Hello,im new to the forums and really enjoyed reading everything on here,its one of the reasons i joined.I recently used the mth product locater to find a rtr set from 2008,i finally found one in newyork and purchased it,i really like this set and was wondering if the new car carrier set of 6 will be scale to my union pacific sd70ace,the engine seems to almost be 1/48, will the cars be to large for it?

The cars are large at a whopping 20". They look big next to a true 1/48th scale engine but they are supposed to look big. Can you provide some more details on what set you bought? Is it this set?



If so, that engine is almost scale length. It is 17" where as the Premier Scale version is 18 1/2". I think with only a 1 1/2" difference, the autoracks would look OK (but they still would look large).

Do you have the curves required for the autoracks? They need O-42 minimum.

Yes this is the set you posted,i do have 42 radius on the outside the rear trucks kickout a bit,but its ok for now,the boxcar that came with this set seems big,im thinking the auto carriers will be similar in height to that?

That boxcar is 3 17/16" high and the autoracks are 5 1/16". These are big cars all around. They will make that boxcar look small.

Darn i really wanted that set,sounds like there way to big,how did you find those demensions?

I looked them up in the MTH product finder. It doesn't list the measurements for your set but it lists dimensions for the cars and engines sold seperate that are the same size as the ones you have. Plus, I have one of those autoracks. I don't have a Railking boxcar but I did have a Railking tank car which is the same size as the one you have. Maybe this photo will help convey the massiveness of these cars.

Wow that car looks great man,lol that thing is huge,you know mabe im gona try them because im slowly stepping up to 1/48 size and when i get a new diesel engine i can run these with that one, i love em for the price you get 6 for i think its 200.00 not bad

if you were to check out the real 1:1 trains, the autorack cars are taller than the engines. i run all mth-premier diesels and i have 20 premier autorack cars and they are bigger (taller) than my engines!!!!!............rogerw.

MSRP is $280 for 6, or around $225 if you pre-order from somewhere. It works out to around $37.50 to $47 a car depending on how you buy them. You can get them for $50 individually. Have you considered buying a single car for $50 to try it out? If it's too big for you, you could probably sell it here for a small loss plus your shipping.

Jim's Train Shop has some nice new ones (with the trucks in the correct place) at $51 which is where I bought the one above. In prototypical auto trains you'll often see racks from different roadnames anyways.

http://www.jimstrainshop.com/x...carrier&in_category=

The older MTH versions (pre-2008) had the trucks right at the end of the car. The newer ones have the trucks set back a bit like the real car. My recommendation is to not be tempted by the older cars and stick to the newer releases. They look much better.

As long as you have curves to handle them, the size differential is fine with your Railking engine and even works in your favor. The reason is that the Premier auto rack car is actually undersized in length and therefore not true 1/48 scale in all dimensions. The real car is 89 feet long and hence considerably longer than any diesel (the SD70ACe is about 70 feet long). I run these behind Premier engines, including 70ACes, and while I think they generally look good, the short length behind the bigger Premier engines is noticeable. In short, the fact that this car is bigger than your Railking engine in this case is very prototypical.

RM

Autoracks dwarf the locomotives pulling them in real life, so shall it be with the models. I should know. The engine in the linked video is scale-sized.

And the train in that video is less than half of the autoracks I do have. Maybe one day I'll get to run all 38 of them together

---PCJ

Thanks for the video,i really like these and i see what you mean by dwarfing the engine lol,they do indeed in real life as well.

I'd like to have some of these behind my SD40-2, but I wasn't sure if they would handle 045 and how the overhang would be with my portals.

My engine is running on 42 radius now and the rear trucks kick out a bit,i think with those auto carriers anything above 42 would be good,i cant wait to get some.

Check the current catalogs (09 vol 2, 09 vol 1) and verify the curve requirements. O-42 was the minimum for the earlier autoracks but the current ones with the trucks in the correct place may be O-54. Autoracks are "excess-height" cars so all of them pretty much dwarf everything else (you should see the Atlas articulated ones.)

I'll double check but I think my big green BN monster pictured above that has the updated trucks works on O-45. Not sure about O-42. They run for sure on O-54.