LGB 48681-03, G-Scale live stock car

And here's another G-Scale railcar I brought from my recent trip to the US. This time it's LGB and it's a live stock unit. Seems like my American freight train is getting longer and longer... And I still don't even have a locomotive for it...

I've ordered the car from OnlyTrains.com where I found it listed in the "Specials" section. The price was set at $50 so it was really affordable for a large scale item. Interestingly a pack of 3 similar cars was priced at $250 which didn't make any sense. So I bought just this one. Its catalogue number is 48681-03.

The car comes in an LGB branded box. The package is 51 cm long and feels sturdy on the outside. The inside however brings a surprise. There's no styrofoam at all to protect the model and instead some properly shaped cardboard pieces are used. This is fine however. The car survived an air travel in a registered luggage which definitely proves the packaging is sufficient.

The content of the box:

• a yellow live stock G-Scale car
• a coupler hook (since only one of the couplers has a factory installed hook)
• a plastic brake wheel
• a metal brake wheel mounting rod

Let's take a look at the model...

The body of the model is nicely detailed. It is supposed to imitate a wooden car and the surface of the plastic walls reflects it very well. The material LGB used seems to be however of slightly lower quality than I expected. It does feel good in hand but if you put a source of light behind the car, its plastic body does seem a little transparent. Never seen such effect before with any of my models.

Another thing I do not like that much are the black screws holding the pieces together. It's not a huge issue but they're clearly visible. I don't know why the manufacturer decided to leave them this way. Even my daughters' doll house is built with properly coloured screws.

The doors of the car open and close. And I appreciate it very much. Such simple feature allows so much freedom when re-creating a scene and makes the trains so much more interesting...

The wheels are plastic. It's not a surprise in this price range. They can be of course replaced with something better if needed. I'll leave them the way they are for now...

The brake wheel is an element we're supposed to install ourselves. I'm fine with that, however I would appreciate it very much if it was either obvious or explained how to do this. I'm really not sure whether I'm supposed to just push one element into the other or perhaps I'm supposed to use glue here...

The underframe offers some nice details. Separately applied rods and planks definitely add to the overall feeling about the car.

The painting consists of red lettering only but it's perfectly sharp and it looks very good on the yellow plastic body. All-in-all the car does look very much alive. I think weathering fans would have a lot to do here but I like it the way it is.

And now for the final test...

Moooo... The cow is slightly out of scale but still fits inside :)

Summary

The car does look very nice overall. It does miss some extra finishing (black screws) and I do have a small doubt about the quality of plastic that was used. But it was definitely a very good deal. I very much like its rich colour and I love the opening doors. And it also offers some nice details which make the model a valuable addition to my collection.