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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, 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:
031 00 071, $29.85
What has to be one of the most ambitious projects yet undertaken by Micro-Trains is based on the prototype of six very specially painted cars done by the Chesapeake and Ohio for display at their stockholders meeting of April 25, 1957 in Newport News, Virginia. These six cars were meant to promote the Chessie's less than carload (LCL) service; however, the mere use of eye catching paint schemes could not reverse the movement of such traffic to trucking. The C&O got out of the LCL business entirely not long after in the 1960's. In the Morning Sun Color Guide to the C&O, author David Hickcox writes that "This [termination] had a dramatic impact on railroad operations and the railroad landscape. Gone were freight house laborers, the freight agent, many local trains and the freight stations themselves." But before that happened, there was apparently one more push to keep LCL alive, including the painting of these cars at the C&O's passenger car shops in Huntington and their immediate delivery to Newport News.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The boxcar series from which these cars were selected are an interesting story even in the plain brown paint in which they were delivered, according to an article in the March 2002 issue of the C&O Historical Magazine titled "A Buyer's Market" by Al Kresse, brought to our attention by our C&O Special Correspondent James Pugh. The story actually starts in 1955 in the offices of-- no, not the C&O, but the New Haven. Under that line's colorful president Patrick McGinnis, an order was placed with Pullman-Standard for fifteen fifty foot boxcars with double doors and five hundred more with single nine foot doors. Oops-- an audit revealed that the NH really couldn't afford them! The fifteen double door cars were delivered to the New Haven (and have indeed been modeled by MTL and others in several scales), but the order for the five hundred single door cars was cancelled. However, Pullman was already building the cars; in fact, the "NYNH&H" designation had already been stamped into the sideframes of one thousand trucks! No matter, in February 1956 all five hundred cars were diverted to the Chessie as their series 21000 to 21499, New Haven stamped trucks and all. The C&O got a good deal on these five hundred, paying $10,637.78 each for them, versus over $11,000 each for two series of fifty foot boxcars it had previously acquired in 1955. Hmm, if you reduce that to N Scale, that would be about $66.48 per car ($10,637.78 divided by 160). So from that perspective, the MSRPs on the Micro-Trains models don't seem quite so bad. Yes, I am kidding... mostly...
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Anyway, MTL did the ordinary boxcar red painted versions of these cars way back in October 1974 and January 1975 (Catalog 31080/31487, road numbers 21422 and 21427). But six of the prototype cars were pulled from the roster, probably just six that were in the general vicinity of Huntington, and painted up in the "Cameo" schemes. They were also known as the "circus wagons," similarly to the ten car set of boxcars painted by the Great Northern while it was attempting to decide on a paint scheme, and perhaps more appropriately for The Chessie Route, as "kitty cars."
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
And although, with good reason, these experiments were never repeated nor adopted-- can you imagine what it would have cost to do even a few dozen cars in any one of these intricate schemes, even in 1957?-- they were apparently also not ever repainted either! As evidence of this with respect to one of the cars, the MSCG to the C&O provides prototype photos of the C&O 21299, or MTL's Cameo Car 2, as found in June 1965 and then again in March 1976! James Pugh also points to a black and white photo of the C&O 21463, or MTL's Cameo Car 3, in the book "Chessie's Road."
