IrwinsJournal.com Presents: The Unofficial Micro-Trains® Release Report Issue #248 – August, 2017 (Not affiliated with Micro-Trains Line, Inc.) Copyright ©2017, George J. Irwin. Reproduction prohibited. Please see legal notice at the end of this document.

Hello again everyone… There’s a good variety of rolling stock to review, from a lady “chasing dirt” on one side of two cars in both N and Z Scales, to a “Kid Glove” treatment, to a container with a millionth load, to a pair of Operation Lifesaver cabooses. But before we get to that… the biggest announcement is of a small but important piece part in N Scale: metal wheels.

I’ll just be lazy here and paraphrase the Micro- Trains description: these wheelsets have chemically blackened 33 inch wheels detailed on both sides and fitted to plastic axles. They’re designed to fit all MTL trucks. They are available in 12-packs, to convert three standard cars (003 12 020, $11.95) or 60-packs, to convert fifteen standard cars (003 12 021, $52.95).

Micro-Trains has been soliciting input from N Scalers for some time about this product, and with generally positive responses, I’m told. These metal wheels enter a bit of a crowded market, and I suspect that online chatter with respect to comparison to already available metal wheels will fill several screens at least. I hope the discussion is civil.

Let’s see what else is going on behind the red and yellow sign this month. That includes another change to my categories in N Scale. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this last month when the new body styles “split” freight cars catalog numbers to after passenger cars.

N SCALE NEW RELEASE FREIGHT CARS: 027 00 430, $25.90 Reporting Marks: BN 321625. 50 Foot Steel Exterior Post Boxcar, Single Plug Door, Burlington Northern. Cascade green with aluminum roof. Mostly white lettering including roadname and reporting marks on left and large BN herald on right. Multicolor ACI Label and white on black double panel COTS stencils on far right. Simulated white reflective rectangles along bottom sill. Approximate Time Period: 1975 (build date) into the first decade of the 2000s. Technically a new release, but there have been Special Runs with this paint scheme commissioned by Joint Line N Scale in August 2004 with Road Numbers 321632, 321668, 321888, and 321990, NSE Numbers 04-91 to 04-94, and October 2004 with Road Numbers 322008, 322026, 322063, and 322066, NSE Numbers 04-104 to 04-107.

1 BN boxcar 321625 was in its third year of service when photographed in July, 1977 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The photo appears on Page 32 of the Burlington Northern Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment. It was built by American Car & Foundry in March 1975. Color Guide author David Casdorph notes, “New built Plate B 50 foot 6 inch loader-equipped cars were uncommon at this time.” The 20 inch cushioning is made obvious by the quite-extended draft gear on this car. As an AC&F product, it was a bit different from the FMC car on which the MTL 027 body style is based. The biggest difference I see from this photo is the roof angle.

The Official Railroad Equipment Register (ORER) for April 1976 shows the series BN 321600 to 322099 with its full complement of 500 cars. They are described as “Box, Moveable Bulkheads, 50K” with AAR Designation XL. The inside length is shown as 50 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 7 inches, outside length 58 feet 1 inch, extreme height 15 feet, door opening 10 feet wide, and capacity 4973 cubic feet (a bit smaller than what MTL models) or 149,000 pounds. As of the January 2000 ORER, there were 331 cars in the BN series as part of BNSF. “20 inch travel” referring to the cushioning and “Nailable Steel Floors” had been added to the description. As of my latest ORER, October 2014, just one car was shown in revenue service. Some of the BN cars went to the BNSF series 713924 to 714349. Twenty of those BNSF cars were in service in 2008. MTL has already done BNSF 714083 (027 00 300, January 2008) BNSF 714014, (027 50 300, Runner Pack #63, May 2012).

I wanted to get a look at the roof of the prototype car for comparison purposes. Over on the site RRPictureArchives is an overhead image of BN 321872, showing a delta. Let me see if I can get this right: the real car has a diagonal panel roof while the model has an X-panel roof. Whatever kind of roof, much of the aluminum paint has worn off. I can also report that at least sister car BN 321966 made it into the “herald only” scheme as of July 2000, BN 321864 was in the Reporting Marks Only scheme in May 1999, and that BN 321637, still in its original paint, was serving as a spacer car in a welded rail train in February 2016, with the note “Side Doors Welded Shut” stenciled between grab irons on the far left. Those images were from RailcarPhotos, RRPictureArchives, and RRPictureArchives again, respectively. There are plenty of other images of this series of cars on those two sites and on Fallen Flags.

032 00 500, $26.90 Reporting Marks: EELX 60003. 50 Foot Steel Boxcar, Single Plug Door, Evans Railcar. Blue with mostly white lettering including reporting marks on left and “DF-B Loader” on right. Yellow legend “Hydra-Cushion for Fragile Freight” on left. “The Kid Glove Treatment!” in black on white on right with multicolor illustration of a boxcar in a gloved hand. Approximate Time Period: 1962 (build date) into the 1970s.

First, allow me to dispel my own misconception of the term “kid gloves.” This has nothing to do with children, unless you mean young goats, the skin of which was used to literally produce “kid gloves.” “The Phrase Finder,” a site based in the United Kingdom, defines the term as “Handle a situation, or a person or an object, delicately and gingerly.” It’s also noted that “kid

2 gloves” were initially made from lambskin and that in the 1700s, “kid gloves were viewed as rather ostentatious and only suitable for the nouveau riche” though their stature improved in the 1800s.

Back to freight cars, and cargo within them that was constantly subject to damage. How to reduce rising claim costs became a focus for American Railroads after the Second World War. Damage control devices of various types began appearing in the mid-1950s. One example is the joint venture of General American and Evans which resulted in the green boxcars which carried some railroad heralds and the “Damage Free” diagonal stripe. These have been previously offered by Micro-Trains.

