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©2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting Prohibited. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Legal Stuff NOTE: This archive edition covers most single car releases only. Reviews of and commentary on most Micro-Trains locomotives, Passenger Cars, Runner Packs, most Special Editions such as the U.S. Navy Sets and the Canadian Province & Territory cars are available exclusively in the e-mail subscription edition of the UMTRR. © 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited. N SCALE NEW RELEASES:
073 00 081 and 073 00 082, $20.80 each
What is it about the Katy and ammunition? We previously had the fifty foot boxcar I called "the bomb" because that's essentially what they carried. Now we have a virtual two pack of cars that were assigned to the Army Munitions plant in McAlester, Oklahoma, and carried, well, munitions. MTL's car copy comment that the large MKT was meant as a warning to railroads of what was inside is interesting. I would have thought it to be simply an advertising tactic.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The front cover of the Morning Sun Color Guide to the Frisco and Katy features a photo of the 5532, as does Page 9 of the same volume. These cars were originally built in 1951 as MTL notes; the donor car series for these rebuilds was 97601 to 97800 and they were rebuilt in the second half of 1971. The Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) for July 1974 shows 98 of the original 100 in the group, described simply as "Box, Steel" with no reference to their assigned service. The inside length of these cars was 40 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 2 inches, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, outside length 43 feet 10 inches, extreme height 15 feet, door opening 6 feet, and capacity 3898 cubic feet or 110,000 pounds. In April 1991, 93 cars remain in service and in April 1994 there are 89 total of which 80 were downgraded to 100,000 pounds capacity and one raised all the way to 200,000 pounds capacity. But just three issues of the ORER later in January 1985 the entire series is delisted. That enables a fairly precise Approximate Time Period for a change.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Besides the photo in the MSCG, there are images of the 5508, 5576 and 5585 on George Elwood's "Fallen Flags" website. We have a very good match to the MTL body style here, down to the side sill pattern. I do note that the Katy itself wasn't consistent on the 5576 as it put the dashes in the reporting marks, i.e. "M-K-T". Elwood also notes "Navy Ammo Loading" with the photo of the 5508. David Carnell did note that the actual cars had ASF Ride Control trucks which were rebuilt from friction to roller bearings; that's not a truck MTL makes as of yet.
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066 00 040, $21.90
Once in a great while, I make it a point to view one of the many videos in the accumulation, and even more rarely than that, I think to make it a railroad-oriented video. In this case, it was "Conrail's Beginnings," more than an hour and a half of film taken in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania within the first few months of the official startup of Conrail. Though the transfer to DVD isn't the greatest, the video has never to be seen again views of a number of famous locations some of which are either a shadow of their former selves. The emphasis is on motive power and there are captures of a Central Railroad of New Jersey six-axle unit passing next to Buffalo Central Terminal, Erie Lackawanna SD-45s rounding Horseshoe Curve, and the CNJ's hub of Elizabethport being visited by RS-11's of the Penn Central.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Ah, yes, the Penn Central. If there was a "surviving company" in the Consolidated Rail Corporation, it was the PC, although to be sure plenty of its mileage was given up to the scrapper. As would be expected the loco roster of the PC dominates "Conrail's Beginnings," and though it's hard to admit I am a bit nostalgic for that fallen flag. (Not nearly as much for the Pennsylvania and New York Central, though.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
That locomotive roster needed lubrication, and according to MTL, the prototype for this tank car carried lube oil back and forth between Altoona and Holidaysburg on the former Pennsylvania. (That would be a short trip!) The left and right compartment's domes are labeled "clean lube oil" and the center compartment's dome "dirty lube oil"-- I verified this on the model, using both my glasses and a magnifier. Certainly it's an interesting paint scheme. But folks, back to the plain black and white cars now, OK?
