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©2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting Prohibited.Legal Stuff NOTE: This archive edition covers single car releases only. Reviews of and commentary on Micro-Trains locomotives (including the FTs) and Special Edition sets such as the Evergreen Express are available exclusively in the e-mail subscription edition of the UMTRR. N SCALE NEW RELEASES: © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. 45260, $12.10 - 50 Foot Flat Car, Fishbelly Sides, Pere Marquette. Freight car red with tan deck. White lettering including reporting marks on left and roadname in center. Reporting Marks: PM 16681. Approximate Time Period: early 1940's (1942 or 1943 build date given by MTL) to the late 1950's. NOTE: This item has been sold out and discontinued. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.This is the second-ever MTL car for the Pere Marquette, a long time Chesapeake and Ohio subsidiary that was acquired in 1924, merged in 1947, and operated as the "Pere Marquette District" for some time after that. Among the key distinguishing features of this Michigan based railroad was its car ferry service across Lake Michigan, which is nicely documented in an article that appears in the Classic Trains special edition magazine "Steam Glory" released by Kalmbach and in stores now. Yes, the ferries fit the subject, as they were not only steam powered, but coal fired. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. James Pugh is our resident PM and C&O expert and has some notes for us. He states that the car was probably done based on information in the book "Pere Marquette Revenue Freight Cars" by Arthur Million and John Paton. "That was the first book to give a thorough review of Pere Marquette cars complete with photos, lettering diagrams, etc." James notes. But the PM's flat cars are actually 53 feet 6 inch cars of AAR design, so the MTL 45000 series is somewhat of a stand-in. In addition, the book describes PM flat cars as being painted black, not freight car red. The C&O's own flat cars, at least the ones modeled by Micro-Trains (catalog number 45100 from 1980 and 1990), were also black with white lettering. Meanwhile, though, MTL has a first ever feature on flat cars: the deck is painted in a tannish brown, to better simulate the oak wood deck. It's not apparent from the image on the website, so this news is straight from MTL. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. James quotes from the PM book for us: "Though built two years apart, in 1942 and 1944, these two series of 70-ton flat cars can be considered as one, as the Pere Marquette did. All of the cars were built by the Greenville Steel Car Company and, except for slight variations, were nearly identical. Curiously, half of the cars from the first order, Nos. 16500-16624 had Westinghouse air brakes and Miner draft gear, while numbers 16625-16749 had New York air brakes and Westinghouse draft gear. The final 100 cars, 16750-16849, reverted to the Westinghouse brakes, and had Waugh draft gear." There are side and end views of PM flat number 16691 from the series. MTL's car copy appears to come from the captions from these photos. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. The Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) for July 1950 has the PM in a separate listing under the C&O. The car series, as noted above, was 16500 to 16849, for 348 cars. The "inside length" was 53 feet 6 inches and the "outside length" was 54 feet 3 inches. This leads to the usual note that while the MTL car is too short over the deck, it's actually longer than the prototype over the couplers. The extreme height was 4 feet 11 inches, and capacity was 140,000 pounds, cubic footage being irrelevant with respect to a flat car. In January 1955 there were 305 cars in the PM series; in January 1959, 286; and in January 1964, just 13. Most PM equipment was eventually repainted to C&O and if I recall correctly, was renumbered by dropping a "2" in front of the five digit PM road number; thus PM 16681 would have become C&O 216681. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
71070, $22.55 - 89 Foot TOFC Flat Car, Florida East Coast. The Florida East Coast may not have been up there with the pioneers in trailer on flat car service, at least as far as their entries in the Official Guide of the Railways was concerned, but they eventually caught up. Their entry in the July 1970 Guide shows no less than twenty-four TOFC ramps, spread along not only their main line from Jacksonville to Miami, but also their few branch lines. There was a ramp at East Palatka, even! (Not intended to be a shot at East Palatka.) The FEC also had published schedules for their TOFC trains. For example, train number 99 allowed for tie down of trailers at Bowden Yard in Jacksonville at 7PM for West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and 7:30 for Miami. An 8PM departure had the train down in Miami at 5:30 AM the next day for grounding right at 6AM. They might as well show some kind of schedules in the OG, since the passenger business had already been exited. But it is interesting to note that the accompanying map of the line still included their former route all the way to Key West, as the "Overseas Highway." © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. The actual appearance of this car in the FEC roster does post-date their 1970 Official Guide listing, of course. Although the car was built in 1977, I checked the FEC's listing in the April 1976 ORER just to see if they had any TOFC flats, and it turns out they did, a surprise there. Most railroads were co-owners of Trailer Train and used their equipment instead of looking after their own rosters of these types of cars. In April 1981 the FEC rostered close to a thousand eighty nine foot flat cars, but none were numbered in the 37000s. