MTL August releases

[Sokramiketes]

geez....

No seriously, it's good to hear the words "ultra-prototypical" come from MTL staff in regards to their goal of prototype fidelity.

[mcjaco]

I think it's funny that you ordered a dozen of them, knowing you were in the Midwest and no where near GA!

Hey, when you get orders, you place them.  You, of all people, should know how finicky modelers are with special orders.

I won't even go into the four set of Lehigh Valley F7s we had sit on the shelf for three years.......   

[JoeD]

I was referring to the comments about the set.  Folks love this stuff and I enjoy working and getting a pay check.  If there wasn't a market for fantasy stuff, we wouldn't do it.

No seriously, it's good to hear the words "ultra-prototypical" come from MTL staff in regards to their goal of prototype fidelity.

[lock4244]

Hey Joe, ever think of doing runner packs of the trailers? I could go for a ton of the 40' trailers for CP Rail.

[peteski]

Hey Joe, ever think of doing runner packs of the trailers? I could go for a ton of the 40' trailers for CP Rail.

Yeah, you and about a dozen of other N scalers. But MT will sell thousands of Area 51 sets.  Get the picture? 

[Puddington]

Yeah, you and about a dozen of other N scalers. But MT will sell thousands of Area 51 sets.  Get the picture? 

Well; the picture is, at least to me, "if they can sell thousands then giddy up and sell them"... profit for a model train company is a good thing; it allows more capital for tooling, sustains the business and might even grow it.... I hear people "hate" the fantasy stuff as they feel it delays or even prohibits prototypical stuff... well; I can't say if that's the case or not but at least one thing is true.... very few people buying the Area 51 set will lose brain cells complaining about the hood width so maybe MTL has something there...

[nkalanaga]

Ngineer:  The SP&S woodchip cars are a varied bunch, and they had a lot of steel GS gons more-or-less similar to the MT car.  The 22400 series looks quite close to my eye, and this my be the prototype for the MT GS gon, as well as the chip cars.  These cars were purchased from the D&RGW in 1964 and 65, a total of 75 cars, from the 46000 series.  They became SP&S 22400-22474, and 66 were still in revenue service in 1970, most surviving at least until the mid 70s.  The three pictures on page 59 were taken in 73 and 74.

The lettering on the 22424, in the foreground of the picture I'm looking at, has the reporting marks in a different location than the photo of SP&S 22424 on page 59 of Morning Sun Books "SP&S Color Guide".  However, it does match the placement on 22410 on the same page.  The SP&S wasn't the most consistent railroad lettering-wise.

Oddly, none of the cars has an ACI label, even though other cars in the same photos do.  It seems that the SP&S, and later BN, didn't bother to label SP&S GS-style chip cars.  Similar NP and GN cars have ACI labels.   My model of 22408 is probably wrong, as I added the label to it.

[chicken45]

[pjm20]

I think with the last post, I nominate Josh for the Miss Dee Rayle Award for the week. 

[Spades]

Yeah, but think of all of the colorful REAL schemes these things ran in over the years. Oddballs (like the riverfront rambler one on NS), Bicentennial schemes (if there was ever a series of colorful paint schemes that would make a killing, this would be it), etc... But instead, that.

I'm not seriously mad about it or anything, but it does just seem like such a waste of everyone's time.

The interesting real schemes,  MT may be saving them for future releases.  Can't release all the good ones at once.  As always I don't a clue about this

G 

[JoeD]

Funny, but you are right.   
Joe

Yeah, you and about a dozen of other N scalers. But MT will sell thousands of Area 51 sets.  Get the picture? 

[coosvalley]

I wonder if that "Groom Lake" loco could have been painted in any other fashion, say something that is still "train-set-appealing", but was an actual proto scheme?....I mean, if the fantasy crowd doesn't care, and we do, .........get the picture?....Imagine how many would have sold if the loco was one that scale modelers(not just collectors) wanted?....in this specific case, the NASA SW-1500( I know, flexicoils....) would have been a WAY better idea, from a sales point of view, as collectors would have eaten it right up, and maybe some of us would have pulled the trigger to get the loco itself....I don't hate the fantasy stuff, but if it's fantasy.....