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Since we're talking about a company service car, it's necessary to hit the road number exactly to be able to compare model to prototype. As if to illustrate this, other cars in the 70700's for the PC include at least one converted steam locomotive tender! I'm therefore not surprised to come up empty in a 'net search for images. The ORER is of no help either as nothing below road number 100000 is listed for the PC. I can tell you that the PRR tank car classification "TM8" referred to an 8000 gallon tank car, and it then would make sense for the PC classification for this car to be "TM8B". And a quick check with MTL confirmed what I'd suspected: the prototype car is pictured in the Morning Sun Color Guide to the Penn Central. I'm guessing that the ATP is from the service date to around the beginning of Conrail, although it could be a bit longer. Note also that as with locomotives, Conrail mixed up its equipment, so it is entirely possible that this tanker was hauling clean and dirty lube oil elsewhere on the system.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
083 00 060, $19.45
David Carnell researched this car for us, for which many thanks, and I'll start with his findings.
After World War II, the Rio Grande ordered 1500 of these 42 foot 10 inch steel drop bottom gondolas from Pressed Steel Car Company. The first batch, numbered 46000 to 46499 were built in 1947 and 1948 and had Duryea underframes and Improved Dreadnaught ends. The second lot was numbered 46500 to 46999 and had Pressed Steel's own four rib ends. Finally the group numbered 47000 to 47499 was built in 1949 with the PSC ends and a conventional non-cushioned underframe. Besides the 42 foot cars, the line also owned a fleet of 46 foot drop bottom gondolas. The Rio Grande and other western roads used these cars in mineral service, including haulage of coal from mines in Utah and Colorado. The D&RGW retired these cars in large numbers in the 1970's.
David notes that the Morning Sun Color Guide to the D&RGW has a photo of the 47139, from a different series than the 46400 that MTL modeled, but very close nonetheless. I came across a grainy image of the 47399 on line which is also not the same series as the MTL car (use Google Image Search). The Rio Grande Historical Society is ahead of all of us, as they've already got the MTL model duly noted on their website. Their table "Freight Roster 1960-1993" has the Micro-Trains car listed, with the notation "Model slightly short, no Duryea underframe." It does show the car as matching all three of the series listed above by David and also cites the sale of 75 of these cars to the Spokane, Portland and Seattle in 1967. (Where they became extended side woodchip cars, recently modeled by MTL as well as Catalog 084 00 01x.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Let's grab the ORER for July 1950, where we find all 1500 cars listed in a single entry. They were described as "Coal, Dump, Steel" with AAR Classification GS. The inside length was 42 feet 9 inches, inside width 9 feet 10 inches, inside height 5 feet, outside length 45 feet, extreme height 3 feet 3 7/16 inches, and capacity 2100 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. Keeping in mind the attrition that took place in the Seventies, I jumped to the April 1970 ORER. The series is split into groups 46000 to 46999 with 45 foot outside length and 47000 to 47499 with 44 foot outside length, but only one car total, 393. By July 1974, they are all gone.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Considering that coal was probably the chief commodity carried, it's a bit odd to see the inclusion of a "low wood chip load" with this car. I checked and it's similar to but not precisely the same as the woodchip load included with the recent drop bottom gondolas with woodchip extension.
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094 00 280, $23.60
This is the first release for this roadname by MTL, and it doesn't come too soon, as the line is about to become a Fallen Flag of sorts. The Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern began operations in 1986 on former Chicago and North Western trackage in Minnesota and South Dakota, reaching from Rapid City eastward to Winona. In 1996 it picked up the former Colony Line from the Union Pacific, which runs from Colony, Wyoming through Rapid City to Crawford, Nebraska. It's now officially called "The DM&E Railroad" on the company's website.
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The DM&E was formed as a lifeline for grain shipments, but in 1998 it went for a much bigger prize-- the Powder River Basin and its enormous coal reserves. The BNSF and Union Pacific did not take kindly to this proposed invasion of their highly lucrative territory, but the extension was approved by the Surface Transportation Board in 2002 and with changes in 2006.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Meanwhile, the DM&E's parent company, Cedar American Rail Holdings, took over operations of I&M Rail Link, renaming it the IC&E Railroad. And the DM&E was itself swallowed, by Canadian Pacific, which I'm sure would love a piece of that Powder River Coal business once the trackage is actually built. That merger was formally approved by the STB in September 2008. It's kind of interesting how the large railroads cast off thousands of miles of trackage-- witness the DM&E, the Wisconsin Central, and other spinoffs-- only to have it absorbed back into Class I's, although not necessarily the same ones that initially shed the trackage!
