Our fourth premium instructions, for the AAR 53′ 70 Ton Flat Car are now available for purchase in our store!
From the 1940s to the 80s and beyond the AAR 53′ 70 ton flatcar has been a popular car on North American railroads. On the eve of WWII, the government asked the Association of American Railroads (AAR) to review contemporary freight cars, and designate some standard designs that could be built quickly for use by any railroad. Among these was a 70-ton capacity flatcar based on an Erie Railroad design introduced in 1941. The 53 Ft 6 Inch long cars featured a riveted steel under frame, an overhanging wood deck supported by steel angles and 14 pressed steel stake pockets along each side. Tough and durable, cars of this type were built well into the 1960s, with many later converted for piggyback service or fitted with bulkheads and other load restraints for special duty. Some remained in revenue service into the 1980s, and a few can be found in maintenance-of-way fleets today.
One of the great things about modeling flat cars is the variety of loads they can carry. As a bonus model, we’re including Instructions for the 1950 D4 Crawler Tractor. Used in agriculture, construction, and even by the US military, this tough and versatile crawler tractor was a favorite through the 1940’s and 50’s It makes a perfect load to add to the AAR flat car.
We’ve bumped our initial production run up to 75 kits this time. And if we sell out, don’t worry, we plan to restock of this kit, as well as our other Premium Instruction kits in the New Year.
Our premium instruction kit contains the following:
2 professionally printed instruction books, one for the flat car and one for the crawler, with full color instructions, part list, prototype information and building tips.
42 Brickmania Single Wide Track Links, enough to build one crawler model.
4 assembled wheel sets with ball bearing. Enough to build one car. These wheel sets come fully assembled, with ball bearings preinstalled in new LEGO® Technic bricks, custom sized axles to fit the bearings, washers to prevent wheels from rubbing the bricks and causing excess friction, and new LEGO train wheels.
Why use bearings? Because ball bearings provide excellent free rolling operation. Better than stock LEGO wheel sets. Less resistance means the rail car is easier to pull. And the easier a car is to pull the less strain on locomotives, and the more cars you can pull.
All you need to provide is the LEGO bricks from your own collection. Build the car in the color of your choice, or you can purchase decals to build the car in one of the following authentic railroad paint schemes bellow.
Western Maryland Railway “Fast Freight Herald”
Western Maryland Railway “Speed Lettering”
Model by Cale Leiphart, Instructions by Cale Leiphart and Glenn Holland
We’ve Restocked Our USRA Hopper, And ACF Tank Car Premium Instructions
We’ve also restocked our USRA 55 Ton Hopper Car, and our American Car & Foundry Type 27 Tank Car as well as decals for both these cars.
You can see our review of these cars here.
You can find all of the products in our store.
Love your kits guys, keep up the good work. Just placed my order for this one.
Thanks for your support!
I love the bulldozers!
one suggestion; would you consider doing Octan decals for all of your models? I really liked that option for the tanker. Besides, they build really great stuff! 😉
Glad you like them!
Octan decals were for the tank car as Octan is a fictitious petroleum company in the Lego universe. Having petroleum company names on other types of cars wouldn’t make as much sense.