I know this is a new car idea thread, but I see lots of scheme discussion. And M-T seemingly is just "sitting" on some of it's tooling, so: Ahem ... Nobody (and I mean nobody) has ever done this scheme on a 50' boxcar (single door or double door): B&W of another: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nw/nw57201awb.jpg Zillions of these plyed the rails.
MTL and Joe, Are You Listening ? Seriously Now... For me I am the classic "upset at the collecter for driving up the prices and making things hard to obtain" kind of "N" Scaler ! I model the Pre BN roads GN-NP-CB&Q-SP&S and I am frustrated as a guy can be, when trying to obtain what are/were the common cars and paint schemes for some of these roads ! Take Northern Pacific for instance: While it is with a certain amount of jealous pleasure that MTL keeps crankin' out the 8000 to 9200 series 40' Plug & Sliding Door car, as HO doen't even have this body style ... MTL HAS NOT RELEASED A SIMPLE 40' Boxcar in The Large Northern Pacific Billboard Lettering scheme ! Why Not ? There may have been upwards of 10,000 (or more) of these on the rails in the late 1950's/1960's/1970's; THE ONLY WAY to obtain these MTL's is in a "Special Run" 5 Pack that they did for the NP Historical Society almost 10 years ago. IF YOU CAN FIND this collection, and that is IF... STARTING price is at $100 for the set! This was/Is THE Common Boxcar paint for NP Boxcars for over a 25 year period, and with MTL not producing ANY, the collecters make even that set impossible to obtain ! And if so, well the sky is the limit on price ! Recently Deluxe did a very limited run of this dramatic and standard NP paint scheme and ZOOM ! - They all disappeared ! Hmmm... I wonder if there is a correlation ? A re-run of this set with different numbers would be a PERFECT Northern Pacific "Runner" set. Will MTL do this Very Common NP Car ? Or how about The Great Northern; Their 'bread & butter" 40' car for 1950's/1960'/1970's, was the 40' Double Door Boxcar. OK so go find, if you can - the 6 car NSC set of GN 40' Double Doors, in all the appropriate paint schemes. IF YOU FIND A SET, IF... The starting price is at $175 to $200. A common guy like me doesn't stand a chance in the face of this situation. This was "THE STANDARD GN BOXCAR ! And THE "Classic" car in the pack, the vermillion red car with the large Slant Sariff Billboard Paint that has the "G" and the "N" on the right Hand door, is so sought after, it's just IMPOSSIBLE ! A Very - very common and heavily used GN car ! ... Nowhere to be found ... You might as well have some teeth pulled with no novacaine ! And GN's other 'bread and butter' 40' Double Door cars, the 40' Plug and sliding door cars, came in all of these same paint schemes, yet MTL has only done ONE GN PAINT SCHEME in 20+ YEARS, on this car ! (Slumps in chair at thought of this) These 2 cars alone, made up over 20,000 of the Great Northern's 40' Boxcar fleet (Yes - that's 20,000 of these 2 car types alone!) Instead, the (miniscule in real time) GN "Circus' boxcars are everywhere. Almost all of those cars were quickly repainted into the standard GN Paint Schemes after a very short time, so we have more GN 'Circus' cars out, than were ever seen by human eyes. YET MTL, Refuses to release (or re-release) the (Again) 40' STANDARD Double Door Boxcar's - in GN's STANDARD Boxcar paint schemes, on either Body Style. This befuddles me into a contortioned cartoonist state; "Aaahhhh - What's Up Doc ?" How about "The Burlington" ? CB&Q repainted thousands of cars in the Pre BN merger Green Paint scheme in the late 1960's... MTL has done a lone BREX Reefer, BUT what about ALL of the thousands of 40' and 50' Boxcars and Gondola's done up in the Pre BN Green Paint ? I shouldn't mention one of the first 5 packs that started the whole debate off (Collecter versus Runner) way back when, the Great Northern 50 Reefer car sets. No I don't want to buy 5 at a crack, with today's "starting price" on ebay of $75.00 to $100 - if and when they show up. Although I did score the Big Sky car set 3 years ago, at $65.00, BECAUSE they were Heavily Weathered - apparantly collecters don't like this ! Which was OK with me ! Today I can't afford such extravagances on cars that are at least 15 years old. I simply wish MTL would release some of these more common Paint Schemes - on the more common Rolling Stock for the pre BN roads. Instead of the same old rehash's. "I'm singing in the rain..." Jeff Sauer