066 00 011 and 066 00 012, $22.70 each
It has been a looooooong time since we've seen new molding for this type of car. Sure, there's probably at least one copy of an Atlas First Generation, Life-Like, Bachmann or even Industrial Rail three dome tank car around, but this is the first time in at least twenty years if not more that a newly tooled release has hit stores. The design of this model is similar to MTL's single dome tank car, but the tank appears to be somewhat smaller than that on the single dome car. Word is that there are a number of potential paint schemes for this offering, although they'll be fairly old in keeping with the Approximate Time Period of this car. So my next question is whether I need to invest in a copy of the book "Tank Cars: American Car & Foundry, 1865-1955" by Edward S. Kaminski for the UMTRR Research Accumulation? (Do any Gang Members already have it in their library?)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The year 1941 is the build date given for this pair of tankers lettered for the Shell Chemical Company. As you may recall from previous discussions of Shell Oil, it's actually a worldwide concern headquartered in both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Shell Chemical Company dates to 1929 according to their website and its first product was ammonia produced from natural gas. By the time this car began service for Shell Chemical, the company was making secondary butyl alcohol, methyl ethyl ketone, isopropyl alcohol, epichlorohydrin and butadiene. The first three of those are still being manufactured by Shell Chemical, and the second and perhaps third of those chemicals have model railroading applications! Although not in tank car quantities... Shell Chemicals lists seven manufacturing sites in the United States located in California, Washington, Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. Its regional office is in Houston.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
OK, well, we might not want to be hoping for reprints in this paint scheme! The Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) for January 1945 calls out the 651 and 652-- only-- specifically as being "three compartment cars" with capacity of each compartment being 2500 gallons. Yes, "three compartment" is the more correct designation but I doubt that it will dislodge the "three dome" moniker. These cars are of AAR Classification "TM" and Class ICC 103. The total roster was shown as 177 tank cars for "Shell Chemical Division, Shell Union Oil Company" of San Francisco.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Well, at least it's relatively easy to figure out when these cars left the Shell Chemical roster, unlike the head-splitting attempts I have to make to gauge the ATP of most tank car releases. They're still in the January 1955 ORER along with six other smaller three compartment cars (just 2000 gallons per compartment) numbered 653 to 658. The entire Shell Chemical roster had grown to 385 tank cars by then as well. The two three dome cars are still shown in the January 1964 ORER and the April 1970 Register as well, and the 651 actually makes it into the April 1976 edition!
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
But I very much doubt that the orange and black paint scheme survived anywhere near that long. In fact, I'm a bit surprised that a tank car built in 1941 would have an orange and black paint scheme at all-- don't you know there's a war on and tank cars are supposed to be inconspicuous? Not these two, obviously, but the vast majority of tank cars were basic black as documented in several different articles in the model railroad press.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
083 00 031 and 083 00 032, $17.85 each
Micro-Trains' car copy closely matches the caption on Page 80 of the Morning Sun Color Guide to the Western Pacific by Jim Eager, which includes a photo of a worn and weathered WP 9248 as of December 1976 at Portola, California. But the ORERs don't seem to agree with the "between 1928 and 1930" information. There are certainly drop bottom gondolas in the WP roster at that time, but they're numbered in the 6000s and they're 40 foot interior length. What's the problem with that? Well...
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER for January 1955 is the first place I pick up these cars, which were actually built in 1953 by General American. The reference to 1928 through 1930 is to rebuilds of other gondola series, specifically the 5301 to 5600 group. The series of interest to us is from 9101 to 9400 which includes the 9248 and 9264. The 300 cars are shown as "Gondola, All Steel, Drop Bottom, Side Dump" with an AAR Classification of "GS". The inside length is 46 feet, making the MTL model too short. The inside width is 9 feet 8 inches, inside height 5 feet 5 inches, outside length 48 feet, extreme height 9 feet 8 inches, and capacity 2412 cubic feet or 140,000 pounds. There were 265 cars in the series as of the January 1964 ORER; 35 of these were fitted with wood racks and renumbered into the 5001 to 5035 series by then. By April 1970 that repurposed group was up to 70 cars numbered 5001 to 5070 and the 9101 to 9400 series that we're interested in had dropped to 195 cars. A mere four cars remained as of the April 1981 ORER.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
I'm assuming that the paint scheme MTL used is what the real gondolas wore through their term of service given what I know about the WP's gondolas from earlier releases. We're not going to see any orange feathers on them, for example.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
From the "WPList" YahooGroup is further confirmation that the MTL model is too short, by way of discussion of HO Scale models that were released based on the same Union Pacific/Southern Pacific prototype that MTL used for its model. For example, Red Caboose has done 1:87 cars painted for the "WP family" including the WP itself, the Sacramento Northern and the Tidewater Southern. While being longer, they do have the same number of side panels as the UP/SP prototype. All of the Western Pacific's steel general service gondolas were more than 40 feet in length.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
099 00 050, $16.75
The Magor Car Company is one of the lesser known builders of freight cars, at least when compared to some of the big names like American Car and Foundry, General American, and Pullman-Standard. That might be due to its long time focus on cars built for export; it was a big supplier of rolling stock sent to Europe as part of the Marshall Plan for example. But it did build over five thousand aluminum cars including the first to be placed in revenue service in the United States. Ed Kaminski wrote what is probably the most complete history of the company, "The Magor Car Corporation," another highly recommended volume. At the rate I'm mentally spending money on research material, I'd better double my subscription rate...