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. In fact, in checking through my accumulation of ORERs from that point, the first time I come up with a series with that high of a number on the FEC list is the very latest issue I have, January 2002! Well, that certainly puts the strictly speaking ATP at "present"! The group in question is numbered from 37000 to 37199 with an inside length of "just" 85 feet 2 inches and outside length of 90 feet 7 inches. The Gross Rail Weight listed was 264,000 pounds. There were all 200 cars in the series, but that's nothing, as the next series down in the listing was over 1300 flat cars! All in all, the road rosters many more trailer and container flat cars than anything else. It had just ten boxcars left as of the January 2002 listing. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. These cars, are, in fact, just about brand new and were built for the FEC according to a UMTRR reader. The ORER listing has the Greenbrier Companies shown as the car hire and accounting agent-- Greenbrier, they of the Golden West Service, that is. And, oh, yes, the real ones are for COFC, or Container on Flat Car, service, not TOFC, or Trailer on Flat Car, service, which is not apparent from the photo cited below but differs in detail considerably from the MTL model. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. How about a photo? Okay, how about the exact car FEC 37033, lensed in April 2003? Check the old reliable Fallen Flags site. The yellow paint and mostly black lettering seems to align with the MTL model, although it's a little harder to be sure since both model and prototype are so long that the respective photographers had to "back away" from the subject matter. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
105110, $24.45 (?!?) - 50 Foot 14 Panel Gondola, Fishbelly Sides, CP Rail. Those multimarks, they'll kill ya. Although beginning to fade into obscurity, the triangle in a semi-circle logo of the Canadian Pacific was all the rage when it debuted in 1968. Note that I said "Canadian Pacific," not "CP Rail." That's because the "multimark" was to grace the spectrum of the CP's transportation offerings, including CP Rail, to be sure, but also CP Ships, CP Air, and CP Trucks. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. One little problem with the multimark: it's pretty expensive to paint it all over your freight equipment. In fact, that's a key reason why the MTL version of this car is way up there are $24.45 MSRP. Perhaps also emulating the prototype, the painting required a special procedure per side, that is not the typical MTL paint shop approach (although I don't have any further details on exactly what that approach is). Multiply that by two sides and you have a costly car. Is it any surprise that the multimark was eventually dropped on much of the CP's equipment, even prior to the re-adoption of the "Canadian Pacific Railway" name? Making things worse for model painters, when originally introduced, the logo was at the same end of the car meaning a mirror image masking was required. See "Fun With Multimarks" on my site for an illustration of this, which is probably the only way I can describe it! My understanding is that this is not the case on the 105110, though. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. Although the CP Rail image is from '68, this gondola series dates to 1953, a fact noted by MTL and confirmed on Ian Cranstone's "Canadian Freight Cars" site. Therefore, when factory fresh, it was probably painted in solid black with basic white lettering a la the Micro-Trains release 46290. So given the paint scheme, we'll pick it up in the ORER for April 1970, which shows the series 340200 to 340999. It's described as "Gondola, Steel, Drop Ends, Solid Wood Floor" and therein lies a question: Why did MTL use a fixed end gondola to "model the drop end style" when they I couldn't find a direct match to the series on the 'net but the Fallen Flags site has the paint scheme on a different series gondola and the Canadian Freight Car Gallery website has a bunch of other CP gondolas that look similar to the 105110 (though with 16 panels) that don't have the multimark. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
112010, $35.10 - Open Tri-Level Auto Rack, Southern Railway/Trailer Train. Yes, here it is at last, the second eagerly anticipated all-new release from Micro-Trains this year (the first being the troop cars). It's been a long time coming, for sure, as rumors that MTL would be doing autoracks date back for at least the last several years. How will this new car be received? Well, when first announced I was concerned that this would be Micro-Trains' first $40 car; fortunately, I was off by a little bit. But at $35.10 each MSRP, it will be somewhat difficult to assemble a prototype length fleet of these cars. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
