Today we have another pair of cars put together by Bill Gilbert. These were described in the March, 2007 issue of The OO Road as follows.

It is a two-car bolster load high and wide shipment. The Chicago Great Western flat is a Scale Craft with a scribed wood deck. The Pennsylvania flat car is an HO car cut on the centerline, widened, and given a scribed wood deck. Both cars have Schorr trucks and Kadee No. 5 couplers. The tank load is a wood dowel 1 5/8” diameter (10’ 3” 00 scale) with overhang on curves equivalent to a 12’ load. When Bill worked for the railroad one of his duties was to clear loads like this one.

I have a few more details to offer. The PRR car is converted from a Varney car, a HO conversion that worked out very well. Both cars are very sharply made. One thing to note is that the load is the “coupler” between the cars. It is mounted on pins that come up from the supports for the load. The couplers between the cars actually have no knuckles and don’t couple, which gives the car a bit more flexibility on tight curves such as mine.

It is a distinctive car but also a great project of the sort that any reader could accomplish as well.

I will have more cars by Gilbert in a few weeks, ones not featured previously in The OO Road.