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Fortunately, David Carnell has Kaminski's Magor book and turns to Page 116 for a photo of sister car MILW 98761. No, it's not an Evans-made car, but it's close. "The Evans car has end slope sheets that meet the body just below the MILW reporting marks," David reports, "while the Magor car has end slope sheets that meet the body just above the MILW reporting marks. The side panels and ribs have the same 4-3-4 pattern with the larger panels found on either side of the center three ribs." I'd say it's somewhat unlikely that a true Magor model will surface, although given the plethora of different covered hoppers made available in 1:160, I'm not going to say "never." David tells us that this model appears to be a very good stand in. I'd certainly like to see MTL do more roadnames that were actually done on Evans cars, though.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The placement of the roadname significantly left of center, with the "M" in "Milwaukee" in the same panel as the "LW" in the reporting marks, is prototypical, if a bit odd. Other series of MILW covered hoppers have the roadname more or less centered. The placement of the roadname here, though, may have been to allow for a placard with the slogan "America's Resourceful Railroad" at some point. That placard wasn't present when the photo of the 98761 was taken at the Magor factory. Meanwhile, another sister car, the MILW 98759, is shown on Page 88 of the Morning Sun Color Guide to the Milwaukee Volume 2, no placard there either. I did not find any online images.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The series 98759 to 98768-- yes, that is just ten cars-- is shown in the April 1970 ORER with AAR Classification "LO" and description "Covered Hopper, Aluminum." The inside length was 54 feet 1 inch, outside length 57 feet 9 inches, extreme height 15 feet, and capacity 4750 cubic feet or 200,000 pounds. Four of these cars survived into the turn of the century well after the demise of the Milwaukee Road and were listed in the Soo Line entry with MILW reporting marks in the January 2000 Equipment Register, and two remained in the January 2006 ORER. But since the forty year rule would have kicked in after that, I'm not ready to go "To Present" on this small group-- though oh so close.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
031 00 250, $18.65
Reporting Marks: NP 1265.
This car was part of the "virtual BN fallen flags four pack" that was issued back fourteen years ago (already!). There's always some confusion about this... well, at least at UMTRR HQ!... but this quartet was actually four separate releases, not a shrinkwrapped set. (The other cars, all 50 foot boxcars, were 34210, SP&S double door, 33120, Great Northern combination door, and 31260, Burlington/C&S single door.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The Morning Sun Color Guide to the Northern Pacific shows much of the information that MTL used for its car copy on Page 53. The prototype car NP 1168 from the same series shows riveted sides and a straight bottom sill, details that differ from the model. The August 1955 photo was taken just a few months after the car was converted from an unequipped boxcar in the NP's 31000 series (a series also depicted by Micro-Trains). The use of the monad with simply "Northern Pacific" and not "Northern Pacific Railway" dates the MTL car's rebuilding and repainting to prior to 1955, but of course the Approximate Time Period doesn't necessarily end there. Some of these cars did have roofwalks removed and ladders cut down and received a modified green and white paint scheme. A car showing a repaint date of 1968 is on the next page of the MSCG suggesting a ATP ending in the later part of that decade. We'll call it there given the older herald.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER for January 1955 shows just 10 cars in the group numbered 1100 to 1109, so once again we see that the Equipment Register hasn't necessarily kept up with the real rosters. (And why I call it the "Approximate" Time Period...) The January 1959 ORER shows 195 cars numbered 1100 to 1295, with a notation indicating the DF loaders that are advertised on the car's doors. The inside length was 50 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, outside length 51 feet 11 inches, extreme height 15 feet 1 inch, door opening 8 feet, and capacity 4807 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds. 191 cars made it to the Burlington Northern merger and the ORER listing for April 1970, but as I've noted above, I think we're past the ATP at that point given the changes illustrated in the Morning Sun Guide.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
032 00 120, $15.20
Reporting Marks: SCL 635336.