When the semi-official announcement of the roadname was made, around the time of the hobby show in Las Vegas, our own southern railways fan Joe Shaw was ready with some background information for us. The exact car is shown in the Morning Sun Color Guide to Southern Freight and Passenger Equipment as it looked in June 1970. The caption indicates that the car was a standard deck flat built by Bethlehem Steel and the racking was a Paragon ParaPak. The car was in service for Ford out of Atlanta; if you've ever flown in or out of Hartsfield Airport you've probably seen Ford's plant nearby. Although it was probably used exclusively for shiny new automobiles, that wasn't the only thing that could go on these racks: how about golf carts? Check out the March 1965 issue of the Southern's internal magazine "Ties", found on the "Southern Railfan" site. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
That site has selected archives from nearly all of the Ties issues dating over its lifespan of between 1947 and 1982, and the March 1969 edition has a story about a automobile distribution center opening near Columbia, South Carolina. "Two spur tracks service the center and permit unloading of fourteen multi-level auto rack cars at one time. Parking for approximately 600 vehicles is currently provided," the article states. "One 'fixed' ramp, sliding sideways on buried rails, permits unloading of either spur track from the one end. A mobile ramp, mounted on wheels and self - powered, is also used to unload either spur track from the end opposite the fixed ramp, insuring front - end - first unloading of all automobiles. After unloading, automobiles are loaded onto highway trailers for delivery to dealers' show rooms." There is an accompanying aerial photo plus the obligatory group photo of various officials "inspecting the new facility." © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
In the ORER for April 1970, we have to go not to the Southern's listing, but the Trailer Train listing. This is what's going to make things a little difficult for your faithful reviewer: the flat might be owned by Trailer Train but the actual rack might be owned by the railroad. In fact, the definition of the TT reporting marks actually states, "TTRX -- Flat cars, length 89 feet 4 inches or over, equipped with fixed tri-level auto racks furnished by member railroads." That's not as true anymore, but it still happens; next time you can get a safe close look at an auto rack, note that there are "reporting marks" on the rack as well as the flat car. Anyway, the series 961375 to 962536 had an "inside length" of 89 feet 4 inches and an "outside length" of 93 feet 8 inches, but no inside height given. The extreme height was given as 3 feet 6 inches; that clearly doesn't include the rack! The Trailer Train class for these cars was "Bsh11" which seems to tie to the Bethlehem Steel construction. There were 353 cars in the group in April 1970, then 914 cars in an expanded series 961375 to 964748. Then in April 1981 it was back to a group numbered 961300 to 962783 with 90 cars, of which 85 had an extreme height of 16 feet 9 inches and 5 more of 16 feet 6 inches-- now that's more like it! What's probably also more like it by this time is the conversion from an open auto rack to an enclosed rack, thanks to the effort of vandals to damage or perhaps even steal pieces of the automobiles being carried. I'll also throw in the paint scheme as part of my rationale to restrict the ATP to mostly the 1970's. It's also possible that the rack was switched out for a different style, remaining a tri-level however, or a rack for a completely different railroad. Although, as they say, your mileage may vary. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Oh, and here's another interesting fact: You may not be able to surf the 'net for a photo of this exact car, but you can surf to the Accurail site and see what it looks like in HO Scale! Joe Levitzky, who brought this to our attention, adds that some of the other roads listed among the Accurail releases would make nice MTL offerings as well. Some of them fit nicely into what I call the "era of color" that I fancy, that is, the 1950's through the 1960's. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
20460, $17.10 - 40 Foot PS-1 Box Car, Single Door (Youngstown or "Narrow Rib" Door), Santa Fe (AT&SF). On this reprint, let's start with the circle cross; it's the white circle on black square version with drop caps for the "S" and "F" that was used from 1901 until it was replaced by the white circle no background version with the roadname in Cooper Black. The SFH&MS says that logo was first adopted in 1939 but it must have co-existed with the older circle cross for a while since the Bx-37 cars were built in 1941. And yes, with B-1 National trucks as supplied by MTL this time according to a table on the Steam Era Freight Cars site. Richard Hendrikson called out the Bx-37s and Bx-43s, combined, as one of the most significant freight car classes on the ATSF in 1950, elsewhere on that site. Note that the 20060 reprint from January 2001 is also painted as a Bx-37 with a different style "Grand Canyon Line" slogan.
