Surprice mid June release

These will be preorder only, so you have the month of July to place your order with your favorite dealer. So far the parts are shaping up and looking really good. We will have seperated decals for the road numbers and car names, so you can do a whole consist in one shot if you want...no more waiting, pick and choose the cars you want or need. Pricing is great too, all cars under $29.00 each.

Hope you folks like them.

Cheers

Joe
MTL

 

Wow... been waiting for this for a long time, and also thanks MTL for making it so affordable... (credit where credit is due)

Kim

 

I think Mid-June is over, with the last Friday of the month coming Friday & the month ending next Monday. Perhaps this is meant for the July announcements?:bear-confused:

BTW have the State Z series begun to ship??

 

Yep, looks like a race between Marsilius and MTL to deliver the first UP passenger cars, before AZL. Going to be an interesing comparison. Ordering both in the hopes that it will provide some different vintages.

NTS would be a good time to roll them down the rails.
.

 

This is very cool since I can get a baggage car, and other types. Ok here is my question though. What is the difference between MT coaches and the Marsilius line? Are they the same? Are the MT cars 85 feet like the Marsilius line? I ask out of ignorance simply because I do not understand passenger cars. Joe gave a nice reference to types of trains in the 50's and I think I'd like to recreate one of those but there are things out there I do not understand like what is an express car? Is a mail car different than a baggage? Just wondering. I ordered some of the Marsilius and will order some of the MT. I hope I can mix and match them.

 

Hi Joe

There is a differnace between all three cars you mentioned. A baggage car is excatly that.... its carries extra/larger baggage on the longer over night trains. An express car ran with passanger trains and moved packages similare to modern UPS or FedEx. Express agents worked at depots along the line, and shipped express (fast) packages from town to town. The mail car was a car of the US postal service, and acted as a rolling post office. Mail would be picked up and dropped off all along the route, and the armed emplyees would sort the incoming and outgoing mail while the train ran from town to town. These cars were always locked for security, and the employees carried fire arms. Often the train did not stop at every depot along the line, and a reciving hook on a pole was used to grad the mail as the train speed by a station.

As to the order they usually ran in..... Express and mail car road right behind the locos so they could eaily be switched along the route. The baggage car typically road next directly behind the express and mail, and infront of the passanger coachs and sleepers. The other reason the passangers road in the back of the consist goes back to the steam days.... the further away from the loco ment less soot and smoke to bother the paying passanges.... When railroads swithced to desiel, they kept their traditions and still arranged passanger trains in the same fashion out of habit.

Hope this gives a little insight.

Tony B...
Wasatch Z Club

 

There can be differences with lightweight coaches. There can be obvious differences due to age with different color schemes, skirting & other features.
for some roads, you may need a book detailing the color schemes, types etc for your fleet. some books also suggest specific HO or N models. The plans can be reduced for N or Z scales.

for example, the L&N in 1946 bought 20 coaches for the Humming Bird/Georgian. 16 were identical 60 seat coaches, while 4 were nearly identical 48 seat coach-lounges 3 years later the L&N bought 3 Budd coaches to go with the stainless steel Crescent. 13 more cars replaced the aging heavyweight fleet 1955. Mergers brought more cars into the fleet.

I'm hoping the color schemes on the cars will at least be consistent enough to look good in a consist. Having MTL trucks & couplers to Marklin cars could add them to the consist till something "better" comes along. A lot will depend on the level of details in the 3 cars.