Lego-compatible railway truck (PIKO 58405)
| in storage |
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Lego-compatible railway truck (PIKO 58405) |
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in storage 2022 |
A 16×4-stud Lego-compatible model railway flatbed wagon base, made by PIKO, part no. 58405.
Specifications
The piece is a nicely heavy HO-scale flatbed wagon with two four-wheel bogeys with sprung couplings, whose upper surface is a thin 128mm × 32mm orange plastic plate with an sixteen-stud by four-stud array of Lego-compatible bumps.
2022: Manufacturer's description
Novelty 2022: In particular, the hearts of small (but also big) model railroaders should beat faster at this thought: A model railroad car that you can redesign again and again according to your own wishes and ideas. And the whole thing with your own favorite terminal blocks. There are no limits to creativity here. Whether alone or together as a family or with friends - new, fantastic works of art are created again and again on the PIKO clamp building block car. The new favorite car can be coupled with any H0 locomotive and sent on a great journey. Model railroading has never been so individual with PIKO. Clamping bricks are not included.
Comparison with the Marklin
The sixteen-stud length is probably a more comfortable length for general goods wagons than the eighteen-stud length of the Marklin competitor (which manages to be too long for general rolling stock but too short for nice passenger wagons).
Rather than revealing its pair of four-wheel bogeys at the sides (like the Marklin), the PIKO unit has a nice black gider-based side-skirt that hides the specifics of exactly what's going on with the wheels: this will be very useful when making Lego locomotives, which would look a bit silly if you could see that its was sitting on a simple pair of unpowered bogeys (and where again, the eighteen-stud length of the Marklin piece would probably be a bit excessive).
Unlike the Marklin, it's supplied with insulated wheels, to run on two-rail track. Hooray!
The orange baseplate will not be to everyone's taste, but will tend to be covered up by Lego. This just leaves the orange "side-stripe", which can be run over with a black sharpie, if its really considered offensive.
Conclusions
More useful out-of-the-box than the Marklin. Unless you want to cut it in two, in which case the Marklin's simpler side-structure lends itself better to "chopping".
Buying
We bought ours from Hampshire Models in the UK, via eBay. Cost was just under 25 pounds including postage.