© 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
If you're waiting for me to say that "The Bx-37 was not a PS-1 type boxcar," it's time. Although the Steam Era site, Hendrickson on the SFH&MS and our own ATSF resident expert George Hollwedel state that these cars were the output of Pullman-Standard, this is a modified 1937 AAR type boxcar. Hollwedel tells us, "They have riveted sides, and different ends and roof. The side sill contour is the same so from the side they appear similar to PS-1s." The Santa Fe's PS-1s were actually given class Bx-57, a la Hollwedel's special runs from MTL and Kadee's HO Scale offerings. They're numbered in the 30000s and they never had maps on them. But being that these are representing Bx-37s, these do, and that also makes this 20460 a "not a reprint" since the original run had the slogan "Ship and Travel Santa Fe... all the way" in place of the map. The Bx-37's apparently had both maps and "S&T"s during their lifetimes, the "S&T" bowing in 1947. This time out the cars also have a black roof and a brown roofwalk, capturing this for the first time and furthering the "not a reprint" designation. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Later in life, the Bx-37s were repainted into various versions of the successor paint with the large circle cross herald. This was beginning in the late 1950's, sometimes with small "S&T" slogans, sometimes with large ones, and later with just the roadname in Cooper Black font, the same as that in the later circle cross. Translated: there are a lot of possible other choices. But the same is generally true for the true PS-1s as well, no? © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The closest ORER that I have available to the 1941 and 1942 build date is the July 1950 edition (Westerfield CD-ROM). It shows the series 141302 to 144310 of "Box, Steel Sheathed" with AAR Classification "XM". The inside length was 40 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 4 inches, outside length 41 feet 10 inches, extreme height 14 feet 11 inches. The door opening was 6 feet and the capacity 3837 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. There were 2983 cars in this series in 1950, then 2957 in January 1955 and 2924 in January 1959. This was down just a bit to 2849 in January 1964 but the repainting would have begun by then. There were 1776 cars rostered in April 1970 and 887 in a slightly shorter series 141305 to 144308 in April 1976, but then you've got to be thinking roofwalk removal as well. By the way, the original running boards were apparently wood construction, but that would have been out of bounds per regulations starting in the mid-1940's. And according to an MTL advertisement in the January 2004 issue of Model Railroader, the National B-1 trucks were used into the 1950's, so modify your "strictly speaking" ATP accordingly. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
27030, $13.50 - 50 Foot Exterior Post ("Ribside") Boxcar, Plug Door, Chicago and Eastern Illinois. The buzzsaw herald on this car dates it to after the Missouri Pacific took over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois. The MoPac acquired the line in 1967, giving it a direct route into Chicago. The final part of this deal was the June 1969 sale of the Danville to Evansville line to the Louisville and Nashville. Danville was where the lines from Evansville and St. Louis came together and from there the L&N and C&EI/MP shared the rest of the route into Chicago. So the buzzsaw was part of the "as delivered" paint for the prototype of this reprint which was built in 1972 according to MTL. The C&EI was formally merged into the MP in October 1976. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER for April 1976 shows the series... well, actually, it shows more than one series. Actually, it shows a mess. There is a group of boxcars numbered 252855 to 253199 that are described as "Box, Plug Doors, Cushion Underframe, Load Dividers, 50K" with dimensions fit the general description of this car, and includes the previous two releases. There's a second group listed just after that that have shipper owned pallets and are in assigned service, with numbers 252855 to 252869, which step right on the first series? And no, neither includes the road number of the reprint. What gives here? The April 1981 listing for the Missouri Pacific isn't any better; the two previous road numbers are there but there is no 252825 listed. I actually went back to the MTL website and confirmed in the car copy and with the image posted that I didn't do a transposition. Is it possible that Micro-Trains did? The September 2002 issue of Rail Model Journal shows a photo of CEI 253128, an ACF built "Henry C" type boxcar (I'll get to that). Although the 27000 body style is a model of a plug door FMC 5077 cubic foot car, the look and feel is in the ballpark. But RMJ calls out the same series, 252850 to 253199. Yikes. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Well, let's assume that this isn't a transpose on the car and that the RMJ and the ORER folks missed something, in order to carry this out to its conclusion. That would be around the July 1989 ORER when there were just seven cars left in the series in which I think the 252825 is supposed to belong. If you assume that the number is wrong, you could try a fix with decals from Oddballs; their set 174 for an MP boxcar appears to have the numbers in the same font.