And that leads me to another of my own misconceptions: I thought that I’d seen a prototype photo of the boxcar MTL offers this month. After a fair amount of searching, It looks like the answer to that one is “no”—and by the way, the phrase “Evans Boxcar” is not very helpful in a search, nor is “Evans Kid Glove.” There are plenty of snapshots of the Athearn model of this paint scheme in HO Scale. Not exactly what I meant!

Well, there’s still the ORER on which to fall back, although it won’t help with the decoration. Page 693 of the July 1963 Register lists the entire roster of the Evans Equipment Leasing Company in a single line: five boxcars, EELX 60000 to 60004. They were listed as “Refrigerator, Plug Doors” with AAR Classification RBL, typical for plug door boxcars at the time. An end note called out the Hydra-Cushion Underframe, DFB Device and Adjustable Side Fillers. The inside length was 50 feet 1 inch, inside height 9 feet 10 inches, outside length 55 feet 1 inch, extreme height 15 feet 1 inch and capacity 4644 cubic feet or 136,000 pounds. Evans is also listed as the owner and shipper.

The January 1967 ORER shows those same five cars, plus one covered gondola and one bulkhead flat car, with EELX reporting marks. The owner has changed to United States Railway Leasing Company, which, curiously, has a second ORER registration in the “text only” section of private owners and another 242 cars of various types. It’s all combined in the April 1970 Equipment Register, where the five EELX boxcars are just a rounding error in the total roster of 1997 cars, most of which carry USLX reporting marks. In the July 1974 ORER, just the 60000 and 60003 remain in service out of the original five cars. Both of those last into the 1980s, but the running boards surely wouldn’t have, and I can’t say that the paint scheme did either. In fact, a shot of EELX 60000 captioned as being from 1975 shows the car without the “Kid Glove Treatment” artwork. That helps to call the Approximate Time Period as only going into the 1970s.

You’ve probably already noticed that the “Hydra-Cushion for Fragile Freight” lettering on this car matches that on a large number of Southern Pacific and Cotton Belt boxcars. That was a marketing item for the SP. In 1964 they issued a brochure about Hydra-Cushion and how it worked… and it’s reproduced online! See www.carrtracks.com/sphc01.htm . The Hydra- Cushion design was developed by William K. McCurdy of the Stanford Research Institute; SP introduced it in 1956. McCurdy later went to Evans which licensed some of the technology from the SP.

3 045 00 460, $26.95 Reporting Marks: C&NW 44335. 50 Foot Fishbelly Side Flat Car, Friendship Train (Chicago and North Western). Car #7 in the Friendship Train Series. All yellow except brown inset in center which has whit reporting marks. Includes platform enclosure with simulated covered spotlights. Vertical supports (painted, unassembled). Enclosure is painted all red with Friendship Train insignia on left, “Friendship Train” banner in white on blue on white panel in center, and multicolor flags of the United States, France and Italy on right. Approximate Time Period: 1947. Micro-Trains has announced that this car will be available mid-month and should be at MTL dealers as you read this.

The caption ends “Credit Acme Telephoto” in a typewritten addition to a black and white print that includes this particular car. Acme Newspictures operated under several different names from 1923 to 1952. It was purchased by United Press (later United Press International) in 1953. The actual copyright of Acme Photos appears to be controlled by Corbis Images, now part of Getty Images, although the much of the collection of physical photos was transferred to the Library of Congress, among other places. I’m not even going to try to untangle that.

Fortunately, describing the photo constitutes “fair use” as far as I am concerned. The flat car is not all we see in the shot anyway—closer to the camera is an Illinois Central boxcar that we might just see later in the series, and farther away is a steam locomotive that we probably will not see as part of the series. The flat car definitely has the platform and the three spotlights, although they are not covered. At the time of this photo, the Friendship Train is departing from Oakland, California on November 9, 1947. Ten cars full of donations from the Bay Area had been added to the consist.

A second photo, described by Daniel Slack on the Facebook page “The 1947 Friendship Train” as likely being a home snapshot, shows a long view of the Friendship Train consist. The passenger car offered by MTL as the first in this series is coupled to the same flat car. This time, the spotlights are covered. There’s no date or location for this image, but there is snow on the ground, not unusual for a November in the USA. Yet another photo posted to the group was taken from the platform itself, capturing the crowd that gathered to wish the Friendship Train well. Clearly visible are signs in English, French and Italian.

The C&NW flat car 44335 was part of a prototype series that didn’t yet exist as of the January 1945 ORER, but is in the July 1950 edition. The group 44001 to 44599, odd numbers only, was described as “Flat, Steel Underframe” with an “inside length” of 53 feet 6 inches and “outside length” of 54 feet 2 inches, and capacity of 100,000 pounds. Clearly that’s more than enough to hold a platform, spotlights, and more than a few spokespersons and speechmakers for the Friendship Train!

4 049 00 760 and 049 00 770, $28.80 each Road Numbers: 1001 and 8702 (will be preceded with “CRLX” in website listings). 40 Foot Wood Double Sheathed Refrigerator Cars with Vertical Brake Staff, Cudahy Refrigerator Line. Both cars have yellow sides and brown roof, ends, and side sills with white reporting marks and other lettering on ends.

Car #1 (the 760), Side A, has blue and white “Dutch Maid” artwork and brown “Old Dutch Cleanser” left of door, brown “Cudahy Refrigerator Line” and road number right of door, and additional lettering in black. Side B has brown “Cudahy Refrigerator Line” and road number left of door, brown “Puritan Hams – Bacon – Lard” right of door, and additional lettering in black. Approximate Time Period: 1929 to no later than the mid- 1930s.

