Elvas Tower: D&RGW Idler flat 6745 - Elvas Tower

The 6700 series flat cars were made by cutting the top structure off of 3000 series box cars and 5500 series stock cars. Most of these care were renumbered to the 6700 series, but a few retained their box and stock car numbers. Remnants of the boxcar siding can still be seen on the end sills, and under the side steps and bolster end plates of the ex boxcars.

These cars were known as "idler flats" and were used to connect open end gondolas that hauled long pipe that extended past their ends. They had a tendency to "buckle up" in the middle, due to the absence of the stiffening upper structure, so a piece of rail was installed under the side sills. Some of these cars had the brake wheel shaft remounted horizontally to clear the pipe loads.

This model was made from plans by "Tomalco" Published in "A Century + Ten of D&RGW Narrow Gauge Freight Cars, 1871 to 1981" by Robert Sloan. The historical data in the first paragraph above is from this same book. Initial testing and all tweaking and physics adjustments was done be Howard Saunders, and final testing was done by Herb Kelsey and Tom Werb.

Enjoy, Bill

Original File Name = R_Flat_6745_9_UL.zip