One of the flat cars my friend sent was a Frisco flat car. It is yellow plastic with pad printed black lettering. The stake pockets are round (cylindrical)...go figure. There is heavy rivet detail all over the sides and underframe of the car. The underneath center sill is both deep and wide. I filed the stake pockets as close to flat as I could get them. The insides of the stake pockets (also round) were filed out with a small square pattern maker's file so stakes would fit in them. The rivet detail on the sides has been mostly removed with a chisel pointed exacto. It would be nice to change the couplers to the small, scale size KD's, but you can't because the individual who built the car glued the draft gear cover plates on. Additionally, there's no screw holding the cover plate on---not even a hole for a screw. There's a plastic nub that sticks down through the draft gear box, so it would probably break if any modification was attempted. The stakes, horizontal boards the rails rest on, etc., are purposely uneven, not the same length, etc., because that seems to be the way it was commonly done on the railroad. Just use whatever you find laying around. There are photos--either on Mike Condren's site or here--of some Frisco rail cars that were so heavily weathered that they looked almost black; where the reporting number was located some yellow still showed. That's the look I went for on these cars. Mostly to hide the yellow plastic look, but partly because they're in MOW service. Anyway, it's clearly not correct for a Frisco car, but rather a representation of one of Frisco's MOW flatcars. Here are a few shots of the rail car. It's close to done. Some of the photos were taken outside the MOW area because the light coming in the window behind the MOW facility backlights everything and you can't get good photos there during the day.
Paul, Whatever brand this car was , you made it look anatomically correct. As per the coupler pocket you might want to cut out the existing pocket and install a Kadee. This car could have been an Athearn blue box, or a Concord, or a Cox, Tyco.... who knows? John
Thanks, John. Tyco is what I was guessing, but Cox and Concord are brands I don't know...so it could be one of those.
