I was just looking on Micro Trains web site and under new releases there are 40' and 50' cored through (perforated) roof walks. https://micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_64&product_id=4560 I'm hoping new release MTL boxcars will come with these new roof walks. I know I will be buying some for some rebuild/repaints I have happening soon. Also under Pre-Orders there are SP Repeater cars which come as a very welcome surprise considering they were nearly the only railroad to use this car ........ (Southern also I vaguely remember).
This is good news. With 12 to a package it's a really good deal. I have plenty of older cars that I would like to update. Ralph
GN/BN also used air repeater cars, BN built a new fleet of them in the 80s using 50' boxcars to replace the older 40' cars built by GN. They also experimented with using U28Bs for a while.
Cool, I learned something today. I'm feeling fortunate that MT chose the SP variant. Hopefully they'll make a BN air repeater soon.
Looking at the photos, the mounting pegs look really thin and fragile. And according to their media kit link it says "colors may vary" (which I didn't see this statement on their products page), so I thought they would be plastic too. But they look really nice. Ralph
I have a project to upgrade my U50 and these plastic roof walks could be cut down to replace the originals , being plastic they could be glued right on
I'm hoping "colours may vary" means producing different colours to match the rest of the boxcar. Undecorated cars illustrate different colour plastics are used all the time. It may be a bit of a lottery when ordering but I have an airbrush.
"Colours" (or "Colors") "May Vary" does mean just that... I have packs of roofwalks that are different colors in the same package. There's a long story behind this. I also believe (unofficially of course!) that it also allows MTL to finish up batches of plastic in whatever color (or colour) happens to be in use. So it's likely that you will need to paint to match. The cored-through roofwalks have been in place on their releases for a while. I'd have to look through my UMTRR archives to determine when they were first used. I happen to have a 2019 release near my desk that has the cored-through version installed (The Weathered Susquehanna 40 foot boxcar, 020 44 670). And nitpick alert: they're technically "running boards."
