proxon circular saw to do this, with a special blade for plastic, be carefull doing this. Once it was all cut I adjusted and glued back the parts using ABS solvent. I then puttied it up  and sprayed a grey (white would be better) primer, so as not to see the markings and heralds.  As I apreciate the simpicity of the Piko (ex MDC ) cars and their robust construction in comparison to the very well detailed but very fragile Accucraft ones I did not go all out and redo the grab irons. But you can if you want to, it is a bit tedious in the dreadnought ends though.Here are the results:

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Me too Jerry but I had the cars taking up space in my shop and all the parts to make something out of them at least now I can run them. Besides it was a small project before our trip to the US we leave in a week. Actually with the circular saw it was a lot quicker than the last time I did this sort of thing with just a hack saw making two UIC standard flats out of three Maerklin ones which are too short; It was more precise too. When you see the super job John Brown does with coaches and diesels, this is a quickie... I wish I could find one of those Garish E 7 or E8. Well happy running to all, we shall be runing on the real things for a few weeks on Amtrak.

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THose Piko cars are from the MDC/Roundhouse molds they bought. So any MDC you see for sale is the same.  Piko has added a flatcar to the line, so that is new , and some re-paints.

Those Garich E7 or E8's are hard to find, not many made. Ted Sharpe was in with him on it. I've never seen one. Old phone # for them:  206-255-2453    Rich Garich go out and then it became SVRR, not sure if anyone there could give you a lead or not.  One comes on ebay once a year or so.

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Yes I guess they are pretty rare, it's just that I remember riding behind the ex PRR ones on Amtrak early Boston New Haven runs when I was in college in New York city. I would just love to make an E 7 lash up it would be fantastic In Brunswick green and gold leaf. Once I saw one on an English auction I bet on it but someone else got the bird. Those MDC cars have been indeed taken up by Piko now who have redone work on them but they havent figured out what a gold mine it would be if they just gave them the scale dimensions. By the way after having done many fake liveries and paint schemes for a few years, they are now offering them in pretty good paint schemes like the Reading hopper and box car , NYC Pacemaker service box car and B&O hoppers and Timesaver liveries. I dont know if the flat car is 1/32 (or near it) or G scale most of their own designs are very large, it could even be a narrow gauge car like the caboose. So not ideal to model in 1/32 scale.

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Some time ago I asked Piko about their flatcar.

Which scale
Which model or AAR-type
Is it compatible with one gauge 1/32

The only answer,
No, the proportions do not fit with one gauge

I think they are right ;)

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  • 1 month later...
 
  • 4 weeks later...

Just a note for those who might be tempted to follow this kitbashing recipe. It is OK in a train but not really good for an isolated car the reason is:  That the width of these cars is greater than the width of standard AAR reefers and when I shortened the height it shortened the ends which are near square in proportion where they should be a rectangle higher than the width. So from the ends the cars look a bit odd. Well now they are rolling before they were sitting around taking space and not being used. The better bet is to lengthen the box cars these should be accurate and a lot less work. Someone did a post on that in another forum... I just wanted to say this, as I don't want to encourage folks to do all this work and be disapointed after with the results... happy steaming,

Simon

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