I recently acquired a Life-Like P2K 50' Automobile Box Car kit for a bargain. It seems to be quite old, as the side of the box said it was the first freight car model to be produced by P2K, which means it was made back in '96 or '97. The kit contains some 30 different parts which are still on their plastic sprues and it was never assembled.

There's only one thing that's missing: the instructions on how to assemble the model. The only kits I've assembled before are some Athearn blue boxes and I don't own any other kits made by P2K. I'm wondering if anyone has a copy of the assembly instructions or can help me out because I don't know where to start. I'm going to try contacting Walthers to see if they have a copy of the instructions, but I don't know if they still make these kits or not.

Here are the pictures of the box and its contents:

I installed Kadee #5's on some Silver Series cars today.

Bachmann's coupler box isn't a perfect fit for #5's, the bronze spring requires some modification for the coupler to work properly. (took me about 10 minutes for each coupler)

They're much better than the E-Z Mate Mark I's I used to have.

Is Kadee's #147/#148 an exact fit for cars with Bachmann's under/center shank couplers. I've got a bunch of cars lying around with broken Mark I's. (plastic springs broke off after a few years of use)

If I want to bring the diverging leg on the #5 turnout back so that it would be parallel with the straight leg, what degree of curve do I have to use? What about the #6 turnout? Also, which straight lengths do I have to use to match the lengths of the two tracks? (i.e. they end at the same point.)

I plan to build a HO layout soon with E-Z track and I need some information on what to purchase to get me started. Also, if anyone has dimensions of #5 and #6 (DCC) turnouts, that would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

That's really fast.

Is there anyone who's willing to model a TGV V150?

Quote from: gwfan on April 01, 2007, 09:43:40 AM
Yes still picking up trogan horse warnings. Maybe China Bachmann doesn't want us to look!!

It's true, they don't want you to look.

you can get a 12V grain-of-wheat lamp at your local electronics store, such as Radio Shack.

http://www.bachmannchina.com.cn/bbs/UploadFile/2007-2/200721212554259813.jpg

For anyone who's interested, it's a preproduction model of B-mann China's next locomotive.

Quote from: Matthew Ginkel on March 28, 2007, 05:53:28 PM
The firts one looks like a forign cousin of UP's bethgons http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/381-1064604  , it creepy how similar they look, other than the chinese one is shorter. 

Yeah, and you can notice the truck style is a bit different.

For the newbie, I'd say Model Railroader. Although a lot of it's stuff is HO, some parts are very simular or even the same. There's a lot of N scale thing on there too. They sometimes have some basic information to gat started.

For the regular N-scaler, N Scale Railroading is really useful. It shows a lot of great layouts and projects, all in N scale.

For advertisements, go for MR. It's probably the most popular model railroading magazine in the country.

Who makes them? Con-Cor?

Check this out:

http://www.visi.com/~spookshow/c40-8cw.html

LMS stands for Locomotive Management Services, which is co-owned by General Electric and Conrail.

You can use the 2004, but you would need a broad radius.

If Bachmann is going to do heavyweights, I'd say they do them in full scale. Model Power made shorties, but I didn't think they looked really good.

Yeah, nice and expensive windows...

Imagine that everything in the hobby was scale priced from the prototype...well, then there would be no hobby.

I'm no fan of the book or the movie. I didn't even know about it until I saw Bachmann's model.