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
For a change, I'll go backwards in the ORERs starting with what is now my most recent, the October 2007 edition. There are 296 cars in the series 51000 to 51299. The dimensions-- 60 feet 9 inch outside length, 15 feet 6 inch extreme height, and capacity of 5161 cubic feet-- indicate a significantly larger car than the MTL model. The October 1996 ORER is the earliest I have in which these cars are found, and all 300 are present there. The next earliest Register I have is from July 1992, and while the DM&E has a listing, stated within is "Freight Cars Owned: None." The Oddballs Decals website listing gives June 1996 as the date for sister car 51051, and provides a lettering diagram that matches the MTL car. (Yes, sometimes you do find things-- while looking for something else.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Photos of cars from the series can be located on RailcarPhotos.com, including for example the 51052. The stand in nature of the MTL offering is evident from the photo: both the prototype and the model are three bay centerflow covered hoppers, but the DME car is far newer construction than the AC&F car that the MTL model represents. Micro-Trains itself notes that the car was built in 1996 by Trinity, and it's larger, taller, and rounder.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
125 00 070, $21.75
So now perhaps we know what happened to those Chessie System Ortner Hoppers, you know, the ones that MTL released in May 2006? Well, maybe not, as those cars (lettered C&O 45050 and 45088) are different from these CSXT cars, if the photo of CSXT 292226 from the same series is typical. Unfortunately, the MTL model isn't an exact match either, as the CSXT car has nine panels versus eight for the 125 body style, and the CSXT cars also have partially diagonal ends and full ladders as opposed to grab irons to reach the top of the hopper. There are other photos of this series of this car on RRPictureArchives.net, including one of CSXT 292349 lensed in 2006 in Dickinson, Texas, proving that at least one of these cars got offline, well, at least once.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER for January 2000 shows the series CSXT 292150 to 292399 with all 250 possible cars, with the simple description of "Hopper, Steel," AAR Classification of HTS and a few dimensions: outside length 46 feet, extreme height 11 feet 11 inches, and capacity 2197 cubic feet or 226,000 pounds. The previous two sets of cars, 291100 to 291599 and 291600 to 292149, have the same dimensions and cubic capacity but slightly different weight capacities of 222,000 pounds and 220,000 pounds respectively. If these are all the same basic car, which I think they are, certainly there is room for reprints, or runner packs for that matter. The January 2007 ORER shows 248 cars left in the series, and photos from 2008 reinforce the ATP being through The Present.
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022 00 110, $17.70
OK, so as is my habit with less active car types, I went back to the library MTL information to determine the last time a regular release was done on this body style. And the answer: March 2003-- with this paint scheme! That's right, there's been nothing done with the plug and sliding door boxcar since the first run of the Canadian Pacific. Hmm, do I get to recycle my commentary? Yes, at least some of it.
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The ORER for January 1964, shows the series 100000 to 100499, of 500 cars with AAR Classification XM and description "Box, Steel, Nailable Steel Floor in Doorway, Staggered Doors." The inside length was 40 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, outside length 41 feet 10 inches, extreme height 15 feet 1 inch, door opening 14 feet, and capacity 3900 cubic feet or 127,000 pounds. In April 1970 this series was down only three cars to 497. The CP Rail name was in use by then, but I didn't find any evidence that any of these cars were repainted. (Doesn't mean there isn't any, just that I didn't find it.) There were 482 cars on the roster in the April 1976 book, and 459 in the April 1981 Register.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
According to Ian Cranstone's site, 71 cars in this series went to CP subsidiary Esquimalt & Nanaimo as their 292500 to 292570. The E&N reporting marks were "resurrected by CP in October 1977 for former CP 40 foot boxcars," Ian notes. These were in service there from 1982 to 1998. The E&N is now the E&N Railway, owned by RailAmerica. Meanwhile, Ian has service dates all the way to October 2000 for the CP cars, and I don't doubt that, although there are only eight shown in the October 1996 ORER. You've got to be thinking roofwalk removal well before then, and possibly repainting, so I'm calling the Approximate Time Period closed in the 1970's. Of course, there was a difference between the requirement to pull the running board and the reality, so you could be good well beyond the ATP.
