Micro-Trains July Announcements

[Ike the BN Freak]

https://www.micro-trains.com/publicfiles/monthly/MN2207.pdf

To keep the thread drift from the PS-2 post.

Anyone know the era of the GACX/GATX airslides?

[wazzou]

https://www.micro-trains.com/publicfiles/monthly/MN2207.pdf

To keep the thread drift from the PS-2 post.

Anyone know the era of the GACX/GATX airslides?

The first sentence says “built in the early 1970’s”.

[Ike the BN Freak]

The first sentence says “built in the early 1970’s”.

But MTL is known to describe the car type in a lot of the descriptions versus the actual car/paint scheme used...

[wazzou]

But MTL is known to describe the car type in a lot of the descriptions versus the actual car/paint scheme used...

Ah, the scheme.  My apologies.

[squirrelhunter]

Pretty sure the GATX blue circle logo scheme dates to the late 80's/early 90's. Tangent said in the info for their light blue GATX airlside that they started using that scheme in 1992.

[ai5629]

Did anyone notice the “New Body Style” below the PS2 covered hopper?  40’ standard double door boxcar without roof walk.  Not the show stopper that the PS2 is, but it is good to see them offer another boxcar sans the running board.  Now if they would only offer the 60’ Greenville Boxcar without running board.  @MTLJoe please bring this up again to the product development people.  I ask the MTL folks at every show I go to and nothing yet.  Thank you.

Jeff

[bbussey]

I’m surprised it took this long to introduce the 40’ double door with high ladders and no roofwalk. Most of the slides of the 40’ boxcar tool are interchangeable. The single sliding door / high ladders / no roofwalk version first appeared decades ago as an N-Trak limited run model.

[bbussey]

Anyone know the era of the GACX/GATX airslides?

Once the media kit posts next week, the service date should be legible on the larger photos of the release.

[cfritschle]

Anyone know the era of the GACX/GATX airslides?

There is photo of GACX 56073 in the book Illustrated Modern Freight Cars of North America that has a built date of 5-81, and no logo.  The car looks nearly new when that photo was taken.  GACX 56073 is of course newer and in a different number series than the MTL Airslides, but it has two large "COTS panels" (I not sure if "COTS panels" is the correct term when there are two) instead of the one panel on the MTL models. 

So as Squirrelhunter posted, late rather than early 1980s appears to an appropriate time frame for when the round logo came into use.  Also, the MTL models appear to be repaints, and not in their original 1971 paint scheme.   

Here is a photo of one of the models in MTL's release, GACX 46576, that was taken in 1992.  http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2778005

[JoeD]

Did anyone notice the “New Body Style” below the PS2 covered hopper?  40’ standard double door boxcar without roof walk.  Not the show stopper that the PS2 is, but it is good to see them offer another boxcar sans the running board.  Now if they would only offer the 60’ Greenville Boxcar without running board.  @MTLJoe please bring this up again to the product development people.  I ask the MTL folks at every show I go to and nothing yet.  Thank you.

Jeff

I'll run it by the Roadmap meeting this week.

Thanks

Joe

[learmoia]

I'll run it by the Roadmap meeting this week.

Thanks..

Joe

Please Do.. I've been waiting for these since you announced the bodystyle!!!! 

[MTL_Brandon]

https://www.micro-trains.com/publicfiles/monthly/MN2207.pdf

To keep the thread drift from the PS-2 post.

Anyone know the era of the GACX/GATX airslides?

From the photos we have of these Airslides in the "Service Driven" blue circle re-paint scheme, it appears they were marked very inconsistantly by GATX. The reporting mark/road number used varying fonts, small data across the side was wildly different in form and location, etc. We tried to choose two cars for our release that were somewhat similar in their markings. The photos we have for our two road numbers were dated 1988 and 1992, and the paint appears pretty fresh. I would put the era to be late 1980s-mid 1990s. Please note, a number of these repaints, including the two cars we picked, have a service date (by the capy data) that was apparently mis-stenciled by the railroad. Our cars clearly have "BK 11-74" stenciled on the side of the car, which we reproduced accurately. GATX should probably have put the 1980's repaint/service date instead of 1974, which is likely the original build date.

[ai5629]

From the photos we have of these Airslides in the "Service Driven" blue circle re-paint scheme, it appears they were marked very inconsistantly by GATX. The reporting mark/road number used varying fonts, small data across the side was wildly different in form and location, etc. We tried to choose two cars for our release that were somewhat similar in their markings. The photos we have for our two road numbers were dated 1988 and 1992, and the paint appears pretty fresh. I would put the era to be late 1980s-mid 1990s. Please note, a number of these repaints, including the two cars we picked, have a service date (by the capy data) that was apparently mis-stenciled by the railroad. Our cars clearly have "BK 11-74" stenciled on the side of the car, which we reproduced accurately. GATX should probably have put the 1980's repaint/service date instead of 1974, which is likely the original build date.

Here are two things to muddy the waters with.  The MTL car and the prototype photo show the car with full CAPY data (the CAPY line and numerical value).  The requirement for the CAPY data line included with the left side dimensional data was dropped at some point in 1987.  It seems that different car shops, car builders, etc dropped it at different times.  For example, Conrail’s Hollidayaburg Car Shop dropped it in mid 1987, while Conrail’s Meadville Car Shop dropped it in early 1988.  I base this off personal observation.  Regarding the BK 11-74, I would assume that is the date the car was last reweighed.  Freight cars are not always reweighed when they are repainted, so the shop may have just applied the date it was last reweighed, even though it was repainted.  I hope this helps.

Jeff

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I'll run it by the Roadmap meeting this week.

Thanks

Joe

These would be good for Conrail 932, 937, and the Despatch clone 938 classes
https://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/index.php/photos/cr-219072-class-932b

[Ed Kapuscinski]

These would be good for Conrail 932, 937, and the Despatch clone 938 classes
https://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/index.php/photos/cr-219072-class-932b

Gimmie gimmie gimmie!