Monsters arrived today!

If a box showed up at my door as big as a washer machine box, my wife would have me living in it the next few days.

Waiting on pics.

Yes, they are really big. I don't have any, but I held one of the 86' box cars up to a modern diesel (SD80) at my LHS and the box car was bigger. It kind of made the engine look a bit small. Don't know what the min curve is, but big ones would sure be needed to make it look good. Good luck, and I hope you like them. Looking forward to the pictures.

Yes, You will have to be sure and have at least 081 or 096 or 099, or 0120, curves for these cars to flow freely throughout your layout. I was also amazed at the length of these cars. Come to find out, some have end of train devices??? One thing that's neat is that the coupler housing is close couple, and the trucks are set in very nicely.

I have the Frisco and the Milwaukee Road. They are Fun to Run....They will look nice in a long Auto Carrier Consist.... Enjoy, and Happy Railroading

The boxcars (aka "layout shrinkers") are rated for 054 minimum curves, thanks to the telescoping couplers and possibly some sort of truck voodoo.

 

I have six of them now...they actually snaked through my converted 2-rail Atlas switches (the diverging portion amounts to a 21" radius) so they'll wiggle into a siding's reverse curve that's a bit under their minimum if you need them to.

 

Don't know about the autoracks. Having 50 of the MTH ones, I didn't spring for the Lionel.

 

---PCJ

They are some very impressive looking cars for sure! When I was a conductor on NS I sometimes worked the old Chrysler plant in Newark, De. I can remember pulling and spotting them and the autoracks all day. Those boxcars I believe were only used to transport the car/truck doors. They hung from a rack in the car.

 

Bill

They sure are big. But if I were into freight service, they would be on my layout. Nice purchase, Jason.

One of the main raillines into Cincinnati goes past the practice fields where my kids play ball, so day after day we've seen container trains stacked high, autoracks, coal, tankers, covered hoppers, and mixed freight. Some really neat trains this week, saw some very old cars still painted in their original railroads -- Southern, Milwaukee Road, NYC, it is amazing to me how these cars are still in use.

 

Anyway, my son, who turned 8 this week, loves to see models that mirror what he sees on the rails. He is an on again / off again train fan, but always gets excited when he sees a train on the rails that matches the models he sees at home -- so the autoracks have come to our little railroad. Didn't get to the photos tonight, will most likely be Monday given the kids game schedule this weekend and it being Mother's Day.

 

I thought my MTH auto carriers (Amtrak Auto Train) where giants, these are much larger, will try and show just how big, also great details, really exceptional cars. 

 

 

Here are some photos to show the size difference between these Autoracks and the K=line 21" cars.

Good gravy, that thing is huge!  How high off of the rail does it sit?  Also, how far from the end is the pivot point of the trucks?  I might just have to get one just so that I can make sure my layout's tunnel will be high enough. 

It would be helpful if you could put them on 072 curved track and compare the overhang of both.  I don't recall seeing a similar comparison previously.

We had to raise a couple of bridges on the club layout for them to fit under.

 

When building a layout, that's what you use to check clearances for everything

These sit 4 5/8" off the rail, the distance from the end of the car (not the coupler) to the pivot of the truck is 2 7/8"

 

Just throw a couple of these behind a full scale Big Boy....

I would, but my Big Boy won't make it around the club layout!

 

I moved up to 0-91 radius in my recent upgrade to Atlas track.   Those would look correct now,  may have to dive in for some.   thanks for the photos,  really helps paint the picture on actual size.

I converted some of these to 2 rail, they are nice cars and look so much better with scale couplers and 2 rail wheels. Glad you were able to pick some up too

Here's another photo showing just how big the 86' boxcars are. That's a Lionel scale USRA Mikado for size comparison. 

 

I haven't seen the Lionel auto racks, but I hope they are well weighted. I used to have some of the (smaller) MTH ones, and they had a nasty tendency to stringline. 

 

 Lionel 86' boxcar and Mikado. Click on photo for larger version.

Here's a short video of the Lionel racks on a Santa Fe "V" train. All are converted to scale couplers. I have some of the 86 foot boxes I now mix into these trains, but no video of that yet. All are nice cars and turned me into a Lionel customer:

 

 

120 curves for these guys, they look silly on 072.

 

   Bill T

For those thinking about these or the 86' boxcars, they are really great cars.

 

The talk on this forum about what looks right, wrong, funny, odd, or prototypical, in terms of curves in my view largely depends upon the viewing angle.

 

At eye level nearly all model trains look great going through even tight curves, at the hovering above "God's Eye" angle nearly every model train looks like heck, even on long straight sections.

 

We don't view the real world from above, so why we expect our model worlds to seem natural from this vantage point is beyond me.

 

These cars will go through O-54.

 

Enjoy....

Jason

 

I saw the box cars and auto racks at York. Very impressive indeed. If I was into freight, they would be on the layout.