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Being built in 1962, this car would have worn the script roadname as delivered, since this scheme was introduced in 1958 according to the CDS Lettering Diagrams book. (By the way, it looks like their dry transfer set #24 should provide the means to renumber these cars, assuming you can find one as CDS is no longer in business.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Morning Sun Color Guide to the Canadian Pacific, Page 47, has a shot of CP 100197 which was the initial MTL release. There is a "door thing" at work here: a six foot sliding door on the model versus an eight foot door on the prototype. (There are both the Youngstown type, though.) The caption for the 1976 shot notes that paint is peeling off the galvanized roof, which would make an interesting challenge for the weatherers among us. Below the 100197 in the MSCG is the 100097, without the roofwalk, with ladders cut down and in the CP Rail paint scheme, all as of 1984 and perhaps helping to confirm my ATP suggestion.
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109 00 220, $19.95
You might recall from the coverage of the September 2002 release of the first number of this car that the road numbers 50000 and 50001 seemed to have divergent paths with regard to the ATP. The 50000 shows up in the January 1959 ORER but the 50001 doesn't appear in my available Equipment Registers until January 1964; and the 50001 is gone by October 1991 while the 50000 left the roster between July 1992 and October 1996.
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Meanwhile, the RPI site notes that periods were used on the reporting marks (i.e. "U.P.") until 1957, although the yellow lettering was policy from 1947 and Railroad Roman was in use from 1939 on. That would make the ATP 1957 to 1992 (or later) for the 50000 based on the lettering. But then MTL adds that the trucks were flipped to the Commonwealth type in 1972, which is the service date (assuming that the data is kept from the previous release). It's all very confusing.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
At any rate, the dimensions from the January 1964 ORER are as follows: Inside length 21 feet for the depressed part, 57 feet 9 inches for the whole platform; outside length 58 feet 4 inches, truck center spacing 41 feet. The depressed part of the deck is steel and the rest of the platform is wood. This all lines up pretty well with the MTL model.
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When the 50001 was released by MTL, Bill Pearce noted the following from a Morning Sun Color Guide to the Union Pacific: "This is just a side view from a low angle, but here it goes. The side sill is similar (not identical) in the center, but quite a bit different over the bolsters, with some cutouts not on the MT model. The wooden decking on the ends is only on the flat portion on the MT car, but wraps over the curved portion on the UP car. There are tiedown lugs along the edges of the UP car, although those could have been field applied." Bill also noted that the car as pictured had roller bearing trucks by that time, but that the prototype railroads had "kits" for changing out from friction bearings.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Although not as relevant as a photo of the 50000 would have been-- and I didn't locate one online-- there is a PDF document available showing Tariff, "Naming Use and Car Detention Charges on Special Type Heavy-Duty Flat Cars" effective April 1, 2001. If I am following the tariff correctly, different cars were assigned different rates. There are numerous tables with both general information and railroad specific fees.
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502 00 201 and 502 00 202, $22.15 each
The famous "Blue Streak" herald advertised a train by that name inaugurated in 1931, but for merchandise, not passengers. It traveled from St. Louis to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. That logo seems to have been a better choice for the St. Louis Southwestern, as their "cotton bale" confused shippers who thought that the line only hauled cotton. The Cotton Belt had already been brought under the control of the Southern Pacific by the time the Blue Streak was introduced, but the SP didn't own 100 percent of the company at that point and therefore didn't actually merge it. Not long after the 1958 build date of these cars, the SP and SSW moved toward the large gothic roadname, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that these plug door cars were among the last to get this "Blue Streak" scheme. The Blue Streak train, however, lasted some sixty years in one form or another.