Car #2 (the 770), Side A, has blue, white and red “Dutch Maid” artwork on left, brown “Old Dutch Cleanser” across side, black “Chases Dirt” left of door and “Cudahy Refrigerator Line” with road number right of door, and additional lettering in back. Side B has brown “sunburst” on left, brown “Cudahy’s Sunlight / Butter • Eggs • Poultry • Cheese” across side, black road number and “Refrigerator Line” bottom left of door, and additional lettering in black. Approximate Time Period: 1932 to no later than the mid-1930s.

The photographs of both sides of both of these Cudahy Refrigerator Line cars can be found on Pages 40 and 41 of the book Billboard Refrigerator Cars by Hendrickson and Kaminski. The 1001 is shown in photos from 1929 while the 8702 was captured freshly painted in 1932, not long before billboard cars were outlawed by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Yes, the images of the “Dutch Maid” are different on each car. The authors comment, “Since all of the lettering on these billboard reefers was done by sign painters without the use of stencils, changes over time, and even from one car to another, were almost inevitable.” In addition, it’s entirely possible that other Cudahy cars received different product placement on each side, “but it’s difficult to know this for certain in the absence of photographic evidence.” But we do have these two for certain, thanks to the foresight of now-unknown documentors.

5 The Sunlight and Puritan brands, while not household names today, were both used long-term on the products of the Cudahy Packing Company. In 1950, when the company celebrated its sixtieth or “Diamond” anniversary, full page advertisements in Life Magazine still included Puritan Ham, Bacon, Pork Sausage and Franks (hot dogs) as well as Sunlight Butter, Eggs, Cheese and Poultry. (Sorry, lard.)

Old Dutch Cleanser goes all the way to 1905 for the Cudahy Brothers. And as I asked back in September 2001 when the most recent reprint of the “Old Dutch” car was issued by Micro- Trains, what is a meat packing company doing pushing cleanser on a billboard refrigerator car? For that matter, what is a meat packing company doing making cleanser in the first place? Well, cleanser is basically soap, and soap was, at the time at least, made using animal fat, and there was plenty of that at a meat packer. So why not. Old Dutch Cleanser was sold to the Purex Company by Cudahy in 1955. The brand is still available in the United States and Canada at this writing.

A trip to the ORER shelf is usually beside the point with Billboard Refrigerator Cars, particularly considering that they were repainted frequently. (Which reminds me: that ATP end needs to be “no later than the mid-1930s.”) The February 1931 Register entry for Cudahy Refrigerator Line has the 1001, but not the 8702—the highest numbered refrigerator car is 8700. However, all 1751 refrigerator cars in the listing are shown with a 36 foot 10 inch inside length, which is shorter than the MTL 049 body style. Since I’m referring Z Scalers to this commentary, the same is true versus the MTL 518 body style. Again back in September 2001, I noted that there was some question about whether Cudahy had exclusively 36 foot cars; however to me the photos in Billboard Refrigerator Cars do look that length to me.

071 00 830, $28.95 Reporting Marks: NLAX 162. 89 Foot TOFC Flat Car, NASA Railroad. Car #12 in the NASA Series. Blue with white lettering including reporting marks on left. Yellow conspicuity stripes across car. Heavy weathering on deck. Approximate Time Period: As early as 1983 (purchase date given by MTL) to as late as 2015. Micro-Trains has announced that this car will be available mid-month and should be at MTL dealers as you read this.

Micro-Trains states in its car copy, “This flat car was created out of two wreck-damaged railcars, Southern Pacific 900317 and RTTX 159676, by the ATSF Railway.”

6 Wait, what?

Well, that’s different. A random check of some Equipment Registers did not show either of the road numbers MTL quoted, however. Could be that the SP car was a company service car since I didn’t see any revenue equipment above the 700000s. Trailer Train’s RTTX reporting marks correspond to autorack cars. So that wreck must have been quite a mess.

For this expected final release in the NASA Railroad series, Micro-Trains shows off the weathering treatment. It’s been somewhat de-emphasized on other cars in the series, but it’s more than obvious on this flat car.

Wikipedia includes in its roster of cars that operated for NASA eight ninety-foot flat cars which were built between 1961 and 1969. The table doesn’t indicate whether any of these was rebuilt from two or more previous flat cars!

Staying with Wikipedia though, NASA might have had a “Langley Project” as noted by MTL but there is also a Langely Research Center. It originated in 1917 as the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Library, next to Langely Field in Hampton, Virginia. The founder was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor to NASA. The original aim of Langely was wartime research. Its first wind tunnel was constructed in 1934 and was the world’s largest. The hypersonic wind tunnel mentioned by Micro-Trains was built far later and is still in service. While work on NASA’s space programs has been conducted there, something that many of us may have used—grooved airplane runways which make it safer to land in heavy rain—were also perfected at Langely. The facility is named for aeronautics pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langely. It will be open to the public for a special 100th Anniversary Open House on October 21, 2017. “From 11 initial employees, four buildings and a budget of $5,000 in 1917 to thousands of employees, state-of-the-art facilities and a multimillion dollar budget in 2017, NASA Langley has grown from its modest beginnings on a small patch of farmland as the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory,” according to a NASA press release describing the recent Centennial Symposium.

111 00 230, $44.95 Reporting Marks: TTGX 962759. 89 Foot Tri-Level Closed Autorack, Trailer Train / Chicago & North Western. Flat car is yellow with mostly black lettering. White reporting marks on black panel on left and white post-1991 TTX logo on black panel on white. Racking is yellow with aluminum panels and white roof with small black, white and red “North Western” herald on far left. Ends of racking are yellow with black on white excess height advisory at top. Approximate Time Period: 1991 through at least mid-decade of the 2000s.