Joe. Any chance that you could convince MTL to manufacture different wheel sizes? (i.e. diameters) ... also ... I would have to second the request for modern heavy-duty multi-truck flat cars ... as well as more 89' flat cars. G
MTL and Joe & ATLAS - Are Ya Listening Pt. 2 Q&A Hi Guys, How about Part 2 ? Just returning from Breakfast at Micky Dee's I'll field some questions and hopefully give out some of my answers that will be sufficient for us all. Here are some: One by one: John; Intermountain or Red Caboose tried to do the large NP billboard 40 footer boxcar in the pre BN Green and really messed up on the fonts and lettering of "NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY" which in circles the 8' sized Monad on the right side of the car. It seems that digital transforming from pix to master for pad gets messed up in the mix as Branchline, & Accurail (too name a few) have had trouble with the reproduction of this part of the Billboard scheme. Even ATLAS, on their 50' Offset Boxcar has the entire herald too small, at approximately 6' large. It is supposed to be 8' large with the large NP letters on the left at 5 & 1/2 feet tall. It is an open Forum indeed, and we have gracious hosts to allow us to discuss (almost) ALL things "N" here. MTL wants input, well here it is ! Part 2 ! Yes I would love to see MTL or ATLAS put the large NP paint scheme on their 40' PS-1 Boxcars, even if, as stated by Andrew below, the NP had no standard 40' PS-1's. But hey, both MTL & ATLAS have done many successful 40' paint schemes on their car, that weren't on PS-1's Take the GN, as an example. ATLAS' Red GN car with Slant Sariff font was never on a GN PS-1 car, but ATLAS is up to their 5th or 6th number in releasing it. It must be popular, and it is. Sometimes we "N" Scalers are just looking for a decent paint job on a decent car that is "Good Enough". With the new Trainman series, they have just released an awesome version of the Glacier Green GN paint with Empire Builder type font on the right side of the car. This was, by the way, the last paint scheme applied to GN boxcars, right before the Big Sky era began, in 1967. GN actually owned only 15 40' PS-1's ! This a rather odd purchase from an outside sourch, as the GN Shops in St. Cloud, Minnesota, were busy building and rebuilding the roads 40 footers in 500 and 1000 car lots. A uniquely bizarre small purchase indeed, AND ATLAS CORRECTLY paints those PS-1's in their Orange and Green "Loader" paint release. (Even those 15 cars are sub-divided into 8#'s and 7#'s - with one group getting DF-2 stenciling and another group getting STB stenciling. Each showing the type of load restraint that was in each car! All cars had standard 8' sliding doors. GN's 15 40' PS-1 cars came from the Pullman factory in Brown paint with Great Northern lettering on the left and a large white Rocky on the right. They were then renumbered and received the Glacier Green paint (approximately 1960) that you find on the MTL 40' Glacier Green boxcar that features the large Multi-colored Rocky on the left of the car door and "Cushion Ride" on the right hand side. They remained painted this way for about a year and really only numerous promo pix's are to be found, as this paint was very-very rare in the grand scheme of GN boxcars. There may be a pix or 2 of that paint scheme "in service," which would be EXTREMELY Rare, as within a year of that paint, they ALL got the Orange and Green "Loader" paint. So... The 15 40' PS-1's on the GN have a weird paint history. That original brown paint scheme, direct from Pullman Standard, was from a painting diagram almost 20 years obsolete - they wore that MTL Glacier green paint for less than a year (and were THE ONLY 40' cars so painted) and then got the "Loader" scheme with half of the cars equiped with The Sparten Tri-Belt "STB" restraints and logos and the other half getting the "DF-2" belts and devices and stenciling. I had a friend who sent me a picture of one of those rare PS-1's in Bismark, North Dakota, dated in the summer of 1980 ! Still in GN orange and green, it had just a simple re-stencil on the car number into a BN # ! Ten years post merger - 1980 ! 