Bachmann 20' Containers

[warringtonbankquay]

I seem to recall that there was discussion alluding to Bachmann having made the height of their 20 foot containers wrong, and that C-Rail had modelled the 40 foot container to match.

 

What exactly is the alleged problem and what is the magnitude of the discrepancy if any?

 

I've measured some Bachmann 20 footers and they scale out within a millimetre of representing 8'- 6'' height.

 

Chris

[Glorious NSE]

IIRC they are 8'9" which is the height of the "45' container"/13.6m swapbody that Bachmann produced first of all.

 

3" converts to that 1mm difference (for comparison Dapol's work out to about 8'7" instead of the 8'6" prototypes and the Dapol boxes also have their own issues so there is no automatic easy choice here)

 

C-Rail took a deliberate decision to produce their kit to match the available Bachmann 20' boxes, the difference is not much at all in modelling terms

 

BUT - depending on how you use them, what kind of train you are trying to represent and/or what other boxes you are using them with it's enough to give you boxes with different heights that should be the same and/or the regular/repetative 1' high cube difference looking wrong.

 

OTOH - again depending on how you use them, what kind of train you are trying to represent and/or what other boxes you are using them with they may work and look absolutely fine!

 

We all make our decisions, horses for courses, yadda yadda yadda

[Scottish Modeller]

I seem to recall that there was discussion alluding to Bachmann having made the height of their 20 foot containers wrong, and that C-Rail had modelled the 40 foot container to match.

 

What exactly is the alleged problem and what is the magnitude of the discrepancy if any?

 

I've measured some Bachmann 20 footers and they scale out within a millimetre of representing 8'- 6'' height.

 

Chris

Hi Chris,

 

You are correct with the measurement....

 

1mm it is!

 

Not a big difference, but enough to cause apoplexy to go by some peoples reaction!

 

See attached......

 

Thanks

 

ps - Please note - the attached 'How to' was done to wind Arran up! He is aware and has commented colourfully on it!

[warringtonbankquay]

Thanks for the info.

 

It seems like the pragmatic 'fix' is to use either one make of box on individual wagons, or only Bachmann/C-Rail 20 foot & 40 foot together.

 

Chris

[66540Ruby]

Thanks for the info.

 

It seems like the pragmatic 'fix' is to use either one make of box on individual wagons, or only Bachmann/C-Rail 20 foot & 40 foot together.

 

Chris

 

Thats exactly what I do, 3x bach 20' together, c-rail 40' + bach 20' together, Dapol 40'(high cube or std) with either Dapol 20' or c-rail tank container together, looks fine on Dapol FEA flats.

 

I wouldn't personally bother cutting down the height of container when the above works well.

cheers NJ

[zabdiel]

Are tanktainers supposed to be the same height as the 20' boxes, or are they slightly shorter? The C-Rail tanktainers are the same height as the Dapol boxes (see this thread, scroll down for the pic), but shorter than the Bachmann & C-Rail boxes. It seems slightly odd that C-Rail would chose not to make them match their own containers.

 

I tried to find pictures of tanktainers & containers on the same train, and this was the best I could find - there seem to be at least two heights of tanktainer in this train...

[Glorious NSE]

Are tanktainers supposed to be the same height as the 20' boxes, or are they slightly shorter?

 

There are lots more variations in size with tanktainers than with normal "deep sea" boxes, they are not all the same size. 8'6" ones are most common i'd have said but 8' ones aren't that rare and there are also ones around that are variously taller, longer, wider, etc etc in all sorts of wierd combinations - although with less standardisation you see them correspondingly less often with the "deep sea" traffic we're talking about here...

 

The C-Rail tanktainers are the same height as the Dapol boxes (see this thread, scroll down for the pic), but shorter than the Bachmann & C-Rail boxes. It seems slightly odd that C-Rail would chose not to make them match their own containers.

 

They're made to match the prototype though.

 

I tried to find pictures of tanktainers & containers on the same train, and this was the best I could find - there seem to be at least two heights of tanktainer in this train...

 

Yes, there's at least 3 there that I would suggest are 8' high ones, the red framed one will be 8'6"

 

I think the two grey ones with the full framing might be from Associated Octel

[zabdiel]

Thanks! So C-Rail tanktainers scale at the correct 8'6", but their boxes match the slightly over scale height Bachmann boxes. However since tanktainers come in a variety of heights then putting them next to the Bachmann & C-Rail boxes should look fine too. Sounds like C-Rail made a good call on the tanktainer height then. It's a bit of a shame that Bachmann got the height wrong in the first place as it means it takes slightly more effort to decided which containers go where, but it's not really that bit a deal.

 

I could do with a few extra 20' containers, and was planning on getting one or both of the latest Bachmann wagons with 20' containers, since they are containers I see fairly often.