The July 1, 1967 merger of the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard into the Seaboard Coast Line set in motion one of the more comprehensible renumbering schemes we've seen, described several times here in these bytes. Specific to this car, it would have begun as ACL 35336 and been restenciled to SCL 635336. Both series are listed in the January 1970 ORER, which means that the car couldn't have been built in 1972 as the MTL car copy indicates. (The original version of the car reads "New 7-72" which usually indicates some rework effort.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Both the groups ACL 35100 to 35713 and SCL 635100 to 635713 are listed with AAR Designation "XL" and description "Box, Cushion Underframe" with these dimensions: inside length 50 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 5 inches, inside width 9 feet 4 inches, outside length 60 feet 5 inches (extended draft gear trucks needed!), extreme height 15 feet 1 inch, door opening 9 feet, and capacity 4923 cubic feet or 140,000 pounds. There were a bunch of end notes with these groups, and searching each of them, we find that all the cars had partial DF-2 loaders and the 635336 had "special fiber glass coated doorway members and in assigned service"-- no, unfortunately I wouldn't know what service. There were 700 cars listed under the SCL series, but this included ACL lettered cars that hadn't been restenciled.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
In the July 1974 ORER, the 635336 was listed in a subseries of 28 cars with the fiber glass coated doorway members, out of a total of 568 cars in the overall group. By April 1981 the total of the group was down to 365 including the 635336 and 16 others with the "fiber glass", but I'd really have to question whether the roofwalk would have been pulled by this time. For the record, the series makes it into CSX Transportation and into the early 1990's (101 in 1991, zero in 1996), but the fiber glass did not and I'm not sure this particular car did either.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Reprint:
800 00 080, $19.70
Besides the three runs of this boxcar, MTL has also done a gondola for this relatively obscure line. Catalog Number 15205 was released in May 1997, complete with the same colorful herald. Back when that car was released, Bruce Bird (still a UMTRR Gang Member, I am pleased to tell you) went to his bookshelf for "Colorado's Mountain Railroads" by Robert LeMassena, and pulled this quote on the C&N:
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
"Due to a monetary panic of 1893 and a flood of 1894 the UP decided not to rebuild its Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific Railroad, which connected Boulder with the precious metal mines west of the city. However the mining and smelting industry was far from dead so, some Eastern capitalists formed a new company, the Colorado & Northwestern RailWAY in 1897... The line was reorganized in 1904 to the C&N RailROAD and failed again in 1909. It was then reorganized as the Denver, Boulder & Western, which lasted until 1917, with removal of the line in 1920." Hey, that's the Denver, Boulder and Western for which the most recent HOn3 gondola is lettered! Interesting how those dots connect sometimes. Speaking of dots, MTL connected the same ones for their car copy on this boxcar. How about that?