© 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Back to this "Henry C" business: This was a standard design no-frills take it or leave it cheap boxcar that mostly adhered to Plate C dimensions, that was offered by American Car and Foundry starting in 1971. How cheap was cheap? Well, with a minimum 250 car order, the price was a low, low $14,688 per car. Hmm, divided by 160 that would be $91.67 so I guess the Micro-Trains car is a bargain, right? © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
30080, $17.10 - 50 Foot Exterior Post ("Ribside") Boxcar, Double Door, Western Pacific. This reprint represents the "final" paint scheme of the WP prior to its merger into the Union Pacific in 1982. This "new image" came to the WP in 1979, replacing the large "WP" that appears on a different Micro-Trains release, specifically, catalog 30070 with road number 38025 from February 1984. Yep, according to the MTL database that's the same month as the first run of the 30080, and that's what I have in my records as well. Both the 30070 and the three numbers of the 30080 are from the same prototype series, so you get a four-for-one special and my concern that if MTL next reprints the 30070, I won't have anything to say! © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Let's go to the ORER for April 1981 to find the series 38001 to 38225, of all 225 possible cars described as "Box, Steel, Nailable Steel Floor, Lading Strap Anchors, 25K" with AAR Classification "XM". The inside length was 50 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 7 inches, and door opening 16 feet. The outside length was 57 feet 2 inches so you'll need those extended draft gear trucks. Extreme height was 14 feet 10 inches and capacity 5148 cubic feet or 154,000 pounds. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Although the WP had been bought by the UP by January 1985, the WP still had a separate ORER listing then which showed the series at 222 cars. Ditto in July 1987 with 212 cars in the group. But in the July 1989 Register the WP had been "assimilated." The series at that point totalled 213 cars (yep, up one) and was split among several subseries by capacity and whether there was a "special cushioning device", 107 with and 106 without and simply called "Box, Steel." In January 1996 there were 99 cars with the cushioning device and 102 without for a sum of 201, and in the January 2002 ORER there were 117 cars retagged with AAR Class "XP" and described as "Box, Steel, Nailable Steel Floor, Lading Strap Anchors, 50K, Special Cushioning Device" plus one stray "Box, Steel". © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Yes, there is a typo in the MTL car copy; FMC did not build these cars in 1947. The build date on the first run of the 30080 is August 1979, that's a little more like it. The MTL 30000 body style is a model of the FMC 5077 cubic foot exterior post boxcar according to the August 2000 issue of Rail Model Journal, which has a photo of both WP 38130 in the "new image" modeled and a shot of WP 38093 in the previous scheme that was catalog 30070. There seems to be a conflict between the ORER data which shows the cubic footage at 5148, and the RMJ piece which calls these 5077 cubic foot boxcars and therefore a match to the MTL body style. Who's right? Well, photos don't lie-- well, usually-- and the shots of the two boxcars are large and crisp enough to show "Cu Ft 5007". So the ORER data is the odd one out this time. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Given the UP's penchant for relatively quick repainting, I can't say for certain how many cars retained the scheme as modeled by MTL for how long, but the Fallen Flags site has a couple of these cars caught in 2001 in Pennsylvania and California. The car itself looks okay but the doors look pretty shot in both images, in addition to not being the original Youngstown variety. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
56120, $15.00 - 33 Foot 2 Bay Hopper, Rib Sides, Flat Ends, United States Air Force. Hey, now I can finally have an example of every MTL catalog number done for the United States Armed Forces! The first two runs of the hopper have proven, well, let's say elusive, for me. It will be nice to be able to fill in the gap in the accumulation. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Of course, that does lead to the interesting question: Why does the Air Force need hoppers?