As usual, it’s not so much the flat car as the racking atop it that often drives the Approximate Time Period. Sure, the introduction of the TTX logo in 1991 frames the start of the ATP. And

7 because racking varies from car to car, we really need a bingo. We have one, on Patrick Harris’ website seaboardcoast.com . The 962759 was photographed in 2005 at Ford’s River Rouge Plant. I have no reason to doubt that and so we get an “at least” ATP. The C&NW system is looking rather worn; so much so that I can’t read the white words in the herald. Just four numbers away, TTGX 962763 has a C&NW rack and more importantly for my comparison, the same end door configuration that’s on the MTL 111 body style. That picture was taken in 2007 and is on RRPictureArchives.net. It shows that successor railroads—the Union Pacific in this case—have not been particularly concerned with changing heralds on racking.

Checking the ORER for October 2014—and yes, I really do need a newer edition—the 962759 was shown as still in service, explicitly listed as part of a subseries of the overall series 962689 to 962822.

181 00 020, $23.70 Reporting Marks: WP 60434. 50 Foot Steel Boxcar, Single Plug Door, No Running Board, Short Side Ladders, Western Pacific. Brown with mostly white lettering including reporting marks on left. Blackm white and red square “Feather River Route” herald on right. White on black double panel COTS (consolidated) stencils and yellow on black U-1 wheel inspection “dot” on right. Approximate Time Period: mid-1970s (1976 service date on car) or, strictly speaking, 1978 (given U-1 “dot”) for the series to no later than 1986.

It’s not often that I can cite the back cover of a hardcover book for a bingo, but I can this time. The back cover in particular is of Patrick Dorin’s Western Pacific Locomotives and Cars. There’s a small inset color photo, described as “Freshly painted WP 60434 (series 60411 to 60440) is a non-insulated car with a 9 foot 2 inch plug door.” There is no corresponding photo inside the book, though, and the car series is not shown in the listing of WP freight equipment that had moved into the Union Pacific roster as of 1995. There is a small black and white photo from 1980 of sister car WP 60418, in the same paint scheme, on Page 73 of Western Pacific Locomotives and Cars Volume 2.

The third WP book in my Research Accumulation, Jim Eager’s Western Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, provides additional information. These cars were built in 1961 by Thrall and assigned to WP subsidiary Sacramento Northern as series SN 8000 to 8040. They were insulated cars, AAR Designation RBL, with Car-Pac loaders and cushioned underframes. A photo of SN 8036 as of December 1976 is on Page 48 of the Color Guide. Right below it is another bingo on the WP 60434. The SN series was renumbered and apparently repainted, becoming series WP 60401 to 60440. The classic “Feather River” herald was brought back… an early “Heritage Car,” perhaps? The AAR Designation was changed to XLI, the “I” standing for “Insulation,” contradicting the caption on the back cover of Dorin’s book. Meanwhile, comparing photo to model, there are some differences between the side sills and ends. I can’t get a look at the roof in any of these shots. Given that the car was constructed in

8 1961, it would have had a running board and full ladders. There is evidence of the conversion to no running board and short ladders in the Color Guide photo.

Online, there is a shot of sister car WP 60435 as of 1981 on RRPictureArchives. Over on Fallen Flags, there’s a 1982 shot of WP 60417 and a 1979 shot of WP 60421, the latter in the “stylized feather” scheme. So that, and the as-delivered WP/SN scheme provide two more choices for this car for Micro-Trains, just for this one railroad.

The ORER for July 1980 has a split: the 60401 all by itself and then 26 more cars numbered in the group from 60411 to 60440. All were described as “Box, Steel, Cushioning Device, DF Crossmembers.” The outside length was 58 feet 10 inches for the 60401 and 58 feet 2 inches for the other cars. Otherwise, the dimensions I usually report were the same: inside length 50 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 4 inches, inside height 9 feet 6 inches, extreme height 14 feet 11 inches, door opening 9 feet 2 inches, and capacity 4477 cubic feet or 143,000 pounds. The April 1985 ORER shows 25 cars in service in the group 60414 to 60439. They’re all gone by the October 1986 Register, though, and how’s that for a rather precise call on the end of the ATP.

460 00 030, $34.95 (two-pack) and 461 00 090, $18.95 (single). Road Numbers: D315976 and D324627; 424540. 20 Foot and 40 Foot Containers, NASA. Both are blue with white container number at top left. 20 foot containers have additional white lettering in darker blue panels on sides. Heavy weathering including rust effects on all containers. Approximate Time Period: early 1980s at least. Micro-Trains has announced that these items will be available mid-month and should be at MTL dealers as you read this.

Offered as companion releases to the NASA Railroad flat car reviewed above (071 00 830) but not “officially” part of the NASA Railroad series are these containers.

If I thought that searching on “NASA tank car” or “NASA flat car” was bad, I certainly wasn’t prepared for the results of the search on “NASA Container!” Well, there was one interesting tidbit that might make for a future release. NASA has, or had, a homegrown cloud computing center which was also portable: it “lived” in repurposed containers. A photo of an example shows a shiny white container with the classic NASA logo and the project name “Nebula.” In other words, it’s pretty much the opposite appearance of these heavily weathered boxes!

So as for these containers, we’ve failed to launch here at UMTRR HQ. (Sorry.) I suspect that Micro-Trains’ research material includes a prototype photo of these containers actually loaded onto the flat car also released this month.

9 469 00 510 and 469 00 520, $16.95 each Reporting Marks: JBHU 224096 and 259748. 53 Foot Containers, J.B. Hunt Intermodal. Both containers are white with black lettering and black, yellow and green “J.B. Hunt Intermodal” logo on sides and ends. The 520 release also has multicolor “1,000,000 Intermodal Loads in 2010” artwork on sides. Approximate Time Period: 2010 and later.

