BTS has a collapsible hitch; I have a couple, but have not unpacked them yet. Your problem is the bracket that fastens to the car end, and lets the bridge ramp pivot up or down on it, it has to be fabbed.
----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Hawley To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 3:18 PM Subject: {S-Scale List} TOFC flats The American Models flat car that will carry a semi-trailer has side rails at one end only - the opposite end from the trailer hitch. The web site picture - http://www.americanmodels.com/rolling.stock/46.foot.flat.html - suggests the trailers would be side-loaded. Enquiry on the Intermodal Yahoo list reveals that was rarely, if ever done. The flat car American Models makes is well suited to TOFC service, but it needs full lenghth side rails and bridge plates, neither of which would be hard to make. And probably for more modern applications, lifting off and on by piggy-packer or gantry crane can be assumed and the bridge plates omitted. A reasonable TOCF train, or block of a train, could be simulated by a mix of AM and SHS TOFC cars. It could be implied that the cars are circus-loaded, though to create a circus-loading scene, you'd need to collapse the hitches so they can be driven over. Both the SHS and AM hitches represent collapsible hitches, but neither will collapse the way they should. The AM hitch is one piece, the SHS four pieces that can be disassembled, but still won't represent a collapsed hitch. The AM hitch with those side-rails can be bought separately to retrofit any AM flat car. The AM hitch can be glued to any flat car, but side rails for other brands would have to be made. And remember that only in the world of toy trains does an AM car have to carry only an AM trailer, &c. Trailers up to 45 feet can be easily carried on both AM and SHS flat cars. Tom Hawley -- Lansing Michigan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected] <*> 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/