15 40' PS-1 cars total ! On the GN... Sure I would love to see MTL or ATLAS crank out 5 numbers on the Northern Pacific boxcar, in the properly sized large NP Billboard paint. It would be long overdue and a very - very Welcome addition to the overall "general" "N" Scale market ! ATLAS and/or MTL - Please do this NP 40' car ! P.S. Please ATLAS, spend $250 dollars and get a pad print master made with new - properly sized heralds for your next run of the NP 50' Boxcar ! Thanks - Jeff P.P.S. THANK YOU for the Marvelous job you have done with the new PS-1's and prior releases too ! Wow, the new car's look Incredible ! Everyone still with me ? Lenny; I am not talking about current MSRP, in my piece up above. I am talking about trying to obtain these "rare" cars, made (sometimes MANY) years ago, that were the "common" cars on these railroads and can only be had via "the Unmentionable Sight - Ebay" or through the NSC Silent Auction - at huge re-price prices. The MSRP's are fine with me, but (if you happen to find one) having to pay such extra "Bonus" cash for what are/were general, everyday 40' boxcars, on these railroads, is my point. MSRP's are what they are. Like the recently released MTL Pan-AM car... what $35 or $36 MSRP and probably as we speak, sold out nationwide, all within a month or two. I don't care about the MSRP. I would gladly pay for that car...What a Beauty ! ANY Manufacturers items can do the same thing. ATLAS items can do the same thing. The original release of the ATLAS USRA cars are getting hard to find. And even cars like the dashing MKT car or the CNW/CM&O yellow & green car are zipping out of Retailers shelves. In a couple months you probably will be hard pressed to get these. I even noticed that the DM&IR 4560 ACF Centerflow car is going zip zip zip in many places ! I'm not talking about Retail prices... George; Your points are well taken ! MTL already has the artwork for almost every car I have mentioned, as they have all been released at one time or another in all of those NSC "Special Run" convention Packs and/or other limited run's. They have the artwork, maybe even still the original pad/plates ! They've already done the cars. Some of them (many) years ago. Some, more recently. Let's let go and get into the MTL artwork vaults and get some of this 'common road scheme' stuff released ! PLEASE ... Sir Andrew, Very True ! NP never had out and out 40' PS-1 single door boxcars... BUT the NP, more notorious than most other railroads, built their cars with about every configuration imaginable with regards parts, including within the same number groups. (This makes things very convoluted and unpredictable - A very bizarre practice indeed.) Probably they were being frugal and buying and building if and when needed along if and when the price was right ! Their lone 40' PS-1's were of course the 3000 series Pullman built Plug and Sliding door cars (8' plug & 6' Sliding Door) Boxcars. The MTL 40' supposed "generic" 40'Plug/Sliding door car that they number in the 8000 to 9200 series, is actually, more accurately, very close to the Pullman Standard built 3000 # series, except for a 7' Plug door ! In "HO" McKean Models/Via SkyLim attempted to do this PS-1 Plug and Sliding 40' car with Aluminum molds, and they got what they paid for. A poor mold, that showed potholes in the final product along with warped sides - All because Aluminum molds can't handle the heat and have zero life expectancy ! And you should've seen the NP paint that they put on it ! I shudder ! Ah what memories ! Now the old "original" Front Range, which employeed folks who went on into Intermountain and Red Caboose, and other MR Companies, way back when (approximately 1980) produced an outstanding generic 40' Plug and Sliding car. Remember at the time, they were on the 'cutting edge' of pushing Model Railroading, as a whole into more prototypical boxcars, with correct Ends and Sides and individual ladders and stirrups etc. ? Remember those times - approx 1980 ? I actually did a 250 piece "Limited Run" of these cars for the NP Historical group, way back when, in 2 seperate numbers. They sold like hotcakes. Front Range went all out, taking the Picture right from (I think) the 1960 Car Builders Book, and they pad printed ALL of the tiny info on the (seperate - on the sprews) Plug Doors even! It was a true work of art. But even they got the big Monad undersized at just about 6' wide versus the real 8' wide. There but for fortune... so long ago. 1980 ? That's 27 years ago ! gulp ! Back to today in "N" Scale. The Roco/Con-Cor 40' Plug and