Two J.B. Hunt Intermodal containers are loaded into a TTX well car in an undated photo I found on “Matt’s Place.” The top container is of the usual decoration, as in the 510 release here. The bottom container is a bingo on JBHU 259748. There’s a closeup of the “1,000,000” as well. It’s more intricate that first appears from the MTL image; each of the six zeroes in the figure is a distinct photographic image. It’s probably safe to say that MTL averaged out the production cost of these two units to come up with a uniform Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. Which one will sell out first? Hmmm… Oh, before I forget, the “Matt’s Place” page URL is www.matts-place.com/intermodal/part3/53foot.htm .

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Incorporated is a publicly traded company founded in 1961 by Johnnie Bryan Hunt. From five trucks and seven trailers based in Arkansas hauling rice hulls, the company has grown to be one of the largest trucking firms in the country. It was an early adopter to intermodal partnerships with railroads, having started in 1989 with the Santa Fe. The mission statement on their website ( www.jbhunt.com ) goes farther than that: “We forge long-term relationships with key customers that include supply chain management as an integral part of their strategy. Working in concert, we drive out cost, add value and function as an extension of their enterprise.”

N SCALE NEW RELEASE PASSENGER CARS:

142 00 180, $32.90 Car Name: Cuttyhunk (will be TBD in website listings). Heavyweight 12-1 Sleeping Car, Norfolk and Western. Maroon sides; black ends, roof, underframe and details. Gold striping. Gold lettering including roadname in letterboard and car name at bottom center. Approximate Time Period: 1953 to at least 1962.

To me, the most interesting attribute of this first regular run release of an MTL passenger car in Norfolk and Western paint is the car name. “Cuttyhunk” is the outermost of the Elizabeth Islands, off the south coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts—definitely not N&W territory. It is a mere 1 ½ miles long and ¾ of a mile wide with a population of fifty-two as of the 2000 Census. The island is glacial in origin and about half of its land is a natural refuge. To get there, you’ll need to take a ferry or water taxi from New Bedford on the mainland. It’s reported on

10 Wikipedia that a small outpost for the harvesting of sassafras was occupied for a few weeks in 1602, arguably making it the first English settlement in New England. (That would be 18 years before Plymouth.)

Pullman-Standard constructed the 12-1 Sleeper “Cuttyhunk” in 1922 to its Plan 2410H. (The MTL 142 body style is based on Plan 3410/3410A.) According to Tom Madden’s “Pullman Project” database, the car was painted in N&W colors in August 1953, as reasonable a time as any to call the start of the ATP. It had been sold to the railroad on the last day of 1948, as part of the Pullman rolling stock divestiture. The Cuttyhunk was withdrawn from lease in August 1962.

Although it doesn’t look much like it did while in revenue service for the N&W, the car survives in Maintenance of Way service as the Norfolk Southern’s 521414. As of January 2016 it was painted gray and carried the legend “Harriman Award Winner” (which is for outstanding safety achievements). In 2005 it was painted NS black with a white roof and white lettering. Those images are on RRPictureArchives.net.

145 00 160, $34.90 Car Number: 976 (will be “D&RGW 976” in website listings). Heavyweight Paired Window Coach, Denver & Rio Grande Western. Silver and gold sides with black striping. Silver roof, underframe and trucks (including couplers). Gray ends. Black lettering including “Pullman” in the Rio Grande “speed lettering” style in center of letterboard and car name at bottom center. Approximate Time Period: 1950s and early 1960s.

Jerry Laboda’s “Passenger Car Photo Index” ( passcarphotos.info ) routes us over to the Otto Perry collection of images looked after by the Denver Public Library. There are two undated black and white views of the 976, one in the snow and one in a much warmer setting. The real 976 had four wheel trucks and arched windows at each end, along with a somewhat different roof design. Whether that’s enough for a “see text” I’ll leave to the reader this time.

The Official Register of Passenger Train Equipment for March 1943 already has the 976 on the Rio Grande’s roster, as one of twelve 70 foot coaches numbered 971 to 984. Each of these cars seated 57 passengers. By the January 1953 ORPTE that count was down to eight. In both cases, ice-based air conditioning is noted.

While based on its look, I think the 976 was a fairly old piece of passenger equipment (backed up by MTL’s car copy stating it’s from the 1920s), I glean the 1950s as the ATP for the paint scheme based on my read of the Rio Grande Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment. I’ll have to take Micro-Trains’ word for it on the 1960s retirement date, though again based on the Color Guide, that seems reasonable.

11 N SCALE REPRINTS: No releases this month.

N SCALE WEATHERED/GRAFFITI RELEASES: The following was announced via the Micro-Trains website, the MTL Facebook page, and via the e-mail “Micro-Trains E-Line,” all on or about August 15.

056 44 431, $49.95 Reporting Marks: SP 460698 and 460701. 33 Foot Two Bay Ribside Hoppers, Southern Pacific. Base car is brown (including trucks and couplers) with white lettering including reporting marks on left, Southern Pacific Lines circle herald left of center, and gothic style roadname on right. Heavy weathering and rust effects across car. Simulated coal load included for each car. Approximate Time Period: mid-1950s (1956 build date) to as late as the late 1990s. Previous Releases (Unweathered): Road Numbers 460671, November 2002; then Runner Pack #56 with Road Numbers 460600, 460610, 460631, and 460676, September 2014. Catalog numbers for the individual cars are 056 51 341 (the 460698) and 056 52 341 (the 460701).

As noted with the previous runs of these cars, there’s a “door thing” of a different type with these hoppers. These products of American Car & Foundry, series SP 460557 to 460681, the SP’s Class H-70-15, had crosswise Enterprise Selective doors. These are mounted lengthwise on the car to allow material in the hopper can be dumped either between or to either side of the rail. This doesn’t match the N Scale 056 body style or the Z Scale 534 body style—noting both here as this is another two for one special with this pair released in 1:160 and 1:220 this month.