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Using the book "American Narrow Gauge Railroads" by George Hilton, as we did with the April 2004 reprint of this car, let's take a quick look at this line: it was started as a Union Pacific venture in 1881, at first as a means to get gold and silver out of Boulder Canyon in Colorado, but intended to stretch all the way to Salt Lake City and thence to the Pacific. Like many slim gauge lines, it was not exactly constructed for the ages, and it was prone to flooding. That's exactly what occurred in May 1894 when it rained for about 60 straight hours. Just two miles of the line were left after that washout, and the UP lost interest. Local businessmen revived and rebuilt the line as the Colorado and Northwestern Railway, with mining traffic in mind to be sure, but also tourist traffic. This line actually came down into Union Station in Denver via a third rail on the Colorado and Southern.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
However, neither the mines nor the tourists lasted very long. Better mines elsewhere killed off the former, with a brief spike during World War I, and better roads into and out of Boulder killed off the latter. Despite various reorganizations including the Denver, Boulder and Western, the railroad was finished and completely dismantled by the beginning of 1920.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
I almost related the boxcars of the Carolina and Northwestern Railway from the June 1905 ORER-- talk about "do not confuse with..."! There's no Equipment Register entry for the Colorado and Northwestern in the index of either the June 1905 or the October 1919 editions, so no help there. We'll have to settle for the historical text to define the Approximate Time Period.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
503 00 021 and 503 00 022, $27.25 each
The two road numbers chosen for this paired release are in fact the two numbers MTL has done on the N Scale version of this car, back in December 1995 and August 2002. But the N Scale cars are not paired releases, oh no, and it's not just because of the time between releases. The first 1:160 run of this car had the CP "Multimark" trademark on the brake wheel end on both sides of the car, that is, a bit of a mirror image from one side to the next; while the second 1:160 run had the Multimark on the right side of the car in both cases. If this description is confusing, and it seems that way to me, please refer to my page "Fun with Multimarks" on this site for some images. The first run was the way CP Rail planned to do these cars, while the second run is how they actually did them.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
Why do we care about the N Scale releases anyway? Well, it's important to know which version was executed on these Z Scale releases. But letting out that factory air by opening the box? Nah-- so a quick call out to MTL confirmed that the cars are done with the Multimark on the right hand end of each side, i.e., the sides are painted identically. It's what I would have expected, but it didn't hurt to make sure.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
According to Ian Cranstone's "Canadian Freight Cars" website, the group numbered 55525 to 56024 was built between December 1957 and January 1958 by Canadian Car and Foundry, with a 40 foot 6 inch interior length, 10 foot 6 inch interior height and 8 foot door opening (uh, oh, a "door thing"-- the MTL model has a six foot door). Obviously they didn't look like this when delivered as the CP Rail image wasn't introduced until 1968. I'll assume that the CPR "stepped lettering" in white on boxcar red was the initial decoration and that the cars had their roofwalks and full ladders then as well. I should note that the "strictly speaking" Approximate Time Period for these cars should begin in 1978 since there is that "yellow dot" wheel inspection stencil that was required starting in March of that year. You can remove that and go back to as far as the CP Rail introduction if you'd like, but oh, lose the consolidated stencils also. I arbitrarily chose early 1970's as the ATP start, giving CP Rail some time after 1968 to rework and repaint these cars.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
The ORER accounts for these cars differently than the individual build series Ian Cranstone utilizes, so in the January 1985 ORER we have 2284 cars in the series 52900 to 56024, AAR Class XM, description "Box, Steel, 25K." Inside length was 40 feet 6 inches, outside length 44 feet 4 inches, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, extreme height 15 feet 1 inch, door opening 8 feet and capacity is 3900 cubic feet or 110,000 pounds. This series dropped off pretty quickly, all the way down to 50 cars by October 1991's Register.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
507 00 391 and 507 00 392, $27.65 each
I almost fell over looking at the D&RGW Historical and Modeling Society-- what do you mean, this boxcar isn't listed? Not to worry, George (and all): look under "Refrigerator and Insulated Boxcars" in the freight roster. There you will find an entry for the series 60715 to 60814, AAR Class RBL cars built in 1962 by Pacific Car and Foundry and in use for grocery products service. These cars had riveted sides, a straight side sill, 4/4 inverse Dreadnaught ends (if I'm reading the table's codes right!), a nine foot Youngstown plug door, and Car-Pac belt rail loaders. David Carnell tells us that "a very weathered sister car D&RGW 60814" is on Page 49 of the Morning Sun Color Guide to the Rio Grande; the text reads 1998 but based on ORER data below, that may be a typo. A somewhat less weathered D&RGW 60718 as it appeared in 1967 in Marshalltown, Iowa is on George Elwood's Fallen Flags site. It looks rather dirty for only a five year old car; as attractive as this scheme is, and it is one of my favorites, it doesn't seem to have been easy to keep clean. The extended draft gear is obvious from the photo, part of the Waugh Cushion Underframe.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
And that feature is duly noted in the ORER for January 1964 in the description of this series: "Refrigerator, All Steel, Insulated, Car-Pac Loader, Waugh-Cushion Underframe, Plug Doors." The vital statistics: Inside length 50 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 4 inches, inside height 9 feet 9 inches, outside length 53 feet 10 inches, extreme height 15 feet, capacity 4555 cubic feet or 140,000 pounds. There were 98 cars of a possible 100 in the group at that time. In April 1970 there were 91 cars and in April 1975 there were 88, but you probably should be thinking roofwalk removal by that year-- unless the 1998 date for the photo in the MSCG is correct, as the car still has its running board. Isn't this confusing... maybe. The cars did last into the first half of the Nineties with just one car left in October 1996, so if the photo is from 1998, it's likely of an "off revenue service roster" car.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
980 01 170, $104.95
Well this is a surprise! I would have taken a bet that the F-7s were permanently on the bye-bye board at MTL, but here's at least one more release of the "covered wagon" units. Could the fact that Southern Pacific is a favorite road of the MTL R&D director be a factor... nah, just coincidence. (Sorry, Joe D'Amato, I couldn't resist.)