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While the SSW and the SP have both disappeared into the Union Pacific, the Blue Streak name survives as the UP's name for its expedited intermodal service. "Blue Streak is a rail product that offers you truck-like transit without the higher cost," says the UP, and it goes well beyond Pine Bluff.
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And the ORER January 1959 has information on these cars as well. There are two groups numbered 30000 to 30024 and 30025 to 30050, with the difference in the second group being the use of a Hydra-Cushion Underframe. We'll focus on the first group of 25 which is where the two road numbers MTL did land. The full description is "Box, Insulated, Compartmentalizer" with AAR Classification "RBL". The vital statistics: inside length 40 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 2 inches, inside height 9 feet 1 inch, outside length 41 feet 7 inches, extreme height 15 feet, and capacity 3372 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. The large difference between the inside height and extreme height is a hint about where the insulation went into these cars. An end note calls out Pullman-Standard Compartmentizer gates and fixtures.
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In April 1970 24 of the original 25 cars were still in service. The compartmentizers had been removed from 17 of these cars, including the 30018 but not the 30015, and were redescribed as "Refrigerator, All Steel, Plug Doors, Insulated." Meanwhile the 30015 still had the compartmentizers and had its capacity upgraded to 110,000 pounds. Just five of the original 25 cars remain in the group as of April 1976 and that's where I stopped looking. You'd have to be thinking about roofwalk removal by this point as well.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Morning Sun Color Guide to the Southern Pacific, Volume 2 and Tony Thompson's book "Southern Pacific Freight Cars Volume 4" both contain information on this group of cars.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Turning briefly back to the other series of cars, I believe based on an MTL Special Run in N Scale that the 30025 to 30050 were painted in the sharp looking red and gray "Hydra-Cushion" scheme with white lettering. There weren't that many prototype cars done that way on the Cotton Belt or the Southern Pacific, relatively speaking, and I don't think they lasted very long. But that could still be a nice follow-on release.
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511 00 071 and 511 00 072, $18.75
One of the more unusual characteristics of much of the Kansas City Southern's freight car roster is the way they are numbered. In an concept which might be familiar to math and computer science students, the final digit is a "check digit" which enabled the recording of the road number to be validated. Though I'm not sure what the exact algorithm is in this case, there's no question that not all of the possible road numbers are used in the prototype series. The ORER for April 1981 shows the series 116009 to 117994 with just 198 cars in it.
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While I'm here, the inside length of the cars is 50 feet 8 inches, inside width 9 feet 6 inches, inside height 11 feet 2 inches, outside length 55 feet 5 inches, extreme height 15 feet 7 inches, door opening 10 feet, and capacity 5357 cubic feet or 200,000 pounds. The cars are shown as within Plate E dimensions so I think that the MTL model is a bit undersized. In Z Scale this will probably be really hard to tell. The sides including the rib count and the end configurations look good. A photo of sister car 117072 from August 2007 on Fallen Flags appears to indicate this as well. It also indicates an ATP to "the present". We'll confirm that there are 173 total cars remaining in the October 2007 ORER-- the initial lookup in the most recent addition to the UMTRR Research Accumulation. The description has been refined to "Box, 50K, Axle Spacing 5 feet 10 inches, Truck Centers 40 feet 10 inches, 20 inch Freightliner COC" with Plate E dimensions once again.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Besides the easily found images of cars from this series on the usual sites, David Carnell reports that a photo of a sister car is in the book "Kansas City Lines" by Marre and Sommers, as is the text which became the MTL car copy. The paint scheme is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. Considering the workaday nature of this freight car, it's probably appropriate.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
530 00 231 and 530 00 232, $20.50
[The following is reprinted from the April 2008 coverage of the N Scale release of this car (catalog 065 00 570).]