The January 1959 ORER has a larger series of cars, SP 460557 to 461431, with an inside length of 31 feet 6 inches, outside length 32 feet 7 inches, extreme height 10 feet 8 inches. There were 875 of these 70 ton hoppers in service, combining H-70-15 and H-70-17 classes and SP and former Texas and New Orleans cars. Stepping quickly through the ORERs we find that in January 1964 there were 874 cars in the series, in April 1970 there were 844, in April 1976 there were 559, in April 1981 there were 353, in January 1985 there were 146, and in July 1989 there were still 54. A more than thirty year life span would have been pretty good, but I wouldn’t expect the paint scheme as modeled by MTL to have made it that far. There are several photos of prototype H-70-17 cars available on Lee Gautreaux’s site (URL www.railgoat.railfan.net ) one of which made it all the way to August 1998.

12

993 01 430, $94.95 Animal Graffiti Three-Pack. Consists of three 025 series 50 Foot Steel Exterior Post Boxcar with Single Youngstown Doors:

025 51 007, EEC 6213, East Erie Commercial. Base car is brown with aluminum roof (which has weathering). Mostly white lettering including reporting marks on left. Yellow horizontal conspicuity stripes across bottom of car. Graffiti across side of car shown includes caricature of a polar bear on door. Approximate Time Period: at least 2014 based on photo evidence.

025 52 730, NS 406166, Norfolk Southern. Base car is brown with aluminum roof (which has weathering). Mostly white lettering including NS speed lettering logo and reporting marks on left (road number in patch panel). Black patch panels left of and below herald. Yellow horizontal conspicuity stripes across bottom of car. Graffiti across side of car shown includes caricature of a flamingo on door. Approximate Time Period: at least 2016 based on photo evidence.

025 53 129, BKTY 150866, GATX Leasing. Base car is brown with aluminum roof (which has weathering). Mostly white lettering including reporting marks on brown patch panel on left, and GATX logo on right. Yellow horizontal conspicuity stripes across bottom of car. Graffiti across side of car shown includes caricature of an orangutan on right. Approximate Time Period: at least 2016 based on photo evidence.

Previous Releases: None for the GATX/BKTY boxcar. The Norfolk Southern boxcar is similarly painted to the unweathered releases 025 00 73x with Road Numbers 400011 and 400016 from August 2011 although the prototype road number series differs. The East Erie Commercial boxcar shares the base catalog number 025 xx 007 with the July release with Road Number 1326, which is painted similarly but has different graffiti.

Our Graffiti Car Special Correspondent David Grothe checks in with this report on these three cars, start quote: “Micro-Trains calls this month's graffiti three-pack ‘Animal’ but they could have also named it ‘Tawl/Galaxe’ as those are the two graffiti artists that are the inspiration for this three-pack. On the EEC car, the letters Tawl are on the left side of the car and the letters Galaxe are on the right side. On the NS car, Galaxe is written on the left side of the car and Tawl is written on the right side. On the GATX/BKTY car, only the name Tawl is applied on this car, next to the orangutan with a very similar resemblance to King Louie from Disney’s film The Jungle Book. In fact, the resemblance is so similar I Googled King Louie and noticed

13 the photo of him on Wikipedia is the same portrait that is on the BKTY car. Even the background on the boxcar is similar to the photo.

“As far as prototype photos go, I didn't see any on rrpicturearchives.net but was able to find ample results of these cars on photo sharing site Flickr.com. Simply enter ‘Tawl Galaxe’ in the search box on Flickr and you will see these cars among others Tawl and Galaxe have applied their graffiti to. A fast way to see a prototype photo of the ‘King Louie’ car is by searching for ‘gatx tawl’ in the Flickr search box.”

As always, thanks, David! I did just as he suggested and came up with the three cars straight away; based on the photo dates I added the “at least” ATP. We don’t know how long these cars were, ahem, decorated prior to their photos being taken. I suspect that “to present” is going to be fine since repainting is becoming a more and more daunting task. (Case in point: A train I observed within a few days of press time near UMTRR HQ had a “perfect score”: every car had some sort of graffiti, most of it fairly extensive.)

The October 2014 ORER shows the East Erie Commercial series 6103 to 6502 as a mish-mosh of various capacity and dimension boxcars. The 6213 is a 5347 cubic foot car which is a larger prototype than the 025 body style. The origins of these cars is similarly all over the place. Without a specific match to the actual 6213 I don’t think it’s wise to speculate on its heritage. According to captions on RailcarPhotos.com, original operators of these cars back in the Incentive Per Diem time include the Vermont Railway, the Marionette, Tomahawk and Western and the Port Huron and Detroit—and that’s just three of the cars in the overall group.

Norfolk Southern 406166 is part of the group 406000 to 406815, a set of 271 cars of 5277 cubic foot capacity, again a little bigger than the 025 body style which represents a 5077 cubic foot prototype built by FMC. Again checking RailcarPhotos, this series was built by Pullman- Standard in 1973 and is the former Southern Railway group numbered 525600 to 526439. The “corrugated” ends differ from the MTL 025 body style.

George Elwood’s “Fallen Flags” site has the BKTY cars just before and after the 150866 which show more of the cars. The 150865 looks like a former CSXT car which has been patched out, while the 150867 has the same GATX paint scheme as the MTL-selected car. There’s a delta with respect to the ends and roof “overhang” versus the 025 body style. The ORER for October 2014 has a large set of road numbers 150000 to 151341 with a page and a half (!) of subsets but not that many cars. The 150866 is among the singly listed cars. It’s a 5344 cubic foot car which is larger than the 025 body style. The BKTY reporting marks are listed under the Union Pacific registration, which may or may not be an “uh-oh” with respect to the graffiti. I hasten to add that the car is a GATX lease car. The original purpose of the BKTY reporting marks goes back to the predecessor Missouri-Kansas-Texas or Katy; the “B” stood for Bankers Leasing which was a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific. Through that financial vehicle the SP leased cars to the Katy in the 1960s, using the BKTY reporting marks to separate these cars from the rest of the MKT’s fleet.