Well, why do civilian railroads need hoppers? To haul coal. And that could have been the purpose of these cars. Cursory 'net lookups uncovered USAF owned and operated power plants in at least Alaska, Utah and Ohio. In fact, there's a May 2003 article about the plant located on the Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, describing how the Alaska Railroad brings in five to ten coal cars per day to just outside the base. The base's own GP-40s take the loaded hoppers the rest of the way. I'm not suggesting that the hopper like that MTL reprinted is still used-- no, the article specified 80 to 90 ton cars-- but this is potentially why the cars were needed. Could be, and yes, I'm too lazy to check, that a base supplied and consumed its own coal. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER information is, of course, classified. Well, no, it's not really, but it might as well be. You might recall from previous military releases that the various departments' reporting marks were replaced with "DODX" starting in the 1950's. The April 1970 ORER shows this transition taking place, and some cars marked "DAFX", but not a hopper in the bunch. There is a disclaimer that "USAX" and "USNX"-- or Army and Navy-- equipment not listed "are in intra-plant service". Hmm, I guess we're not going anywhere with this, and just to confirm that, I breezed through a few more ORERs. There is a note in the ORER for April 1976 that cars "in intra-plant service are subject to movement in interchange as a result of transfer between government installations." I can also tell you that based on a couple of box and flat cars that are pictured on the Fallen Flags site, the paint scheme looks accurate. It's a blue body with white lettering including the star insignia. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
94040, $24.05 - ACF Center Flow® Covered Hopper, 3 Bay, Southern Pacific. There are a series of photo-filled articles on the ACF Center Flow series including the CF4650 that MTL has modeled in 1994 issues of Rail Model Journal. I went back into the archives to come up with a picture of an SP Center Flow for reference, but much to my surprise, there wasn't one! © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
No problem, though, how about a June 2003 image of SP 496500 from the same series, in the same paint scheme, on George Elwood's Fallen Flags site? I guess we can label this ATP "to present." The car looks a bit worse for wear, but isn't too bad looking for a 23 year old car, and fortunately doesn't have a lot of graffiti on it either. (Versus SP 496687 also available on the site, have a look, but it's not for the fainthearted. I don't understand how cars can sit that long to allow something like this to happen...) We already know from previous reads of the RMJ articles that the MTL model is a match to the prototype, excepting, well, exceptions from the basic design. The Espee, along with the SSW or Cotton Belt, had the middle phase of the design, by the way. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER for April 1981 has the series 496450 to 496699 of 250 cars. The description is "Covered Hopper, Steel, Center Flow, Lined, 3 Trough Hatches" and the AAR Classification is "LO". The inside length is 49 feet 9 inches, inside height 13 feet 10 inches, outside length 54 feet 7 inches, extreme height 15 feet 6 inches. That's taller than a typical boxcar but still within "Plate C" dimensions. The capacity is, of course, 4650 cubic feet, or 199,000 pounds. Fifteen years later in October 1996 there were 211 cars in the series, and January 2002 there were 193 cars with SP reporting marks in the Union Pacific listing. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
21373, $19.85 - 40 Foot Plug Door Boxcar, Missouri State Car. "Neither South nor West" was how I heard someone describe the Show-Me State during a recent radio interview. But the state is still called "Gateway to the West" and if you don't believe me, have a look at that Arch in St. Louis, or more properly, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. A trip inside the Arch to its top was part of my first visit to the 24th state. I had just finished college, doing it in three and a half years instead of four. This allowed me to visit a friend who was completing his studies at St. Louis University. Oh, yes, that would also make it January. The winter storms that greeted me for most of the trip left me alone for one day, during which I walked from roughly Forest Park to the Arch, a distance of probably too many miles. It was a sunny day-- a sunny three-degree above zero (Farenheit) day. I took a bus back. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Lewis and Clark didn't have quite that problem, but there would be other much more difficult trials for them ahead, I'm sure they knew as they set out from St. Louis on May 14, 1804. 