Over the years there's been lots of negative reviews and even bashing of the Micro-Trains 50' Rib=Side boxcar. Some people I know love 'em and some refuse to own them. Well now that Atlas has produced the same car I thought I'd check for myself to see how far we've come in the last 30+ years. I know MTL has made a few tweeks over the years but I believe the body shell has remained the same. Keep in mind that I'm comparing by eye, I don't own any precision calipers. All this is based on the premise that the MTL car is supposed to be an FMC 5077, if not all of this is moot. As for the height of the shell, the MTL car is slightly shorter on the ends on the car, but the sill angles so it is thicker toward the center on the car. When both cars are sitting on their sills they have what appears to be the same overall height. The MTL cars Door track is a little thicker which makes the door a little shorter. On the ends, the Atlas car is slightly lower due to a notch for the body mounted coupler, where as the MTL cars end has a "full width notch" to allow motion for the truck mounted coupler. Altas car has the silver roof. I stood the cars on end with the end platform of the Atlas car hanging off the edge of the case and the shells are the same length. The end platform is a nice addition that the MTL car leaves off entirely. The real difference between the two cars is the ride height. As you can see the Atlas car rides much lower. Here's a shot of the Atlas and MTL cars together to show the extreme difference. So in a nut shell, the two cars dimensions are roughly the same. The door on the MTL car as slightly smaller (shorter) due to the door track being thicker. The kicker is the ride height. Atlas is much lower. The low ride height also makes the overall height from the rail lower but you guys can measure that one to see which is correct. I had always heard that the MTL car had the correct height from the rail and that the body was compressed, but have never measured for myself. As for the details, the Atlas car wins hands down. I was concerned that the doors would be like their Trainman ACF rid side car, which tends to look a little flat. The doors on this FMC car appear to be separately applied to give them a more realistic look. I plead to the tech guys not to throw me to the wolves, I just wanted to post some pics for the average modeler to see . After all I had read about the MTL car, I was surprised at how close the two actually are in size. However the crisp new tooling from atlas really looks good. Mike
As you can see from the pics there's a lot of other detail oriented differences, like the ribs being thinner on the Atlas car, but my goal was comparing the dimensions of the shell and showing the ride height difference.
The MTL body is height-compressed to compensate for the excessive ride height. The Atlas model has the proper body dimensions, the correct ride height, better body relief, the correct trucks, the correct decos. The Atlas model is superior to the MTL model in every aspect.
I looked at this after seeing the post, and have to ask, what is the part number on the Atlas car you used. Since Atlas went to those awful Accumate couplers, I no longer buy any of their cars. I want to see if I have something more comparable. Also, the ride height in many cases can be reduced on the MT cars with just a few minutes of effort.
While I agree the Atlas model is superior I'm still not seeing where the "MTL body is Height compressed" is coming from. While its obvious that the door is compressed to fit between the oversized door tracks, when the two cars are stood side by side on their sills they are (to the naked eye) the exact same height, length and width. The ends of the MTL are "notched out" more to accommodate the truck mounted coupler but this doesn't effect the overall height of the car.
