FreightCar America have produced the lightweight Dynastack cars in a 40' 5-car consist. One unit was leased to NOKL 219907and 50 5-car units are in DTTX colors in their JWG52 class #763000-49. However, FCA are also advertising a 53' 3-car unit and a single 40' car. Have they sold any - and what evidence of them is around? NOKL have one 3-car 53' unit #234085, but this has no similarity to the 40' cars - indeed it looks more like a Gunderson product, with its tumble side etc., and does not reflect the open sided nature of the 40' 5-car units. I see from Dave Casdorph's very helpful car build database that TTX have ordered 100 cars from FCA in their number series 795000 - 99 but do not appear to have been delivered. Are these or will they be Dynastacks? If so, which type? Information would be well recieved! Peter Peter Harris N Scale Kits www.nscalekits.com
I looked for pictures of the Dynastack, and found the 40' open truss units that you had already identified. I did not find a picture in the 795000 range, so I went to my preferred picture source, Railroad Picture Archives, and found pictures of four cars in your specified range. The highest number in the set is 65, so I'm assuming 795000 to at least 795065 have been delivered to TTX. The picture of 795019 was the best at identifying the cars. At first, I thought they were MAXI IV cars, but 19 showed that the ends were different. The brake wheel was on the side, instead of the end on the IV, and the car sides sloped down at about a 45 degree angle before the end walkway, again unlike the MAXI IV, which is square. From what I can tell these cars match the picture on the FCA website. I could safely say that these are indeed 53' Dynastack cars, since your guy also identified the numbers as being from FCA. Here is a link to the page: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=DTTX&rid=795000
Interesting! Yeah those are not Gunderson cars. Here's NOKL 234085. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspicture.aspx?id=773176 They seem to have revised the end walk grabs and stirrup steps for the different customers.
I noticed the end variation too. It seems a bit unnecessary, since they are only steps. Is it known whether or not any other companies own these cars?
The DTTX cars are a little different from those NOKL ones too. Here's 759066 photographed 11/16: http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=91056 http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=91873 It looks very much like a clone of the Maxi-IV. It has the later Maxi-IV solid walkway supports at the articulated joints and lacks that triangular shape on the side wall on the NOKL one (which has the early Maxi-IV walkways). @Mr. Trainiac all of the Gunderson Maxi-IIIs and Maxi-IVs have had car sides that slope down at the bottom. The 40' well Maxi-I units have had square side profile as its design evolved from the Twinstack. `
