# Brief Review of the Menards Long Flat car



## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

They arrived about two hours ago. I ordered eight, which arrived in a big box cobbled together with two of these very neat and tidy boxes of four flatcars inside it. One box is the prize in the flatcar contest - I put that aside. The other box of four belongs to ME!!!! 

These are really nice cars, for some reason seeming to be just a tad nicer than other Menards cars (which aren't bad, by the way). I prefer these to MTH, actually. 








Basic smarts: if you are going to sell packs of four, just have the factory pack them like that, and you don't have to do anything by shop a box. 















The cars look really nice. Of course, its hard to screw up a flatcar, but still, these look like high-quality cars. The real wood deck is quite well done and a particularly nice feature. The letter is crisp and straight. Each comes with a tiny plastic bag of the side braces that will fit in the holes along the edge of the deck. 








Here is a Menards long flatcar (right) and an MTH scale on the left. The Menards deck is perhaps 1/16th inch narrower but 1/4 inch longer, and rides about 1/4 inch lower. The MTH has lower rolling friction, even when the Menards if freshly oiled (helps alot), but its not an important difference. I like the look of the Menards better, actually, the wood deck makes the difference. It rides mighty low, but that will be important with a big load. 








All in all, $100 for four seems like another Menards bargain. I ran them around the layout for a while and they gave no problems.


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## BobS (Jun 18, 2015)

Thanks for the review Lee. Still awaiting my four Pennsylvania cars. Earlier this year I bought two Lionel similar cars and paid $120 for two. These sure a great bargain. Twice as many cars for the same price.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

Lee,

Do these have the same trucks as the Menards $20 boxcars (with the ends of the axles a straight cut (not tapered) and with couplers that can only be opened from the bottom)? 

Bob

They look pretty nice.


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## AndyH (Sep 21, 2015)

I ordered 4 of the PRR flatcars. I love Lionel's scale flatcars and have suggested to them on many occasions that they should sell multi-packs with no loads. Looks like Menards has really stepped up to the plate with these.  I hope they sell a ton.

I may even have to order another set. 

Andy


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## MOVL (Aug 23, 2015)

Very helpful review, Lee. These flats look awesome. I like the low ride height and the overall size is great.


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## J. S. Bach (Sep 20, 2015)

Lee,
Please post a picture of the bottom. I would like to see how hard/easy they would be to two-rail.


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## josef (Jun 20, 2015)

Brake wheels?


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Lee, I was going to shoot some pictures and talk about them, but you beat me to the pictures. I got four, and right after playing with them a bit, I ordered eight more. I also sucked in and ordered ten of the PRR boxcars, Menards is a disease! 

Lehigh74, they do not have the same trucks, they have the hidden tabs on the side to open the couplers. They also have rotating bearing caps, pretty cool for a $25 car. You do have to oil them, it makes a significant difference in the rolling resistance. The couplers seem to be more robust, but time will tell. I had my Camelback pulling the four around with my Trackman 2000 track cleaner on the rear to provide some drag for around 20 minutes. I didn't have any coupler failures. I also took the lead car, again with the track cleaner on the other end. and ran them back and forth trying to force a coupler to jump or open, they passed that test too.


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> . . . I had my Camelback pulling the four around with my Trackman 2000 track cleaner on the rear to provide some drag for around 20 minutes. . . .


Smart way to stress-test couplers. I am going to start doing that


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Just hooking up the 25 Reading cars and pulling them around was enough, any weak couplers were discovered without a couple of laps around the club layout. These couplers appear to be a different design, and I think they might be more reliable, time will tell... 

The other test that often finds them is the shake test. I get a few cars and just hold one end and quickly move them back and forth. Any weak couplers frequently will open with that abuse. I figure it's really similar to what they'll experience in normal operation.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

I ordered a box of PRR flats last night. I was surprised to see they still had the Reading box cars in stock. I thought GRJ had bought all of them.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I was a bit surprised they had the Reading cars, and I figured I'd just get "a few more" to round out the consist. I'll have a dozen of the scale flatcars, it'll take me awhile to figure out what to put on them!


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## AndyH (Sep 21, 2015)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> I'll have a dozen of the scale flatcars, it'll take me awhile to figure out what to put on them!


I solved that problem when I ordered a bunch of construction vehicles from their diecast page to accompany my flatcar order. 

Andy


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I'm thinking of doing the same, they have some interesting stuff, and it's dirt cheap as well.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> I was a bit surprised they had the Reading cars, and I figured I'd just get "a few more" to round out the consist. I'll have a dozen of the scale flatcars, it'll take me awhile to figure out what to put on them!


You don’t have to look too far for ideas. I might take the lazy way out and copy something from Lee’s contest. On the other hand, I might be even lazier and try to do something prototypical …run empties.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I like the construction equipment idea, I have some, and maybe I'll just get some of the Menards stuff to fill in the blanks.


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## Chris Lonero (Sep 13, 2015)

OK Guy's. I couldn't take it any more; Just ordered a set! I think they'll be perfect for the train I'm building!


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## MOVL (Aug 23, 2015)

Chris Lonero said:


> OK Guy's. I couldn't take it any more; Just ordered a set! I think they'll be perfect for the train I'm building!


I don't blame you. It's a good value for four big flat cars.


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## Viperjim1 (Mar 19, 2015)

*UP collection*

Very nice UP collection, very nice !


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

Got mine today. Nice cars for the price. Menards is great if you want to make a train and still have some bucks left when you are done. The deck is made of compressed wood fibers. A little disappointing but for $20, I can’t complain. I’m thinking about trying some Age-It-Easy to weather the decks.

One thing I don’t care for on Menards cars is the silvery wheels. I may paint some of them. Dave, can you tell me what technique you used for these?
http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=44426&highlight=paint

Here are a few shots of the trucks (requested by J.S.Bach). No brake wheels Josef.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

If I were to do something with the wheels, I'd be tempted to try hitting them with the beat blaster to knock the shine off them. I suspect to paint them you'd have to do that anyway. The nice part is you can disassemble those trucks and remove the wheelsets.


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

I thought of neolube-ing mine. But then I did the math. Close to 300 wheels. Ugh. I'll just ignore the shine.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

You'll be all dark gray after Neolube application to three hundred wheels!


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

*Staining the deck.*

I finally got around to staining the fiberboard decks with Age-It-Easy. I tried two coats but wasn’t happy with the results. Four coats seemed to do the trick. Here’s a shot showing (left to right) zero coats, two coats and four coats.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Looks good. I wonder if plain wood stain might not do the trick as well?


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

Interesting and well done. Actually, I think two coats looks pretty good - subtle. I'm going to try something about like that and then using a small brush to touch up a few individual "boards" with heavier staining, for a bit of unevenness.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

Chris Lonero did one with stain and it looks pretty good.

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=46130&highlight=flat

Stain would probably do it in one coat. Not sure how difficult it would be to control the darkness. The fiberboard really sucks the stuff up. Age-It-Easy is (like its name) easier to use and I like the way it looks on basswood and pine so I wanted to try it on the fiberboard decks.


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