Model Railroading > MRL log flats from the new Walthers Canadian 50' flat.

Here is a copy of what I have posted on the MRL Yahoo groups site. These seem to be really nice cars. They will look great on an MRL layout.

My undecorated Walthers Canadan 50' Bulkhead Flat Car kits were at
the Treasure Chest were waiting for me today. These are # 932-
40050. These seem to be really sweet kits. They consist of a number
of fine castings which are sharp and contain details like banding
strap anchors cast into them account these parts are too small to do
any other way except perhaps via metal etchings. The ladder rungs
are better than many of the Walther's attempts and certainly on par
with Intermountain and Athearn's recent offerings. I would have
liked to have seen the wooden deck details as a separate wood or
plastic parts but that is not the case. The kit comes with the main
body assembled and it is well weighted for running as and empty car.
The bulk of the assembly is building the multi part bulkheads and
adding the underbody details of the brake rigging. The stirrup steps
are cast as part of the body but are well protected and do not look
like they will be easily broken off during layout use.

So now let's get out our copies of Bob Del Grosso's MRL 2000
Locomotive and Freight Bar book. Most of the MRL cars are the same
with 15 stake pockets on the sides. The chief difference I have seen
are in the jacking pads and lifting arrangements on the 4 corners low
and near each truck side. The kit comes with a lift pad which I call
a fabricated type. About 4 pieces of steel are welded together in a
shape represented by MRL 61065 on page 86 of Bob's book. The next
lift point is what I call a stamping. A flat piece of metal is
stamped into a rounded shape with a hole for using a cable to pull or
lift the car and a flat piece of metal welded to the bottom for
lifting. This is represented by cars MRL 61024 and MRL 61034 on page
85 in the book. The final variant is a common tab of metal welded
below the car side with a hole drilled into if for pulling. This
type of tab is featured on MRL 61087 on page 86 and MRL 61133 on page
87. The kit comes with the fabricated type making those cars the
easiest to model. The next easiest will be the cars with the tabbed
pulling anchors since you will be able to chisel off the castings on
the carbody and replace those parts with small pieces of plastic
which can be drilled after assembly. The stamped appliances will be
hardest to replicate though that should not prove difficult. A nice
etched metal part with a forming jig would be perfect should anyone
want to go into the model railroad parts business.

The other variant seems to be the tall end ladders. On some MRL cars
they remain. Some have the ladder cut off above the brake wheel and
others just have the rungs cut off leaving the vertical members in
tact to the tops of the bulkheads. All cars seem to have been built
with low brake wheels and cross over platforms on both ends.

So Walthers has made construction of a small fleet of MRL log flats a
very reasonable project. Details West log bunks are close to those
the MRL uses though they are too short and designed differently at
the bottom. These should be pretty easy to fabricate from Evergreen plastic parts or
brass shapes if you feel the need to build them rugged. I think the
major decals can be cobbled together from the early MRL decal sheets
from Micro Scale though dimensional data may take more work.

So thanks to Walthers for making such a great kit for the MRL along
with several Canadian roads. The BCr cars in dark and two tone green
were so common on the MILW in the 1970s loaded with loads of
dimensional lumber. I am sure I am going to end up with a bunch of
these kits and prebuilts in time.

Great review of the new log cars from Walthers. I am eagerly waiting for mine to arrive. I just finished uploading a bunch of photos of MRL log cars for others to use for modeling references. Check them out here http://www.pbase.com/mrmrl/mrl_log_cars I plan on adding other photos of MRL freight cars in the future, I have over 400 shots of freight cars that I have taken from my trips to Montana and from wherever else I have seen MRL cars.

Mr. MRL

The second production run of these cars is going to include cars decorated for MRL.

Also, are the stake pockets suitable for receiving scale stakes? Besides using these cars for forest products, I used to see the CN ones loaded with spooled wire which was restrained by half-height stakes linked by chain. I also seem to recall the CN cars used for aluminum ingots.

There are no correct log bunks available to make the conversion. The Details West cast bunks are close but are of a different design and not tall enough. The bunks MRL uses are constructed of square steel tube and should be pretty easy to scratch build from Evergreen styrene or K&S brass parts. The stake pockets on the model are probably too small to insert a bunk part but they are scale size. That is not too much of an issue since you can glue the log bunks to the floor of the car. Lower stakes for ingot loading could probably just rest on top of the pockets or have a small wire inserted in the bottom of the stake to pass through the pocket. The prototype pockets are not very large and Walthers captured their size accurately.