One of the most prolific wagon types before WWII was a design that evolved from a Prussian flat-roofed covered goods wagon (freight / box car in the tongue of our American brothers). The thing is, that unless you are a real 'goods wagon connoisseur', what you think is a G10, might not be.

G10's were built both with and without brakeman's cabins on the upper end of the roof. Originally, unbraked cabins had neither brake cabins nor brake shoes, but later, some were rebuilt with air brakes and had brake shoes fitted, but still didn't have the cabin. This is a Verbandsbauart (see below) version, with solid axle-box guides, and solid shank buffers.

For more information (far more than I can ever hope to put on here) I recommend getting:
GÜTERWAGEN, Band 1, Gedeckte Wagen, Stefan Carstens und Rudolf Ossig, BAHN & MODELL special, ISBN 3-921590-07-8
This is an excellent book (all German text) on 'ordinary' covered goods wagons from the Länderbahnen to the DB - but I believe that it's out of print. Volume 2 is:
GÜTERWAGEN, Band 2, Gedeckte Wagen - Sonderbauarten, ISBN 3-921590-09-4
and covers 'special' covered wagons: refrigerator wagons, cement silos etc.

Here's a DB-rebuilt G10 (note the diagonal end braces), but it doesn't show all of the detail too well.

Owned by a museum society (Dampfbahn Rur-Wurm-Inde) based at Dueren, on the Aachen - Koeln line.

Image courtesy of Peter Varwijk: peter.varwijk@ouh.nl

This is an H0-scale model, of an unbraked, Verbandsbauart (see below) G10 which shows the details more clearly. Here's a better (but larger - 57kb) image of the same thing.

This is made by Paul Petau, and is somewhat expensive at around DM 300,- (about £135, or about 5 times as expensive as the Trix G02 which in itself is considered expensive). Nice model though...! This is probably the definitive G10 model, but for those who don't want to take out a bank loan for one goods wagon, here's some more run-of-the-mill models:

A breakdown of flat-roofed goods wagon models:

Fleischmann This is a reasonable model of a 'standardised' design.
Available with or without a brake cabin. The body is slightly too wide, but is the correct height and length.

Roco This is an Austrian post-WWII rebuilt G10 with the later addition of diagonal end braces to better withstand rough shunting (switching).
Only available without a brake cabin in set 44003. The DRG version in set 44003 is therefore incorrect. Newer versions have NEM coupler pockets.

Trix This is actually a Bavarian G02.
Available with or without a brake cabin. This is very nice model, and has recently been re-released with NEM coupler pockets. With the addition of finer wheels it's even better.
It also has the typical Länderbahn 'open V' axle-box guides - see below.

Piko This is about as close as you'll get to a 'real' Prussian G10.
Available with or without a 'backwards-style' brake cabin.
Can be converted into a Prussian G02 without too much trouble. It really needs rebuilding (handrails etc. are overscale), but can be turned into a pretty good model.

Märklin This is a model of a Württemberg variation. There have been two distinctly different versions of this model on the market:
The old one doesn't have NEM coupler pockets and is frankly rubbish.
The new one (cat. # 4695) has NEM pockets and much finer door runners/guides, and is quite nice.

A lot of early wagons (before the creation of the Deutschen Staatsbahnwagen-Verband) had axle-boxes of an open 'V' form (like the Trix G02). From about the time of the first Verbandsbauart, these axle-box guides were made solid (as on the Fleischmann and Roco models). As many Verbandsbauart designs were only modifications of earlier designs, you can sometimes rebuild models into older variations using Länderbahn style axle-box guides. If you put a Trix underframe under a Piko G10 body, you'll get a Prussian G02.
Obviously it's not a 10 second job, and it's not going to be cheap, but it will add a little variety to your wagons.

In my opinion, with the following few modifications, most of the above can be made into very good models. The biggest job is either rebuilding the Roco G10 (because removing the braces is a lot harder than adding new ones), or correctly modelling a re-inforced DB version.
DB rebuilds had braces on the end panels only (not across multiple panels as on the 'Austrian' G10 from Roco) that look like a number '7' - see the prototype photograph above. You really need to see a photograph (as always) before you start cutting plastic.

Fit finer wheels, preferably RP25. Weinert make excellent RP25 wheels, but they are expensive.
Replace all of the handrails with new 0.3mm wire ones.
New lamp brackets on the corners. These are usually one of the first things to brake off anyway.
New foot steps under the doors.

Should my G10 have disc or spoked wheels?: Good question, it depends.
Most wagons built up until the formation of the DRG (1920) were built with spoked (usually split spoke) wheels.
After this time, most new wagons had solid disc wheels, and many earlier wagons had their wheels exchanged. I don't know of any official directive that said this had to be done, and I have even seen photographs of wagons with one spoked wheelset, and one disc.
I'm sorry, but I can't be any more specific than that.

[ last updated 31st Dec 2003 ]