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The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad was formed in 1870 but did not complete its line from Pittsburgh northwest to near Youngstown, Ohio until 1879. It was already in the orbit of William Henry Vanderbilt's empire at that point, and although it eventually became wholly owned by the New York Central and the Penn Central after that, it was operated as an independent subsidiary. It in turned owned the Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Youghiogheny which extended to Connellsville and connection with the B&O and Western Maryland, also part of the "South Penn" scheme to undermine the Pennsylvania's hold on that state. When the Penn Central was folded into Conrail-- 31 years ago this month!!!-- the P&LE became independent for the first time in nearly 100 years. But the steel trade which helped make the line "The Little Giant" was a fraction of what it once was and the P&LE struggled on its own. CSX purchased the line outright in 1993; it and its predecessors had been using it going back to the days of the Baltimore and Ohio. And the P&LE became a fallen flag. The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Historical Society can be of more help here .
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Since company service cars could and often did last for decades, we have to go to the more "strictly speaking" criteria to glean an Approximate Time Period. (No ORER assistance here, I'm afraid.) The jade green of the Penn Central was introduced in 1968, of course, and the New York Central style lettering could have been used earlier than that. But the presence of the U-1 wheel stencil would put this car into circa 1978 or so. I think I read a "5-78" as the shop or reweigh date, it could be "5-79" as well. That seems to place the ATP start in the late seventies; where it ends is anybody's guess, but I think the CSX takeover would be a reasonable assumption pending the absence of any other information.
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981 01 141 and 981 01 142, $175.95 each
One of the more interesting features of the Kalmbach magazine "Classic Trains" is their "birds-eye view" of railroad facilities or landmarks. The Winter 2008 issue of CT includes just such a shot, appropriately for this commentary of the Frisco's "West Shops" in their hub of Springfield, Missouri as of March 1946. Not long after there was major change to this operation, with diesel shops built and the backshop being repurposed for freight car work. By the time I visited in the as part of my "tour" of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (for business purposes... really!) change had come again and the Springfield operation I looked over was concerned with signal and track. In 2006, BNSF tore down the diesel shops that were built in 1948, but the older backshops remain in use by Trinity Industries for freight car construction.
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And there is change represented by this GP-35 offering as well. As MTL notes, the black and yellow yielded to the much more visible red and white long before the SL-SF yielded to the Burlington Northern. Red and white? Hmm, some sources call the main color mandarin orange, not white. Anyway, the black and yellow is an unusual paint scheme choice for MTL and I don't recall seeing it done very frequently in any scale. But there's nothing wrong with doing something a little out of the ordinary, and besides, if you can live with the slash stripes, "de-lettering" is a snap.
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What may be harder to live with is the fact that the Frisco had the air tanks on the roof, similar to the "torpedo tube" Geeps built in the previous decade, and a larger 2600 gallon fuel tank below. This allowed the Geeps to be mated with U25's which carried 2900 gallons of fuel. Photos on Fallen Flags of sister units 700, 701 and 706 in the original paint scheme, and 709 in the later scheme, all illustrate this rather significant difference.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
According to an on-line Frisco Diesel Roster, the SL-SF's first order of GP-35s, numbered 700 to 716 and built in 1964, had the roof air tanks and larger fuel tank. Other GP-35s were numbered 717 to 732 and were delivered in 1965. These might have been better road number choices, although per research provided by David Carnell, they were delivered in the later scheme, and the last eight rode on trade in trucks from Alco FAs and FBs. Here's the good news from David about the black and yellow units: they were in pool service with the Seaboard Air Line and the Union Pacific, so they could be seen from North Carolina to California.
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When the Burlington Northern merged the Frisco in 1980, all of the Frisco's geeps went along and were given road numbers 2550 to 2582. A roster on the BN Photo Archives site notes that some were later rebuilt to GP39Es including the former 709. The former 708 was retired in 1985 as were others of the former Frisco fleet. Check the article "Frisco GP35s," by Paul K. Withers, in the May/June 2000 issue of Diesel Era.
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981 01 010, $165.95.
[The following is reprinted from the September 2005 coverage of the first release of this item.]