131 years prior, in 1673, another famous pair, Marquette and Joliet, were the first Europeans to set foot in what would become the state. Native American tribes living there at the time included the Osage, but prehistoric people lived in the area from about 7000 B.C. France claimed the territory first, ceded it to Spain, got it back and then sold it to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Although California is now best known for earthquakes, the worst ever recorded in the Continental United States were centered near New Madrid and hit in three events starting in December 1811, ringing bells as far away as Washington DC and believed to be above an 8 on the Richter Scale, possibly as high as 8.8 (the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was about a 7.8 but the 1964 Alaska quake near Anchorage was a 9.2). © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Missouri was embroiled in the slavery controversy as part of its petition for statehood. The number of slave and free states was even when Missouri petitioned, and obviously the two camps wanted Missouri in their camp. The "Missouri Compromise" had Missouri come in as a slave state with Maine entering the Union as a free state, even though there was plenty of anti-slavery sentiment in Missouri. The onset of the Civil War caused a division of territory between the Union and Confederate interests until 1862 when the Union secured the entire state at the Battle of Pea Ridge. Missouri freed its slaves prior to the Emancipation Proclamation as well. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Before the railroads, there were the riverboats, and the first made it to St. Louis in 1817. (A phrase heard on riverboats was "Mark Twain," the pen name Samuel Clemens took; he was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835.) Ground was broken for the Pacific Railroad in 1851... that's the Missouri Pacific, by the way, not the Union Pacific. The Pony Express began in St. Joseph in 1860, becoming famous out of all proportion to its length of service-- just 19 months from April 1860 to November 1861 when it yielded to the transcontinental telegraph. Another famous Route-- 66-- traversed the width of the state and went through Saint Louie, and Joplin, Missouri, on its way from Chicago to L.A. and it lasted a bit longer than the Pony Express, from 1926 to 1985. Route 66 is one of the Blue Highways, and the author of the book by that name, which is one of my personal favorites, is William Least Heat Moon who was born in Kansas City. He is part Osage, by the way, bringing things to a bit of a full circle. Other famous Missourians include Harry Truman, the only United States President to have a hit pop song named for him (by the group Chicago, it reached #13 in March 1975); plus Walter Cronkite, Charlie Parker, Scott Joplin, George Washington Carver, Stan "The Man" Musial, Walt Disney, J.C. Penney, and Sacajawea, guide and translator for Lewis and Clark and model for the often-maligned but still attractive U.S. one dollar coin. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
From the Missouri State Archives comes a possible answer to a question I've had for a while: Why is it called the "Show-Me State"? Here's a quote from there:
Reprint: 15110, $14.85 - 30 Foot Wood Boxcar, Single Door, Montana Southern Railway. It was during the bonzana year for MTL slim gauge boxcars that this MSRY offering was first run. Ah, Nn3 friends, remember the golden days of 1998 which saw five different boxcars? Well, I suppose this year was okay too, with four releases counting this one, three boxcars and a retooled caboose. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Anyway, back in November '98 I had a long-distance reading of the entry from the George W. Hilton book "The American Narrow Gauge Railroads" from Irwin Library South, that is, my dad. This time, that book is on long term loan to UMTRR HQ from Irwin Library South and I can comment a little more. According to Hilton, this little 40 mile line, though fairly obscure, is significant as the last common carrier narrow-gauge line built in the United States. It used the grade of a former attempt to come up the Big Hole River in Montana, near the Idaho border and south of Garrison. Although there were ambitions to build more, the line stopped at copper smelters owned by its parent, the Boston-Montana Mining Company. Equipment came from the Florence and Cripple Creek which had quit in 1915. The Montana Southern RailWAY operated from 1919 to 1925 when it was reorganized as the Montana Southern RailROAD; followed quickly by a name change to Montana Southwestern Railroad in 1928. But note that "MS" still works as reporting marks. "After 1925 operation was intermittent," reported Hilton, and the line was torn up no later than 1941. Connection was made with the Union Pacific's former Utah and Northern line, which itself had originally been built as narrow gauge, at Divide. This was break-bulk, no actual interchange of cars was possible. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Unfortunately, I don't have any ORER data for you since the entire history of the line is apparently between my October 1919 and January 1928 Registers, or there was no need for an ORER entry even though the line was "nominally common carrier" according to Hilton. As for prototype photos, I think it would be easier to find images of the cars in the Florence and Cripple Creek garb prior to their transfer to the MS than it would be to find them with MS lettering, although, clearly, MTL found at least one image, right? © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
