Quote from: Kevin Strong on May 13, 2009, 01:38:31 PM
The "1:20" box car you have is not 1:20, despite what it says on the box. Bachmann--at one point--even said it and its flat car and gondola companions (all in the 95### series) were erroneously labeled as such. For whatever reason, they've never clarified. Now, there may have been narrow gauge equipment that measured 20' long and under 6' wide, but there's no way, no how that box car is 1:20, unless it ran on the Wonderland & Seven Dwarves Western. Change the scale to 1:24, and you're closer to c. 1870s narrow gauge equipment coming from the prominent carbuilders of the day.
If what I remember is true, the boxcar was based on a Cairo and Kanawha RR prototype which was smaller prototype equipment than the norm. It was modelled to 1:22.5 scale but the fittings inc ladders were to 1:20.3. It was produced at a time when Bachman was preparing to move into 1:20.3 and I cannot help feeling that bets were being hedged. I have an idea that the boxcar (Cairo and Kanawha boxcar #5 ?) drawings were published in from Carsten's Slim Gauge Cars" .
The new 1:20.3 boxcars are a detailed model of a more typical size car built to the correct scale gauge combination for portraying 3ft ga on 45mm track. Yer pays yer money & makes yer choice.
Sam E