Just received a e-mail from Menards announcing their new enclosed auto carrier.
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They look very nice. I will wait and see who picks them apart.😉
They look like a stretched and widened version of the Lionel 027 autoracks. At 17.5" measured over the couplers, according to their site, they're slightly shorter than MTH's Premier-class autoracks.
Just have to make up some railroad logo stickers to place on the blank panels up on the car sides. If Menards treats these the same way as the double-stack cars (only offering the two colors), a sticker pack much like their billboards would be an ideal addition, as there are a number of roadnames that would work with the yellow and brown base color (CSX/UP for the yellow, and NS/Conrail for the brown, for example)
Mark, ya may want to have that line in the website's copy about "metal couplers" edited to "operating couplers", if the provided photos are correct then these have the standard plastic roller-bearing-style trucks. Wouldn't want anyone anyone here fussing over that detail
(adds to his shopping list despite having 50+ of the MTH 'racks)
---PCJ
When did the autoracks start getting the paneled sides? 80’s?
They're great for $40, I'd like to see them be a few inches longer to be scale...
Did you notice Menards didn't announce them in this forum ?
@cabinet Bob posted:Did you notice Menards didn't announce them in this forum ?
Why do you think that is?
Menards announced their new enclosed auto carrier.
Are the automobiles visible?
Edited as below:
From later posts I see the automobiles are not visible. Wow, one can save a lot of money and not purchase all those O gauge automobiles.
Charlie
From Benton, AR
@cabinet Bob posted:Did you notice Menards didn't announce them in this forum ?
Do you blame them!
@ChiTown Steve posted:When did the autoracks start getting the paneled sides? 80’s?
Between 1970 and 1980 was when various protective panels were introduced.
Andrew
Thanks. I’ve expanded my layout into the 70’s time frame. Mostly so I can add more cool muscle cars. So that puts these in play.
All this babble and no link?
Here you go! Looks great to me!
It looks like a copy of Lionels traditional line of enclosed auto carriers abeit that the menards cars are sealed...no way to add a load. Another thing is all flat cars are labeled dttx which is a doublestack container car marking instead of ettx [tri level rack] or bttx [bi-level rack]. The good thing is the cars are sold individually or in a 4 pack with 4 different numbers.
The only question remains is performance! Will the cars be top heavy or weighted on the underframe of the flat car.
I don't know what the weight has to do with it, I have many Lionel and MTH cars that I had to add weight to. The Price is nice and makes it easier for guys like me to be involved in the Model RR Hobby! Not the Real RR!
@mike g. posted:Here you go! Looks great to me!
Thank you. Not a bad-looking car.
My order for a 4 pack is in!
5" HIGH?
Cars would never fit under my bridges.
I don’t care if they are a tad compressed, but I’m curious how they would look behind a scale sd70. Since the real ones look so huge, especially on a small layout, I’m curious to see them in action.
After browsing this thread, I went down the rabbit hole of reading about the history of auto-carriers and discovered the Vert-a-PAC, specially designed to transport Chevy Vegas -vertically! GM must have had high hopes, to have a specific auto transport designed for one specific car model. I don’t imagine we’ll see a scale model of the Vert-a-Pac anytime soon