New suggestions for MTL

[bbussey]

To clarify the G26 situation - it was my first time working on an injection-molded project for an entire R-T-R model that was contracted overseas.  I was given a set of minimums which were higher than I wanted but still thought were reasonable.  I wasn't aware they were negotiable.  So the problem isn't that the gons didn't sell, it's that the run was too large.  If it was half what was done, they would have sold out two years ago and we'd be on a third or fourth release by now, and probably the G26A and G26C variations as well.  In hindsight, it would have been better to add more roadnames and/or road numbers to the initial run, as the only additional cost would have been the printing plates.  Live and learn, and the experience on both sides of the ocean allowed all parties to figure out a workable solution moving forward, which was applied to the XIH (with the fourth release at the end of this month), and the lessons learned on that model have been applied to the X58.

[sirenwerks]

I'm not really nit picky with details on modern cars but something that visually stands out in a train, like waffle side box cars, excess height 60' cars, or for older cars, the wagontops, and Milwaukee ribsides boxcars is what the average person notices. They are visually different than the other cars in the train. The things that stand out as unique is what I remember and what I want to model. The mundane doesn't sell, the unique does, it's as simple as that.

In that logic, a car that can carry the unusual, such as a flat or gon, is likely a good seller. That is, as long as loads are available pre-built or the buyers of the car have the wherewithal to make something so simple themselves. Better than a 'unique' car (which when featured with other unique cars become, well, not unique) each load has the potential to not only be unique (unless you repeatedly buy the same load casting) but there's the secondary factor of the car being unloaded in one direction and loaded in another. Cant' do that with a box car or covered hopper, now can yea?

[wm3798]

Most of my more recent purchases have been of the open car variety.  The Bachmann flatcars are clunky old castings, but the loads they provide aren't too bad.  I've also found it's pretty easy to use the pinholes in the deck of Atlas flatcars to secure removable resin loads, like those ubiquitous tarped machines.

What I'd really like to see is a good model of the old freight containers that rode in gondolas in the age before intermodal.  WM ran these well into the 1970's.
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/wm/wm5446alx.jpg

Lee

[Puddington]

To add to your greatly received heavyweight cars , a horse express car .

Ricjie.... you do this beauty ? If not then who's the builder... those doors are fantastic....

[wazzou]

Didn't those containers have cement in them?

[wm3798]

They're drop bottoms, so yeah, bulk commodities of one sort or another.

Lee

[sirenwerks]

There's a good possibility those cars hauled steel additives and ended up on the PBR for ISG (nee Bethlehem) and its trimmer operations.