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
David Carnell checks in with information about both of these units, start quote:
End quote, and thanks once again, David. In terms of online images, on RRPictureArchives.net there is sister unit 6441 as found at Martinez, California in July 1965. Behind the 6441 is at one other F-7A and two booster (B) units of some sort. Not sure what those items atop the roof are, though. MTL please make note of those silver US Army tank cars in the photo also! Also at Martinez in July 1965 is a set of A-A-B-A-A units, the first four in the scarlet and gray and the last still in the Black Widow paint. As for the B-unit, well, there are lots of locos in the 8200 number series pictured, but they are SD40T-2 "tunnel motors," not F-7s. So we know what the Espee did with those road numbers after the covered wagons were retired.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
530 00 041 and 530 00 042, $18.10 each.
Checking the release archives for this car's previous runs, I uttered an audible "What?!?" upon rediscovering that the first issuance of this car was with Marklin couplers only! The version of the same road number wasn't released with Magne-Matic couplers until more than two years later. How far Z Scale has come... although how far my information on this particular car has not! So we'll have to do with a "reprint" from the most recent release of the N Scale version from back in February 2003.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
GATX-- it is now officially known by that name, which, yes, did come from its reporting marks-- calls itself "a specialized finance and leasing company." It leases "assets that include railroad cars and locomotives, jet commercial aircraft, and technology and marine assets." That's quite a long way from where it started, or even where it was when I was growing up in New Jersey and there was a GATX tank farm not far from where I lived.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
This car goes back to the days when the General American Transportation Company was at least equally focused on building cars as leasing them. GATX began as the German-American Tank Car Company at the start of the 1900's and renamed itself General American in 1916. First building in Warren, Ohio, production later shifted to two plants in Sharon, Pennsylvania. As you might imagine, an early emphasis was on cars that hauled oil and petroleum products.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
MTL gives 1957 as the build date for this car, so I checked the January 1959 ORER. Therein is a citation for the series 18700 to 19999, of 665 cars with 100,000 pounds capacity, plus a couple of exceptions. In the January 1964 ORER that group is down to 372 cars. And in April 1970, down again to 77. And that's it, which is a key problem with the ORER tanker listings... no length, no gallonage size, no et cetera.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
And especially, no "how it was painted". The lettering scheme chosen by MTL for this car lies in a bit of a contrast to the very typical utilitarian scheme of reporting marks only. The General American logo, for example, was fairly common on the company's Airslide® covered hoppers of the same time period, but I don't remember ever seeing it on a tanker. I couldn't find any photo citations on this car, or anything in the series for that matter, although I did note from some Rail Model Journal articles that in the 1950's and 1960's, most GATX cars were in fact basic black with basic lettering. Does that mean this scheme never existed? I doubt that.
© 2008 George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Reposting prohibited.
New Release:
Please see the review of the first release of this car in the March UMTRR (e-mail and website editions).
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