wood-beam

Franklin Model Company

Passenger Car Truck

wood-beam

late-1940s

Die-cast

unpainted

Jim Whipple found this rare gem. It is a kit for a wood-beam 4-wheel passenger truck. It represents a 7-foot-wheelbase truck, which distinguishes it from similar trucks on the market, past and present. Before an 8-foot wheelbase became fairly standard in the early 20th century, passenger trucks varied in wheelbases from 6 feet on up. The kit's castings have sharp and outstanding detail for the bolts and pedestals. The zamac was of very high quality; after 70 years there is not a bit of crumbling or deterioration (which would be caused by impurities in the metal mixture). The whereabouts of the tooling has disappeared into history. These trucks were designed for the then-standard 1/16-inch blunt axle, and came with Robert L. Miller Laboratory double-insulated aluminum wheel sets; this particular set had hi-rail wheels (marked "tinplate" on the box). It would be trivial to substitute either 33" or 36" scale wheels by Ace or NWSL. Dick Karnes reports that this appears identical to the Nimco (Nixon Model Company) 4-wheel "Suburban" truck. He stated that entrepreneurs such as Gene Fletcher (Midgage Models, Sylvania Models), Culp Brothers, Dayton Models, Ed Packard (Cleveland Design), and others, did collaborate in the late 1940s.