Sliding car is almost dead on for the NP series 8000 - 9200, Improved Dreadnaught Ends, Roof etc. But that old bug a boo, the 7' Plug Door (versus) NP's real 8' Plug Door is there again. Industry Standard must've been that 7' door. I know GN had a bunch of 'em, along with 6' Plug Doors too ! Ah, who can tell what a mold makers drawings tell him ? Sir Andrew I agree with you about both 2 Bay Hoppers as NP had a gazillion of of 'em. I think MTL has done 3#'s - maybe 4#'s ? If so, I remember one of the numbers, again because of high Auction value - is an expensive little piece to obtain. Would'nt it be great if MTL came out with a Smooth side "CENTERED" 50' Double door car ? NP, SP, UP, ATSF, to name a few, could be road names they could put on the thing. SP with nice large yellow stripes on the Doors ! And again, I know NP never had generic 40' PS-1 boxcars, but generically speaking I WOULD LOVE AT LEAST ONE COMPANY OUT THERE TO DO THE LARGE BILLBOARD NP PAINT SCHEME on ANY Steel side 40' Boxcar, with more than a meager small production, ala Deluxe or encased in some $100 plus, 10 year old Collecters set. Is Any Body Still With Me ??? Gregg; PRR purchased 25 40' PS-1's in the exact same purchase order with GN's 15 40' PS-1s !!! Again like the GN, PRR made almost all of their own cars in their own shops, and its is a bizarre oddity that these 2 large Railroads would do such limited buying from a) an outside source and from b) Pullman Standard ! All 40 PS-1's (PRR & GN's) were assigned for most of their career's to be a part of the nationwide Appliance Pool of cars, that were centered at Kankakee, Illinois. So... both of these cars ran all over the country in "The" pool. The Late 1950's / Early 1960's PRR Paint, would be appropriate for the 25 Pennsy 40' PS-1's. Also some personnel favorites that I'd like to see ATLAS Or MTL do on their PS-1's; LS&I, Brown MNS with white Billboard lettering... Hey how about simply The C&NW. They had a little over a 1000 of them, and again, try to find a decent MTL 40' C&NW car for under $30 - $40 bucks. MTL produced that great C&NW 5 car NSC Convention set in 1997 - with all of the great C&NW (Proper) paint schemes. The very last set I saw was at $160 and is gone-gone-gone. So ATLAS or MTL, how about a couple of decent C&NW 40' PS-1's, huh ? And finally... Roger; I know MTL doesn't do 100% correct for every paint scheme for every specific car, but like I said earlier, our "Retail" car bodies are limited. The Pre BN roadnames that I listed above as an example... some of the cars are very-very close to prototype, others are kind of close enough and others ARE Close Enough. For me anyway! And I think, I speak for many "N" Scalers, with just these small examples (and some of the others that posters have chimed in with on the Forum) and vocally say (well type writtenly say) (is type writtenly) a proper word even?) ... I'm trying to say; Manufacturers ; C'MON ! GN - NP - C&NW - CB&Q ! And you never know about 30 years from now. I just think back to that very first KATO/ATLAS colaberation and then look at where we have all come to today... C'MON !!! Jeff Sauer I hope that this has been informative and educational for Someone out there in "N" Scale Land !
MTL & Joe - Part 2 ! Removed double posting of MTL Part 2 ! Thanks for looking and reading. Jeff Sauer
Welcome, Jeff! That's a ton of detective work you just compiled in that post--thanks for doing the research, since I am a) too lazy to do it; or b) have no time to do it!
I should mention that Jeff originally posted this on the Atlas Forum but since it is not known whether MTL monitors that board, and it is known that Joe's on this one, I suggested that he might post over here.
OK, I.m late to this thread, but I'll put in my 2 suggestions - both of which are pretty mundane. 1) An iron ore car based on a different prototype than the Atlas one 2) A 40 ft or 42 ft steel-sided gon
Just a reminder. 89' Flatcars with the TTX paint scheme for us lonely intermodal modelers, preferably in a runner pack.
Man, with everything that's been said about the need for old and new runs seems MTL could stay busy and profitable without a single new mold being made for some time. There have been quite a few suggestions for new MTL models as well. Hope people up the ladder at MTL take the time to read some of this stuff. Joe has gotten an 'ear full.' Hope you aren't sorry you asked, Joe.
