It's always been a goal of KKMC to produce freight car kits, and we're delighted to offer as our first entry a model that finally fills a sorely empty hole in the great HO model pantheon.
BACKGROUND
This HO scale kit represents a 20', 12-ton, 4-wheel standard gauge boxcar designed and built by the Flint and Pere Marquette Railway (later part of the Pere Marquette Railroad) in 1880. The 4-wheel boxcar is not a type commonly associated with North American railroading, but its absence from our collective cultural memory is a tragic oversight; this curious type of car, built to many forms, rattled across the US from the late 1870s to around the Turn of the Twentieth Century, adding character and charm to freight trains of its era. Initially conceived as a more effecient way to move Less-than-Car-Load (LCL) freight than half-loaded conventional cars, 4-wheel boxcars eventually found use moving all sorts of commodities, from bulk goods like grain and cement to machinery parts.
Boasting elegantly-beveled wooden trusses crisscrossed with metal tension rods, the F&PM design chosen for this kit was a tribute to the woodworker's art form. A unique 3-point suspension system (non-operating on our kit, we're afraid!) suggests that this car was designed with mechanical care to match.
THE KIT
This model is made exactingly to HO scale! Its diminutive appearance is surprisingly delightful when compared to HO models of more typical 19th Century rolling stock.
We consider this kit to be a fun, simple build, and we've designed it to be as user-friendly as possible. The walls, ends, floor and roof are all designed to dovetail together, making gluing a straight-forward process. Jigs are provided to make it easy for modelers to form and install their own wire grab irons-- and this car uses only 12 of them! (A typical car from the early 20th Century would likely use 34 on the sides and ends alone!) The see-under roofwalk comes preinstalled; spare side sill (stirrup) steps and brake wheels are included.
Wheels and couplers are not included; semi-scale wheelsets and knuckle couplers are recommended. A full list of needed supplies is available with the instructions; see below. A (digital-only) decal graphics sheet is available with the instructions for those who would like to print the same decals used in our product photos.
INSTRUCTIONS
Because of this kit's (relative) complexity, we elected not to rely on our Shapeways store's built-in imaging to display its instructions. Instead, please find full-color instructions for this kit at our new Flickr page, available here:
K. Kadwell Mfg. Co.’s albums | Flickr .
Feel free to flip through the instructions in advance to get a feel for how this kit works. Future KKMC project instructions will be posted to the same page.