New Heavyweight Baggage car suggestions for MTL

[RRRover]

I have to echo the comments of several on the forum - a combine or a 60' car.

[mcjaco]

I understand Bryan's point however I am not opposed to a new baggage car; in as much as I don't believe that producing it means that another HW car (Solarium, Horse Express etc...) would not be a possibility further on down the road.
I suggest one of these as a possibility:

A Pullman built GN 80' (80 foot-ish for you purists out there....)



A Barney and Smith SOO 80'... an under represented builder in N scale I'll wager..............



 and another variation of the SOO 80 ft....

Oh, to have some B&S cars......that'll be the day, especially with the Atlas Soo TT Geeps on their way!

[JMaurer1]

Why is it that whenever anyone asks N scallers what they would like to have within a given parameter, the  immediately want something that isn't in those parameters and start crying about what they want INSTEAD of what the vender has committed to produce? The man said 80' baggage car. Would you rather have an 80' baggage car made by MT or nothing? Either you are part of the solution or part of the problem. Help or be quiet...

Now for help (I hope). A quick check says that Southern Pacific had 60' Harriman baggage cars and 70' HW baggage cars but that the 80' cars were either baggage/horse cars (three baggage doors built by St. Louis Car Company in 1937) or 80' baggage/RPO combos (60' baggage, 20' RPO, also built by St. Louis Car Company in 1937).

SP Baggage/Horse Car: http://www.azrymuseum.org/roster/SP_Horse_Car/Pics/SP%20MW5984.JPG

More info can be found in the SPH&TS book Southern Pacific Passenger Cars Vol 3 Head-end Equipment. Let me know if you would like more info on either of these two cars.

[GN Fan]

As a Great Northern modeler, I would like to see Puddy's suggestion made into a MT model.  Go Great Northern! (An advertising slogan of the GN)

Tom

[wazzou]

Why is it that whenever anyone asks N scallers what they would like to have within a given parameter, the  immediately want something that isn't in those parameters and start crying about what they want INSTEAD of what the vender has committed to produce? The man said 80' baggage car. Would you rather have an 80' baggage car made by MT or nothing? Either you are part of the solution or part of the problem. Help or be quiet...

I suspect most people view it as harmless lobbying.   Others with more knowledge of passenger car prototypes may view this as an opportunity to help MT make a smart business decision.  Joe knows what he's getting when he asks, so I wouldn't let it bother you either.

[Puddington]

I know this may lead the thread a bit off topic but what "we" (the resident proto-nuts of Railwire) want isn't a true reflection of what most of the market might want. The "classic" baggage car might just be the appeal to a very large market segment as opposed to the hard core desire for specific prototypes like we've seen requested here.

The PRR guys want a B...whatever, the NYC guys want a 60' mail.... most of which are very specific to their road.... if someone spent the tooling dollars on one of those they would have to be willing to either pray they make enough money to cover their costs on the "proto" schemes or be willing to suffer the slings and arrows of foobie comments.... Ergo; it might just be easier to take a well known common car type and produce it with lots of foobie schemes, counting on it's appeal to the masses and hoping for a easy ride from the A@@hats....

Put another way; what if MT decided to do this prototype...?



It's a baggage express, 80 ft (well, 81.5) and represents a huge and historic class 1 railway.... How many will they sell to our happy band of wanders...? Not many... only us CPR guys and anyone who's road interchanged with the CPR... right ? The same can be said for a PRR B...whatever... I'm not buying one... nor a NYC 60' mail car... same reason; no disrespect to either road or their supporters.. You can't justify tooling on the single or couple of roads a car would be home on and a handful of kitbashers... I'd always default to making something with the broadest possible appeal... whatever you deem that to be.

Passenger stuff is hard (I know, we make 90% passenger stuff) lots of customization and too few roads using many of the designs... "standardization" isn't a common thing in many cases. If MT wants an 80' car then I guess they feel they will be able to maximize their sales in their popular road names regardless of the angst we see here....

I guess what I'm trying ( and not succeeding) to say is; I agree that a 70' or 60' car might have more appeal to "modellers" but the "tried and true" 80' format for a HW car might just be a marketing point that outweighs the urge for a wonderful road specific prototype car....

As I said; it's a toughie !

[Ian MacMillan]

I suspect most people view it as harmless lobbying.   Others with more knowledge of passenger car prototypes may view this as an opportunity to help MT make a smart business decision.  Joe knows what he's getting when he asks, so I wouldn't let it bother you either.

+1


And I have no need for anything other than a B!

[Kisatchie]

...If MT wants an 80' car then I guess they feel they will be able to maximize their sales in their popular road names regardless of the angst we see here...

I'm in for a few (at least) 80' baggage cars. I'm going to paint 'em for my Kistachie, Gulf & Northern Railroad.


Hmm... what about
decaling 'em...?

[NYC1956]

...PRR guys want a B...whatever, the NYC guys want a 60' mail.... most of which are very specific to their road....

Those PRR and NYC baggage cars appeared in trains everywhere.
An example: most of the photos I have of the NYC baggage cars were taken in Dallas. That's pretty far off line.

[SkipGear]

Like I said earlier, being a B&O guy, there just weren't any 80' baggage only cars. They all had a , coach, lounge, or RPO section. It is a rare car and the 60-70' variety would be much more usefull to me and I think a lot of other people are in the same boat.

If I want an 80' full baggage stand in, I have a half dozzen of the Rivarossi cars already. I don't need another 80' stand in car and I know a lot of others that feel the same way. The WOT baggage is a very nice car but, at least for me, too modern looking for a 40's-50's era train and nothing like anything B&O had.

[chicken45]

Not only do we like the B's, we also like BM's! 

Has anyone suggested the B60 for the fifth time? I lost count.
Sorry Joe.

Did we ever see NYC baggage cars on Pennsy trains?

[pjm20]

Did we ever see NYC baggage cars on Pennsy trains?

Heresy!!!! 

But in all seriousness, the only foreign baggage cars that I was under the impression of being on PRR east-west trains (not those silly NYC-Florida trains) have been New Haven baggage cars. Also, there is the possiblity that some N&W baggage cars worked there way up to the Hburg from Hagerstown. Please let anybody tell me that I'm wrong. The more baggage cars the better!

[muktown128]

Has anyone suggested the B60 for the fifth time? I lost count.
Sorry Joe.

+1 for a B60 (sixth time).  Then we'll need a new K4 to pull them

Scott

[pjm20]

If were are going to advocate for the B60 now, I'll add my arguement for it:

You had three different phases: B60, B60a, B60b. All are pretty much the same. The N&W also bought a few B60s off the PRR

You have two different truck styles: 2D5P2 trucks and 2DP3 trucks.

You have multiple paint schemes: Regular ol' PRR, PRR REA, Modernized PRR, PRR MOW, Penn Central MOW Tuscan Penn Central, Green Penn Central, Long Island, Long Island MOW, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, Conrail MOW, N&W.

These cars were seen all over the country: I have seen them in Alexandria VA, Providence RI, Minneapolis MN, Dallas TX. Also, they are known to have been in California regularly on the ATSF's Fast Mail. Also, I'm sure a few worked there way to Florida on the NYC-Florida trains the PRR provided. 

[Kev1340]

Just to add to the conspiracy, I'd buy into B60's in Norfolk and Western.

I've no use for anything else.

Cheers,

Kev