Athearn Ready To Roll™
TTX 60 Foot Flat Cars with John Deere Equipment Loads

Athearn Trains
1550 Glenn Curtiss Street
Carson, CA 90746
www.athearn.com

HO Scale

Ready To Roll™ Trailer Train HTTX series 60' Flat Car with 2 John Deere 650H dozers load
MSRP $34.98

Ready To Roll™ Trailer Train OTTX series 60' Flat Car with 2 John Deere 6420 Tractors
MSRP $20.98

Available Options:
6 Different road numbers in either Yellow or Brown

The prototypes for these models are the Trailer Train AAR type FMS 60' flat cars. Cars with HTTX reporting marks are equipped for transporting large earth-moving equipment, and those with OTTX reporting marks are equipped for transporting agricultural equipment. The HTTX cars have 38 heavy-duty chain assemblies with snubbers and turnbuckles, while the OTTX cars have 48 chains with snubbers. Each chain assembly is secured to a movable and retractable tie-down winch. The tie-down winches are in turn attached to four longitudinal channels mounted on the deck of the car. The cars also have 16 stake pockets along each side, allowing their use for shipping other kinds of loads.

Car OTTX 97321 is painted in the Trailer Train yellow scheme of recent years. Car HTTX 90099 is painted in box car red, the scheme shown in photos of the brand new 60' cars in the 1970 Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia and in photos up into the 1980's. The choice of these earlier colors nicely compliments the bright yellow of the John Deere construction equipment, but does introduce a couple minor inconsistencies. According to Official Railway Equipment Registers from the period, Trailer Train 90099 entered service with tie-downs for farm equipment and thus carried OTTX reporting marks in the years it would have worn box car red paint. Also, the "H" model of the 650 dozer dates from the early 2000's, by which time Trailer Train cars were wearing the yellow paint scheme.

These models are updated and ready-to-run versions of the old Roundhouse 128x series 60' flat car kits. Some of the improvements in the Athearn models are trucks with free rolling blackened metal wheel sets, factory installed Kadee-compatible couplers, and use of screws to attach the under frame to the car body. The revised models have new, thinner sections to the overhanging edges of the wooden deck (.042 to .045" on the old Roundhouse model and .032 to .035" on the revised models), a small but noticeable improvement. With hidden under-floor metal weights and the two die cast vehicles, the cars weigh 5.3 oz. with dozers and 4.8 oz. with tractors. These are very close to the NMRA recommended 5.2 oz. for cars of this length.

The flat car decks have been modified with cast-on retaining wedges around the rear wheels of each tractor and at the ends of the dozer tracks. Both cars also have cast-on simulated blocking between the tractor tires and dozer tracks. The wedges and blocking adequately retain the vehicles when the cars are operated on a layout. The models do not simulate the 4 longitudinal tie-down channels of the prototype, and make the visually acceptable simplification of modeling only 13 stake pockets on each car side.

The models can be improved with a little dry brushing with a mid-gray or tan paint. The deck flooring is a dark brown, almost like fresh creosote, and can be made to look more like the usual in-service car by lightening with dry brushing. Heavier dry brushing of the wedges and blocking will both highlight these details, and make them look more like the raw, aged lumber usually used for this purpose.

These are nice models of modern cars with appropriate load for the car types and road numbers, cars that can be seen in any of the 48 states. The simple addition by the modeler of additional blocking and tie down chains with the addition of some light weathering will yield two models that are eye catching stand outs. - Gary Quale