Joe, As you can tell, we N scalers sure appreciate you taking the time to get a feel for what we would want. First off, regarding the quote above, Chuck Ciaccio and I did some of your market research for you last year. We felt so strongly this made good business sense we put our money where our mouth is when we did the first Runners Run of black SP Overnighter boxcars this way (unnumbered with a decal). The run was sold out before it shipped from Medford, with minimal marketing (you probably didn't even know about it). We had Microscale do decals and the cars shipped with them. Therefore this concept has already been proven to be a success. Admittedly on only one run, but that is one step better than just theorizing! Secondly, when you pitch the idea of heavyweight pasenger cars to management, you might remind them that these cars will be sold like unit trains - lots of units per purchase. And best of all, it won't cannibalize your existing business. Third comment: the 89' flatcars keep coming up, but there is one important factor to keep in mind, which is unit cost. What MT management may see as low interest when those cars don't fly off the shelves is probably more of a price ceiling. We wanted to do a runners run of these cars, but quickly learned that $25 will inhibit high volume sales (5-10 cars per customer). I don't have a solution, just wanted to draw your attention to that factor in evaluating past performance of a car you hear many clamoring for. Who knows? Doing these with decals to lower the cost might be a perfect car to test the market! Keep up the good work!
Wow, a lot of great input. As I am a passenger car freak, I have always looked at freight cars as just kind of background scenery for my passenger trains to run through. If the era is right and it looks OK, I might buy it without paying much attention to what style it is. The heavyweight passenger cars would trill me no end but just re-runs of older freight cars that have not been done in a while would be great. I am always on the lookout for anything with the old MoPac buzzsaw on it. I have often wondered if anyone makes a molten sulfur tank car. I always thought a unit train of those would be cool. On the lighter side, here is a car I do not expect anyone to build. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/583/tc01.jpg
Tank Cars Took your suggestion to heart...I'm gonna be your best friend in a few months!! ) Cheers Joe
Cars I get a lot of feedback on the Special Runs. Frankly that all takes place at a different altitude here at MTL. I know that is an important part of our business and I doubt much is going to change unless that change comes from the customers. Not sure there is anything to fix either...but I try and focus on expanding the market and making everyone as happy as possible. Not something I think I can pull off, but if I think like this, then it inspires me to focus on the bigger picture. As for some of the cars you listed...good choices and a good example of an area we may not be servicing well right now. There is so much out there to do, and I get some really great suggestions almost by the hour at work. Large Slogan cars are at the top of the list and I have met with Creative Services and made the point with them. They really like the idea and are looking into more of these. Remember, we are struggling to be all things to everyone, and I/we fail more often than we succeed I think...but that's normal. I know they are looking into some car ideas and I just want the folks who are interested in the Large Slogan Cars...I'm on it. I personally think these will work for our Runner's Packs. Cheers Joe MTL
I hear you. I was forwarded this by Mark at work, and there's a lot ot digest here. I can respond better tomorrow when I'm in the office and look some of this up. Thanks very much for the input, I really appreciate it. Cheers Joe MTL
Wheels Gordon, The problem we have with different size wheels is the level of the couplers once we put something bigger or smaller than we have. Some folks can do the shim/mill ops ok, but 98% of our customers are open and run folks. When we do more truck styles, there's an opportunity to do a wheel size change for that truck. I know on the Z SD40-2 we're working on, we did a prototypical size wheel...so there's hope. Cheers Joe MTL
Thanks for the forward Yea I got this one. I generally stay off the Atlas Forum, lots of great stuff, but a lot of misplaced anger too. For the longest time, like clockwork, the obligitory weekly "Things I hate about MTL" thread would start up and I don't see much constructive info I can take from that. I want an open, honest dialog, and if I mess up, let me know so I have a chance to correct/or explain it. It may not seem like it to a lot of folks, but MTL is evolving and Management needs to get credit for being open to new ideas and supporting them. A big change has been giving me the ok to go on line as Joe at MTL and not Ben Dover (my Atlas Forum cover is blown now). I'm a research nut at heart, but I figure I know about .005% of what is out there, and these discussions we have do more to help me become a better Design Engineer and in turn help MTL respond and provide what the market wants. All is good! The amount of thought and information put into these two posts require a lot of digestion and consideration. But it was not time wasted and not fallen on deaf ears. Thanks Very, Very much. Cheers Joe MTL
