MTL June 2021 releases

[nickelplate759]

It's the Pullman Green one.  Apparently they still have stock from 2018.

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_135&product_id=3021

That's the double-window coach.  I bought 2 of these by mistake a while ago, thinking they were the single window coach. 

[thomasjmdavis]

It's the Pullman Green one.  Apparently they still have stock from 2018.

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_135&product_id=3021

Both coach single (CP) and paired window (C&O) have had releases in the last few months, so its not like either are left over from 2018. For that matter, the single window wasn't even released until February 2020.  The single window undec is on the last page of the June 2021 Newsletter.

https://www.micro-trains.com/publicfiles/monthly/MN2106.pdf

MTL has always made undec passenger cars available - they seem to show up a few months to a year after the car type first goes on sale, and then whenever they re-run parts.  I imagine they are giving dealers a chance to order the single window before listing them on their own website.  In the past, I've bought a number of undecs from MBK, and I think also from 1 or 2 other online sources.  And they are often available direct from MTL.  Overall, probably 1/3 of my purchases of their passenger cars have been undecorated - because I paint many of my own.  I am guessing that sooner or later, MTL will produce Erie 2 tone green and L&N blue liveries, but I don't want to wait that long.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

SBD/CSX, WM/CSX, and those two PC weathered cars for me. Those PC cars look like they'll be gorgeous.

Can confirm. They're sitting on my desk right now.

[reinhardtjh]

That's the double-window coach.  I bought 2 of these by mistake a while ago, thinking they were the single window coach. 

Ugh.  sorry.

[basementcalling]

Thing that impresses me most about the CSX family tree is the selection of cars works for a modern era train. No 33 foot hoppers in B&O, or wooden cabeese. Other than the 2 40 foot boxcars, those could almost all be still running, though I doubt the WM hopper would have that paint scheme today.

[Philip H]

Thing that impresses me most about the CSX family tree is the selection of cars works for a modern era train. No 33 foot hoppers in B&O, or wooden cabeese. Other than the 2 40 foot boxcars, those could almost all be still running, though I doubt the WM hopper would have that paint scheme today.

I have seen close cousins to most of those cars running behind my house.  If I was doing modern CSX it would be a no brainer.

[bbussey]

Funny, there's just been a fairly long (and somewhat heated) discussion of PRR M&E (Mail and Express) trains and if they every had cabins attached for crew, or coaches for REA/Mail crew and if they were called "freight" or "passenger" trains.

I'm curious what 40' box car they will use.  The coach is very close to a P70.  The baggage and RPO are foobs, but sorta close.  @Lemosteam  might have cause to fire up his Keystone Details mods for the B70 baggage cars again.

They have the X29 already.  The drawing appears to be that.

[thomasjmdavis]

A couple questions that are sort of academic for me (I have more than enough PRR cars for my ATSF head end and mail trains), plus I will be spending my meager budget on single window coach undecs...

I'm a bit confused by the baggage car in the mail train.  I assumed they were "approximating" a B70 as @reinhardtjh suggested.  But when I looked up photos online, the cars I found had 6 wheel trucks, as did the diagrams on the PRR HS site.  I can't read the numbers on the artwork.  Were there 4 wheel versions of the B70?

And on the X-29....MTL itself refers to the body style as "steel boxcar (USRA)" and I've always had the impression the cars were rather "generic" (certainly have appeared with a variety of roofs, doors and paint schemes) and there were several detail distinctions between the MTL car and the X-29 (although close in overall appearance), and that the Red Caboose car was a better representation (ride height not withstanding).  Did I miss out by buying those rather than the MTL car?

[Missaberoad]

The Red caboose models are fine and the tooling represent more variations then the Micro-Trains car.

Both the MTL and Red Caboose cars are 1923 ara boxcars. The x29 was the PRR version of that design.
There were a large number of variations and no two prototype car series were identical. The late Bill Welch did an excellent
presentation on the differences, the handout should still be available on the Hindsight2020 group page.

One note, they are not USRA cars, that is misnomer on Micro-Trains part.
New York Central and Reading owned cars based off the USRA design. These were made in N by Broadway Limited.

[thomasjmdavis]

Thanks.  If the MTL car is really an ARA design (rather than USRA or rebuild), that by itself clears up much of the confusion (or, at least, my confusion) over what the MTL car is.  I will have to pick one up one of these days and compare to the Atlas and Red Caboose. 

