Hi Pieter and Group. To add to what Pieter wrote, flats generally carried high/wide loads. So they had to be as low as possible. Having been around a few, here is what I've observed. The center of the knuckle is about 33 inches from the railhead. That puts the top of the pin and cut bar about 42 to 44 inches above the railhead. The top of the decking on the flat needs to clear that by a couple of inches. That way, if the load overhangs, or the flat is used as an idler, everything will clear. The decking also has to be thick enough to allow the load to clear the brake wheel when lowered. If memory serves right, most decking was about 2 inches thick. Sometimes, if the decking was busted out over the truck wheels, you could see how close the top of the wheels were to the bottom of the deck. On a personal note, empty flats were the most difficult thing to see at night in the rail yard, no matter what angle you were viewing them from. I've seen people get hurt, and accidents/derailments happen because of empty flats, and how difficult they are to see at night. Barry.
-----Original Message----- From: pieter_roos Re: Flat Car Scratchbuild Looking at a few plans, it appears many prototype flats have a deck less than four feet above the rail head which is pretty challenging to achieve. The deck needs to be as thin as possible while still holding the coupler mounting screw. I'd say the same thickness as the HO car would work in S, just keep track of the coupler height to make it match NASG standard. Pieter The poll results are in....... To REPLY to the list, use REPLY ALL, to reply to the sender, use REPLY. I do NOT know if this works on all e-mail software, but it works on some of the most common ones. For those of you on DIGEST mode, all REPLY messages go to the list. Change your membership, change your message settings, use our CALENDAR, view shared files or photos, view the list archives, GO TO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