New Release: 14148, Marklin Coupler, $23.50, 14148-2, Micro-Trains Coupler, $25.30, 40 Foot Boxcar, Single Door (Superior Door), Rio Grande (Denver & Rio Grande Western). Here's a case where the ORER will not be of the help we really want, although we'll check in with a couple of issues just the same. What I want to know is the Approximate Time Period of that cool paint scheme, which I'll wager was a subset of the ATP of the car itself. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The folks at RPI report that "by 1955 the boxcars were being painted orange and silver" and I suppose that's as good a place as any to start the Approximate Time Period. I don't understand what MTL is getting at with their car copy "identical to the earlier cars..." and I suppose this was a lift from a photo caption description in, perhaps, the Morning Sun Color Guide. Meanwhile, I see that John Nehrich (who most likely wrote the notes) called the color above the silver "orange". © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Rio Grande Historical and Technical Society, in its boxcar roster, states that series 69400 to 69899 was built by Pressed Steel Car Company in 1942. They were of 40 foot 6 inch inside length and had riveted 12 panel sides, 4/5 Dreadnaught ends, a Duryea cushion underframe and a six foot Youngstown door. (That doesn't mean they always kept said doors and they could have been changed to Superior doors as on the model when serviced.) They were in general service according to the RGH&TS. They call out the paint scheme as lasting from 1956 to 1965 and they call the color above the silver "Aspen Gold". Hmm, I kind of like that name, and I also like the ATP for the paint scheme so I'll use it. The RGH&TS also notes that the cars disappeared sometime before 1993, but I don't think they lasted quite as long as that looking as they were modeled by MTL. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The January 1955 ORER shows a large series, 67500 to 69899, consisting of 2322 cars which was almost twenty percent of the Rio Grande's entire standard gauge roster at the time. These were simply described as "Box, All Steel" and carried the standard XM classification. They were a little shorter than "usual" at 10 foot 4 inches inside height-- but what's "usual" around boxcars anyway? The outside length was 42 feet 11 inches, extreme height was 15 feet and capacity was 3850 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. In January 1964 there were 1973 cars in the group and in April 1970 this number was all the way down to 241. I believe that the Rio Grande stole from this main series for rebuilds, including the famous "Cookie Box" cars, which explains some of the relatively rapid decrease, although if this group was built in 1942, it would have been fairly old by freight car standards in 1970 as well. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
New Release: 13108, Marklin Coupler, $22.70, 13108-2, Micro-Trains Coupler, $24.50, 50 Foot Gondola, Fishbelly Sides, Drop Ends, CP Rail. Please see the commentary on the N Scale release above, catalog 105110, here. Note, though, that this Z Scale release does have drop ends like the prototype.
Reprint: 13705, Marklin Coupler, $17.75, 13705-2, Micro-Trains Coupler, $19.55, 50 Foot Boxcar, Double Door (Youngstown Door), Louisville and Nashville. "The Old Reliable" was around 4700 miles long in the late 1950s when these Pullman-Standard type boxcars arrived on the property. The L&N's principal lines connected Cincinnati with Atlanta and New Orleans, the latter through its namesake cities. There was also a key line from Louisville to Evansville and thence to St. Louis, and another line from Bowling Green, Kentucky to Memphis. Other big cities served included Birmingham, Montgomery, Lexington, Knoxville, Mobile and Pensacola. A 1954 edition of The Official Guide of the Railways shows that most of these cities still had passenger service from the L&N, although it might have been no more than one train in each direction per day.
© 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER from January 1959 (Westerfield CD-ROM) shows the series 98100 to 98599, of 480 cars with description "Box, Steel, Staggered Doors" and AAR Classification "XM". This was your basic P-S fifty footer of the fifties, with inside length 50 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, outside length 51 feet 10 inches, and extreme height 15 feet. The door opening was 15 feet so there's a little "door thing" going on. Kadee has done this car in HO as its catalog 6706 with road number 98499, and its specs note that the car had a 7 foot + 8 foot door arrangement. It also had an Arc Slope with lipped sill, a detail which would be mighty difficult to discern in Z Scale. Kadee's extensive notes even include the P-S lot numbers for this series, namely 8311 for the group 98350 to 98599, and 8404A to 98100 to 98349, yes, a later lot for lower numbered cars, go figure. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Meanwhile, the January 1964 Register gives 492 cars in the series, and Note GG states that the cars were equipped with 72 Lading Tie Anchors. (Not a detail part coming to your local hobby shop anytime soon.) In April 1970 there were 483 cars of which 377 had capacity raised to 110,000 pounds. This was probably via a switch of the trucks. Speaking of which, I certainly hope that that MTL didn't include archbar trucks on these cars, because that would be very wrong. The April 1976 Register listed 278 cars. I wouldn't doubt that some of them survived with the original lettering but you've also got to consider both roofwalk removal and repainting, perhaps into the attractive blue and yellow paint. But MTL says that this car lasted into the eighties as delivered, but don't forget that the L&N didn't, having been merged into the Seaboard System. Sure enough, though, the January 1985 listing for that line shows five cars remaining in the series. They're gone by October 1986. © 2003 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
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