[reinhardtjh]

I'm a bit confused by the baggage car in the mail train.  I assumed they were "approximating" a B70 as @reinhardtjh suggested.  But when I looked up photos online, the cars I found had 6 wheel trucks, as did the diagrams on the PRR HS site.  I can't read the numbers on the artwork.  Were there 4 wheel versions of the B70?

No.  The previous runs of PRR B70 Baggage (labeled Baggage Express by MT) cars had 6-wheel trucks so hopefully these will and someone just picked the wrong illustration to use.

And on the X-29....MTL itself refers to the body style as "steel boxcar (USRA)" and I've always had the impression the cars were rather "generic" (certainly have appeared with a variety of roofs, doors and paint schemes) and there were several detail distinctions between the MTL car and the X-29 (although close in overall appearance), and that the Red Caboose car was a better representation (ride height not withstanding).  Did I miss out by buying those rather than the MTL car?

I couldn't remember the MTL version so I looked around.  There are none listed on the MT site at the moment so I don't think they've run any recently.  I did find this page at N Scale Supply from a run back in Oct 2017

https://www.nscalesupply.com/mtl/mtl-12000260.html



It is a reasonable representation of the X29 (Note PRR does not hyphenate so NOT X-29).  George Irwin wrote about this particular release back in the Oct 2017 issue of his "The Unofficial Micro-Trains® Release Report" and said the lettering schemes were pretty well correct, although there is a picture of #2145 in the "PRR Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment" that has dreadnaught ends, not flat so it could be assumed that the two in the last release also probably had dreadnaught ends as well.  I assume MT will pick a different number for this release.  There were 500 cars in the series from 2000 to 2499.

Here's a post from TRW that dissects the MT 40' steel boxcar in better detail.

Sorry, misread the OP and the reply here relates to the Micro-Trains "X29".  The rivet patterns on both the sides and the ends are a good match for the photographs and drawings of the PRR X29 standard box car and the X28 automobile box car shown on pages 116 - 119 the 1928 Car Builders' Cyclopedia.  The height of the car body is a better match for the X28, which had an inside height of 9'-3" compared to the X29's inside height of 8'-7".  Note that the X28 was a door-and-a half car rather than a single door car.  The width over eaves of the Micro-Trains car, however,  scales out at 9'-4" compared to 8'-9.5" for either of the X28 or X29 and the length over the end sheets scales out at 41'-7" compared to 42'-0.5" for both the X28 and X29.  So, summing up, the car body is 8" too tall for an X29 and both 6.5" too wide and 5.5" too short for either an X28 or an X29.  Those discrepancies, however, won't stop me from using it to represent the "token" X29 that the late Bill Hewlett photographed on the Pacific Great Eastern at Squamish, BC in 1954.  I just have to change the car number and the reweigh date.

Cheers,

[thomasjmdavis]

Thanks John, that is helpful.  I took a caliper to a Red Caboose car, and while it is difficult to estimate inside height of a model car, from the outside measure of 8'10 +/- to the eaves, I think it is perhaps a bit more accurate in terms of height, but also a couple scale inches wider- so the MTL is closer on width.

In my own defense, Red Caboose also hyphenates "X29" to "X-29" at least on the box on the table here.....that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

The previous runs of PRR B70 Baggage (labeled Baggage Express by MT) cars had 6-wheel trucks so hopefully these will and someone just picked the wrong illustration to use

If people keep coming up with these rational explanations, I will never earn my  .

[greenwizard88]

The CSX/Conrail gondola looks nice. So does the NS hopper for this month. I'll take one of each please

[reinhardtjh]

Thanks John, that is helpful.  I took a caliper to a Red Caboose car, and while it is difficult to estimate inside height of a model car, from the outside measure of 8'10 +/- to the eaves, I think it is perhaps a bit more accurate in terms of height, but also a couple scale inches wider- so the MTL is closer on width.

I'm used to seeing modern cars in real life and it's odd to think just how small the standard cars of that era were so the height doesn't stick out as much in single pictures.

In my own defense, Red Caboose also hyphenates "X29" to "X-29" at least on the box on the table here.....that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

I used to "-" just because it looks more natural to me, I don't know why. I guess it's from all the aircraft books I read with P-51, P-38, B-17 etc.  It took a while to learn the PRR way.  Sometimes I still forget and have to look back at some PRR documentation.

[nkalanaga]

Nothing for me this month.  A couple years ago I would have bought the GN 2-bay hopper.  But I now have the same car done with custom decals!