14 993 01 650, $229.95 - Conrail Weathered Train Set. Consists of the following items:

• 985 51 222, Road Number 8265, GP38-2 Powered Diesel Locomotive. Walthers item with MTL decoration and couplers. Blue with white side sill and black underframe and trucks. White lettering including “Conrail Quality” herald on hood, “Conrail Quality” on ends and road number on cab. Black on white numberboards. Light weathering. Approximate Time Period: 1992 (given paint scheme) to at least 1999.

• 094 52 500, Reporting Marks CR 888717, Three Bay Center Flow Covered Hopper with Trough Hatches. Gray with mostly black lettering including small herald on far left, reporting marks on left, and roadname in center. Weathering and extensive fading effects across car. Yellow horizontal conspicuity stripes along bottom of car. Approximate Time Period: late 1970s to early 1990s in revenue service, but to at least 2009 later (see text). Previous Releases: None.

• 125 53 031, Reporting Marks CR 493163, Three Bay Ortner Hopper. Gray with mostly black lettering including small roadname and herald at top left, reporting marks on left (road number in white on black patch panel), and “Conrail Quality” herald on right. Weathering, rust effects and graffiti on at least one side. Yellow horizontal conspicuity stripes along bottom of car. Approximate Time Period: 1992, or strictly speaking, 2005 given conspicuity stripes, to present. Previous Releases (unweathered): Road Numbers 493132 and 493045, March 2005; then Runner Pack #126 with Road Numbers 493033, 493071, 493182 and 493197, March 2017.

15 • 025 54 139, Reporting Marks CR 166773, 50 Foot Exterior Post Boxcar with Youngstown Door. Penn Central Jade Green with mostly white lettering including reporting marks (“CR” on lighter green patch panel) on left. Paint patches to cover previous roadname and small herald. Graffiti on right, weathering and rust effects across car. Approximate Time Period: late 1970s at least. Previous Releases: None.

• 130 55 020, Road Number 21143, Bay Window Caboose, Windowless Sides, No Battery Box. Blue with black roof, underframe and trucks. Mostly white lettering including herald on left and roadname and road number on right. Extensive fading effects on lettering, weathering and some rust effects. Approximate Time Period: late 1970s to late 1990s. Previous Release: Road Number 18438, June 2009.

That’s the trouble with these train sets sometimes… I just list the individual items and I’m tired. Anyway, we have something old, something new, lots of weathered and something blue, to twist the Wedding Day cliché a bit.

The GP38-2 8265 was part of the second group of units purchased new by Conrail in 1979, numbered 8256 to 8281. The company added a total of 119 GP38-2s to the 223 units it inherited from the Penn Central. While not of the same loco, Robert Waller has on his “Conrail Cyclopedia” site ( crcyc.railfan.net ) shots of both sides of CR 8262 as an example of how they weathered in real life. Meanwhile, RRPictureArchives.net has the bingo for us, though not yet in the “Quality” scheme. It became CSX unit number 2806—quickly after the 1999 split of Conrail, and received a repaint no later than 2004. The general ATP of these units is through 1999, or as fast as CSX and Norfolk Southern could renumber and/or redecorate them afterwards.

The presence of conspicuity stripes on the newly released Center Flow 888717 suggest that Norfolk Southern did not get around to repainting this car for a while. (Remember, NS kept the CR reporting marks for rolling stock while CSXT used NYC reporting marks for their share.) And here’s a case where the ORER data and the photographic evidence don’t match, and, in fact, the whole story is rather confusing. Let’s start with the photo: a bingo that is on RRPictureArchives.net. It’s dated October 2009 and there are conspicuity stripes on the car. It looks to me like this image was the inspiration for the MTL model.

However, a check of the January 2006 ORER—where I started given the conspicuity stripes-- showed that the series 888596 to 888748 were of the H47 and H47a classes of cars. These were three-bay covered hoppers which were not Center Flows. In fact, Micro-Trains has done this series of car as it appeared as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad roster, series 260656 to 260705 and 260871 and 260970. So is there a “road number thing” here? How can that be when there’s a photo of the actual car?

Well, on RailcarPhotos.com there is a shot of CR 889828 which is captioned as part of the series CR 888521 to 892851, which certainly includes the 888717. And that car is a three bay Center Flow, in fact, a former PRR car as well, their class H45 from the groups 259751 to 260000 and 260776 to 260870. In that same January 2006 ORER, the H45 class is just the series 888147 to

16 888156, which was down to a single car anyway. The same is true in the January 2000 ORER, so at the least, we have a car that probably should not have conspicuity stripes.

This mystery is solved, going back to the October 1991 Register. There is an overall series CR 888596 to 888748, which is listed as H47s and H47a’s. But there are subsets within that groups which are described as Class H45. Which means: Conrail just mashed all of these former Pennsy cars together regardless of what shape or capacity they were. And sure enough, the 888717 is called out as a 4600 cubic foot Covered Hopper with 193,000 pounds capacity. To prove the point further, there are other Center Flows in what would have been the 888521 to 892851 series posted to the Fallen Flags site, including CR 888631 through which the PRR plain keystone and reporting marks are showing!

By April 1995’s ORER the 888717s and all other non-H47s in that group are off the roster. So while I don’t doubt the existence of the 888717 in 2009, it must have been removed from the active Norfolk Southern revenue freight car roster.

