JTC VTTX container flats

[Englewood]

Thanks for the pictures.

[lock4244]

Nice 

[ridinshotgun]

Those look really good!  Hope these sell well and the other "manufacturers" take note that you don't have to have every single under car or loco detail hanging off the thing!

[Philip H]

Looks interesting. Anyone know when they were common on the rails? Not familiar with when these saw revenue service, or if they still do.

From the JTC website:

Pullman Standard Built over 4,000 of these 60' flatcars, starting in the mid-1960s. Over time many have been upgraded and had features added or deleted.

Prototype pictures here - http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=VTTX&cid=3

This one shows up in 2017:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4652944

[JoeD]

any idea of pricing? 

Joe

[Jbub]

any idea of pricing? 

Joe

No, you can't raise your prices any more! 

[Scottl]

The JTC well cars are beautiful, really the best I have in my fleet.  I hope we see some more well models, especially the 40' variety.

It is not clear to me, but are the gray painted patches on this model representing safety tread grates?  It looks a bit strange to my eyes, but I can't say I have ever seen one of these cars. 

[bnsfdash8]

It is not clear to me, but are the gray painted patches on this model representing safety tread grates?  It looks a bit strange to my eyes, but I can't say I have ever seen one of these cars.

I was researching these cars to design before JTC announced them and it looked like most had steel plates in those areas, no tread. This one happened to have wood. They may have been painted areas when new.

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[garethashenden]

I was researching these cars to design before JTC announced them and it looked like most had steel plates in those areas, no tread. This one happened to have wood. They may have been painted areas when new.

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Huh. I thought the coupler sticking way out like that was bad design, turns out its prototypical!

[jagged ben]

Can't wait.

[DirtyD79]

Those look really good!  Hope these sell well and the other "manufacturers" take note that you don't have to have every single under car or loco detail hanging off the thing!

Agreed. Nobody runs the damn things upside down or from under a glass table top! Eventually all that fiddly little detail just becomes a case of putting a hat on a hat.

[Englewood]

I seem to remember the early Fox Valley boxcars just had a flat piece of metal for the bottom of the car. I was totally fine with that.  The only ones who see that are the spiders that hide in the tunnels.

[arbomambo]

A few more observations after running these for awhile:

  The couplers really look the part but don’t necessarily couple positively on the first attempt; it may take one or two attempts to get them to ‘click’ together. However, once coupled, they remain coupled. I haven’t had any inadvertent uncouplings.

  The cars will navigate the 11-3/4” radius of outer trackage on the original, small radius T-TRAK corners/end caps!
On this small radius, the wheelsets start to rub against the center sill, but the cars still track. I was surprised that they were able to navigate this small of a radius (being pulled or pushed). We have started using 19” radius outside curves on our T-TRAK corners, end caps, and junctions, so this won’t present any problems on our layouts.

These VTTX container flats are just the first release in JTC’s plan to model more variants of these PS 60’ flats. I’m looking forward, especially the farm machinery versions!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Agreed. Nobody runs the damn things upside down or from under a glass table top! Eventually all that fiddly little detail just becomes a case of putting a hat on a hat.

I agree 100%

[peteski]

Agreed. Nobody runs the damn things upside down or from under a glass table top! Eventually all that fiddly little detail just becomes a case of putting a hat on a hat.

I agree 100%

This is a dilemma.  Some of the newer manufacturers (JTC, Scale Trains, Rapido, and few others) are detailing their models to the max. Visible or not, the details are there, usually glued on and fragile.  Even the well-established manufacturers like Atlas, BLI, or even Bachmann to some extent are also catching up on the level of details. That is probably because they all hear that N scalers want more details.

But how much detail is too much?  Different people have different views on this.  But we asked, and we are receiving.

There is always a "plan B".  Just follow in the footsteps of Lee, and go retro.  Not only the models are pretty much devoid of any breakable or unseen details, they can often be found at flea market prices.   He also seems to be having lots of fun.