The debut of MTL's second diesel in 1:220 came in one of the most minimalist paint schemes ever used on a North American diesel locomotive. The paint, more properly called "DGLE" or Dark Green Locomotive Enamel than the oft-used "Brunswick Green" is set off only by relatively tiny keystones and no roadname at all. The negotiations around the merger of the Pennsy and the New York Central were well underway when these locos were delivered in 1964 and 1965, and less paint then meant less paint later. Well, at least that was the theory; DGLE and Penn Central black are in fact two different colors, although it was often hard to tell the difference. MTL reports that this particular Geep made it through the PC to Conrail blue. Is that a hint?
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"Rob's Pennsy Page" gives all the dimensional data that just about anyone could want upon a scan of an actual Pennsy equipment diagram for what they called Class EF-25. The Geep was 56 feet 2 inches from coupler to coupler, with 32 feet even between truck centers. It was 15 feet 3 inches tall over the stack, 10 feet 4 inches wide counting the cab armrests, and had trucks with EMD D67 motors mounted, powered by the venerable 567 engine. The wheels were 40 inches in diameter. The loco weighed 261,860 pounds, had a maximum tractive effort of 65,465 pounds and carried 2600 gallons of fuel oil. The maximum speed was 71 miles per hour. Rob's page is at prr.railfan.net and then look for the extensive equipment diagrams section.
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The minimum curve radius of the real thing was 39 degrees at a 150 foot radius; that translates to just over an 8 inch radius in Z Scale, but for less than one-eighth of a circle. Even so, MTL opted for an open pilot and truck mounted couplers, clearly a concession to practical operation of these units on the typical Z Scale layout's tight curves. As long as we're on the features of the MTL model, there is a chassis mounted light board with golden white LED's, a coreless 9 volt motor, and etched metal handrails.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Back to the prototype: According to Jerry Britton's "Keystone Crossings" site, the Pennsy rostered GP35's numbered from 2252 through 2370. The Fallen Flags site has no less than 26 different photos of the GP-35s including one of the very number 2365 that MTL modeled, as lensed in Tiffin, Ohio in June 1967 by the Fallen Flags webmaster himself, George Elwood.
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860 00 030, $35.65
Imagine a small town with three railroad lines. OK, that's probably not that difficult. But for a mining town more than 9000 feet above sea level, that might be a bit unusual. Such was the case with Cripple Creek, Colorado, southwest of Colorado Springs, which once was the terminus of three different lines. One of those three was the Florence and Cripple Creek.
The F&CC came in from the south-- Florence, to be exact, while the Midland Terminal came in from the north and the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District from the northeast. The three lines differed: the F&CC was narrow gauge, the Midland Terminal, standard gauge and the CS&CCD was partially an electric-powered enterprise. But the first two formed a rate alliance and the F&CC took over the CS&CCD, yielding your basic monopoly, or perhaps oligarchy. Or perhaps just a more efficient way for shippers to reach Colorado Springs. There's more to this story and it's in the book "American Narrow Gauge Railroads" by George W. Hilton, my usual print source for slim gauge lines, as well as on the 'net. One clarification on MTL's car copy: strictly speaking, the line leased the CS&CCD in 1911 but didn't change its own name. At least, not until the narrow gauge line was shut down and either torn up or changed to standard gauge. What was left of the F&CC did flip to the name Cripple Creek and Colorado Springs Railroad after 1915 after a time as the Golden Circle Railroad. F&CC equipment was subsequently scattered to other railroads.
As with previous releases for this railroad, there is no ORER data in the UMTRR Research Accumulation. In fact, it's not even listed in the 1905 Register. Perhaps there is some incremental information out there that can be shared. The ATP is Very Approximate based on the build date given by MTL and the end of the F&CC as a narrow gauge line. There was a question on the HOn3 YahooGroup as to whether this car should have truss rod versus steel underframes.
There is a book titled "Forty Miles to Fortune" published in 2002 and over 400 pages long; I'll bet there are some freight cars pictures in there. Netwise, there are a few F&CC photos at the "Old Colorado City Historical Museum" site. And the American Memory Project has at least 28 photos taken on along the F&CC. No gondolas that I could spot, except in one very interesting image titled "RR War in front of Strong Mine." What's that about? I'll leave it to you to find out.
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