Next MTL Freight Car - 60' Flat Car ???

[James Costello]

I was just reading this months UMTRR and came across this nugget:

During the Northeast N-Trak “Mini Meet” which preceded the Amherst Railway Society’s Annual Railroad Hobby Show in Springfield at the end of January, Micro-Trains announced of their next N Scale body style. It’s the 107 series 60 foot flat car with 70 ton trucks. More to come on this latest item, which is in the tooling phase at present.

Any news you can share @MTLJoe  - what's the prototype? Hopefully this is a Trailer Train MTTX / OTTX / HTTX suitable flat and also means lots of farm, military and construction industry loads to complement them.

Did anyone else hear or see anything at Amherst about this?

Exciting times!

[bbussey]

I could have sworn the 65' mill gondola will be the 107xxx series, but I could be mistaken.  But the mill gondola is currently in tooling and will be the next new model, sometime this year.  ATSF prototype if I remember correctly.

[Point353]

From 6:24 in the following video, Eric Smith identifies the new 60' flat car model as being the 134 (thousand) series, with an ETA in about 8 months.

[nkalanaga]

If it's the OTTX car I'm familiar with, from the 60s and 70s, it could also be done as at least two variations of a PTTX bulkhead flat.

[bbussey]

Looks similar to the InterMountain model.

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[Ed Kapuscinski]

Similar to the Intermountain model with one substantial difference: it'll actually be made more than once a decade.

[thomasjmdavis]

Anyone know the prototype for this car, and when it first hit the rails?

When I saw "60' flat" I was hoping for a 1940-ish car with heavy riveted fishbelly side sills that I could use as an Ft-T.  The sketch Eric is holding pretty clearly indicates a car of a later era, and I doubt it fits into my mid 50's cutoff date. But this does look useful for my friends modeling an era a few years after mine. 

And it sounds like we will soon see the ATSF 65' gondola, which I can add to my collection of 65' gondolas, now all I have to do is build a steel mill.... 

[amato1969]

Similar to the Intermountain model with one substantial difference: it'll actually be made more than once a decade.

Hell yes!  Looking forward to these, especially for carrying large agricultural/industrial vehicle loads.

  Frank

[oakcreekco]

Anyone know the prototype for this car, and when it first hit the rails?

When I saw "60' flat" I was hoping for a 1940-ish car with heavy riveted fishbelly side sills that I could use as an Ft-T.  The sketch Eric is holding pretty clearly indicates a car of a later era, and I doubt it fits into my mid 50's cutoff date. But this does look useful for my friends modeling an era a few years after mine. 

And it sounds like we will soon see the ATSF 65' gondola, which I can add to my collection of 65' gondolas, now all I have to do is build a steel mill....

And no CA holding it together! 😂

[wcfn100]

Anyone know the prototype for this car, and when it first hit the rails?

I don't know the prototype (to hard to tell from the screen capture), but the I think first iteration of this style of 60' flat with the chain tie downs was 1964.

edit:  Soo line had this style of 60' flat as early as 8-63.


Jason

[sundowner]

It could be the like the DODX flats but with heavy equipment .

[Rivet Miscounter]

Similar to the Intermountain model with one substantial difference: it'll actually be made more than once a decade.

Are we talking about the same Micro-Trains that has a solid reputation for sitting on tooling?      I really have been out of N for awhile I guess.   

Agree that this seems squarely aligned as a continuation of the DODX market, hauling the smaller military loads like the M2A2's.   It will be interesting to see how it turns out.  Hopefully they can design it where the lasercut inserts are better integrated, and then weathered versions of this car could be off the charts good.

[bbussey]

Are we talking about the same Micro-Trains that has a solid reputation for sitting on tooling? 

People don’t realize that there are multiple MTL models that haven’t seen the light of day in years since they release a variety of models monthly and have over 100 models to choose from.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

People don’t realize that there are multiple MTL models that haven’t seen the light of day in years since they release a variety of models monthly and have over 100 models to choose from.

Guilty as charged.

But then again, as you said, they release a variety of models monthly. Every month there's a chance something might show up. And there's an even better chance that whatever they announce actually WILL show up. That's an amazing feat in 2023, honestly.

[peteski]

. . .
And there's an even better chance that whatever they announce actually WILL show up. That's an amazing feat in 2023, honestly.

I think that their mostly in-house, Made in USA production model has a lot to do with this.