MTL Horse Car "parts"

[Mike Madonna]

Good evening all,
MTL offers "parts" for many of their freight cars (doors, roofwalks, stirrups, etc.) on their website. I did not see anything for the Horse car listed. I am looking for the longer, center stirrups. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[nickelplate759]

Call them (contact phone # from their web site https://www.micro-trains.com/ ) and ask. 

In my experience they will sell parts for anything currently in production. Not all parts have catalog numbers, so you'll need to be able to give them the catalog number of the thing you want parts for (i.e. the horse car) and a description of the parts that you want.   I've done this a few times for passenger car parts.  Prices and shipping were what I felt was reasonable.

[thomasjmdavis]

Good evening all,
MTL offers "parts" for many of their freight cars (doors, roofwalks, stirrups, etc.) on their website. I did not see anything for the Horse car listed. I am looking for the longer, center stirrups. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I'll second what nickelplate759 said.
I've had good luck with emails or phone calls to Micro-trains. Several times in the last 10-15 years. They don't always have every last part available, but they do have parts for lots of things that are not packaged. Given that the horse cars are "current production" you would have a pretty good chance. ]

[Mike Madonna]

Gents,
Thanks for the quick replies.
May give them a call today. Appreciate it!

[Mike Madonna]

Called MTL today; parts in stock, ordered and good to go. Thanks again!

[JoeD]

Called MTL today; parts in stock, ordered and good to go. Thanks again!

Or contact me directly...Joe@micro-trains.com

[Mike Madonna]

Thanks Joe! Will keep that in mind should I need anything else....
Doing a little extra detailing on the SP 70' Horse Car. I know it's a NYC prototype. However, I thought I could change out the door "stirrups" to the correct size, add an air tank and battery box and the roof vents to get it closer to the SP car. I know the middle door is NOT centered, but, for now, I can live with that. That is until I "shorten" an undec WOT 80' Baggage Horse car! 

[thomasjmdavis]

Mike- the WoT car is an accurate model as is- based on an 80' prototype (80 BH 1).  I am not sure what the prototype is for the MT car, but was under the impression that it was either a  SP 70-BH-3 (minus a couple small windows) or a shortened version of the same car modeled by WoT.

To me this is academic.  The MT car is almost identical to the cars L&N used to transport horses to and from Churchill Downs, so I painted mine blue and lettered with decals from Great Decals. Outside the racing season, they used the cars for express.  I plan to use another as a "core" for M&R sides to make an ATSF baggage car with end doors.

[thomasjmdavis]

Got inspired to look up some NYC photos- you might be able to make a case- some of the NYC cars are very similar.