PRODUCT REVIEW: 1:29 SCALE ROLLING STOCK
Manufacturer: USA Trains, P.O. Box 100, Malden, MA 02148. Price: R-17502 ready-to-run Southern Pacific generator flatcar and R-17602 Union Pacific pipe load flatcar $66.95 each suggested list.
USA TRAINS' FLATCARS with loads are excellent 1:29 scale models. They represent 42 foot standard gauge cars from the mid to late 1920s, with or without bulkheads, with appropriate loads. They carry on USA Trains' tradition of top quality and beautiful decoration.
The flatcar represents the same prototype Train Miniatures chose to model in HO scale about twenty years ago. Walthers' bought the Train Miniatures line and offers the same car today. USA Trains' 1:29 scale version exhibits minor changes in detail and measures a scale 4 or 5 inches longer and wider, so it scales 42 feet 10 inches long by 10 feet 8 inches wide (across the stake pockets). The prototype probably would have had Bettendorf trucks in revenue service but USA Trains' model has archbar trucks. The railroads abandoned archbar trucks for revenue service in the 1930s.
As you might expect, the model has clean, crisp die work and graphics. Even the rivets are close to scale and the ratchet and pawl on the USA Trains flatcar deck is missing from the HO scale car. The underbody also represents prototype freight car practice. Yes, the manufacturer has taken liberties here and there but none is objectionable.
The lettering is close to that of actual cars and the yellow and red paint scheme of the Union Pacific car might have existed. To our knowledge, Southern Pacific cars never used yellow lettering on Tuscan red. Again, we find the liberties unobjectionable and, if you want a more accurate car, buy some paint and dry transfers and do it yourself. The generator load car also comes in D&RGW and New York Central paint schemes; the additional choices for the pipe car are D&RGW and Pennsylvania.
Loads often "make" a flatcar and USA Trains has done a nice job with them. The yellow and black generator castings have good detail and are visually interesting. Real metal chains tie down the loads to wood colored plastic timbers. The pipe load also seems convincing. It also has real metal chains. Both cars are the first of their kind in the large scale market.
You must add individual press-in grab irons, brake staff, and brakewheel. Even in the case of the pipe load flat with its fourteen grab irons, that job takes about ten minutes. On our samples, each piece fit perfectly in its mounting holes and we needed no cement.
OR contributor John Derr has used USA Trains flatcars to represent narrow gauge flatcars in 1:22.5 scale and 1:29 scale modelers will find them equally effective in standard gauge trains. Once again, USA Trains has broadened the selection of large scale rolling stock by providing a product with top quality components, assembly, and decoration.-RR