The Ortner Hopper 493163 is the seventh time this car has been offered by MTL but the first time it’s been weathered. Reprinting myself from the October 2016 coverage of Runner Pack #126, these cars were built in 1979 as Conrail’s H1K class, though again, the paint scheme is from 1992 and later, given the “Conrail Quality” herald. The July 1992 ORER shows the group 493001 to 493199 of all 199 possible cars with the basic description “Hopper, Steel.” There are no inside dimensions given, pity. The outside length is 43 feet 10 inches and the capacity is 2300 cubic feet or 201,000 pounds. The October 2014 ORER has 196 cars in the CR series under the Norfolk Southern listing in that issue so I’ll call a “to present” Approximate Time Period, again with that “strictly speaking” caveat given the conspicuity stripes.

In Robert Waller’s Conrail Cyclopedia, “Maintenance of Way” section there is an entire webpage devoted to Conrail’s “Ballast Express” that includes 1996 and 1997 images of a few of these cars. “The H1K ballast hoppers start out a bright grey that is almost white,” it's noted, “then quickly gather a coating of grime, stone dust, and wheel grunge kicked up from the trucks through the open foot boards.” See crcyc.railfan.net where you’ll also find the source for some of MTL’s car copy from the original 2005 release of a pair of these cars. Also as previously noted, Fallen Flags has a non-trivial quantity of images of these cars, though not the road number selected by MTL. I suspect that the “patch out” number here is a result of recycling some leftovers from Runner Pack #126.

Exterior Post Boxcar 166773 is the second freight car that is all new. Its heritage is obvious: It’s a former Penn Central car that has been minimally patched. The road number was not changed in the process. More specifically, the 166773 carried “PCA” reporting marks, one of one thousand cars of the class X71 which were numbered 166000 to 166999. Of the one thousand, 990 came over to Conrail per the April 1976 Equipment Register. The key dimensions: inside length 50 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 7 inches, outside length 55 feet 7 inches, extreme height 15 feet, door opening 10 feet, and capacity 5080 cubic feet or 160,000 pounds. According to the Penn Central Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, Page 37, these cars were built by American Car & Foundry during 1971 and 1972

17 and were leased to the PC by AC&F. That’s the reason for the PCA reporting marks; it would have made it easy for AC&F to reclaim these cars should anything go wrong, like, for example, a missed lease payment. A photo of PCA 166665 looking almost brand new shows the scheme that was patched over on the MTL car, complete with a herald so small that it fits between two posts on the car. I do note that these and other AC&F boxcars built during the time were of the “Precision Design” type which doesn’t align with the MTL 025 body style. That’s particularly true of the ends which are of an older style than what was used on most x-post boxcars.

It's most likely that the ATP for the “patch” is the first few years of Conrail. As these cars were relatively new, particularly with respect to some of what they inherited (!) it appears that they were fully repainted into CR colors, sometimes with the PCA reporting marks retained. For the record, though, the CR series was at 31 cars as of January 2000’s ORER, following the split of Conrail between CSX and Norfolk Southern.

Bay Window Caboose 21143 is the second number from MTL for this paint scheme, and it’s from a different series. You might recall that the first Conrail caboose, 18438, represented a second-hand purchase from the Southern Railway by the Penn Central. The 21143 is the former Erie Railroad C324, then Erie Lackawanna C324. Based on RRPictureArchives photos this exact car has been on display in Derry, Pennsylvania, along the Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Line (the former PRR main line), from at least 2004 through 2015—and to “the present” isn’t a stretch. (Any readers near Derry which can confirm this?) The car, which was one of fifty built for the Erie in 1953, isn’t an exact match to the MTL 130 body style, which has a Southern Pacific prototype. I’d call the ATP at the late 1990s, though that might be a stretch given the timing of the end of the caboose.

The usual question I raise of whether all of the set components could be plausibly run together in a train is, “strictly speaking, probably not,” and that’s because of the two cars with the conspicuity stripes. The patched boxcar was very possibly repainted prior to the introduction of “Conrail Quality” as well.

N SCALE MULTI-PACKS:

Runner Pack #132 (993 00 132, $89.95), four Baltimore and Ohio 50 Foot Fishbelly Side Gondola with Drop Ends, has been released. UMTRR coverage was in the April 2017 issue. Two of these cars come with scrap wheel loads and two with scrap steel loads. The individual catalog

18 numbers and road numbers for these items are as follows: 046 51 430, 261688; 046 52 430, 261706; 046 53 430, 261711; 046 54 430, 261720. These are the first through fourth road numbers for this car, which hasn’t been previously released.

Also, the CSX Caboose 2-Pack (130 00 210, $74.95) is scheduled to be released mid-month and should be at MTL dealers as you read this. UMTRR coverage was in the March 2017 issue. The cars are decorated differently on each side, as are the prototypes (I suppose that’s “Incremental Information”). The individual catalog numbers and reporting marks are 130 51 210, CSXT 903966 (gray car) and 130 52 220, B&O 904079 (red and white car). These cars haven’t been previously released.

And finally, the ambitious CTCX 16-Unit Tank Car Set (993 01 540, $479.95) is also scheduled to be released mid-month. UMTRR coverage was in the January 2017 issue. The individual catalog numbers and reporting marks are… oh, do I really have to do this? I guess so…

• BNSF Airslide Covered Hoppers (Buffer Cars): 094 51 045, 808076 and 094 52 045, 808020. These are the fourth and fifth releases for this car, counting a Weathered Release.

• CTCX 54 Foot General Service Tank Cars: 110 53 320, 730843; 110 54 320, 730847; 110 55 320, 730849; 110 56 320, 730850; 110 57 320, 730852; 110 58 320, 730859; 110 59 320, 730862; 110 60 320, 730868; 110 61 320, 730876; 110 62 320, 730882; 110 63 320, 730883; 110 64 320, 730895; 110 65 320, 730897; 110 66 320, 730900. These are the first through twelfth releases for this car, which hasn’t been previously released. If I were not truly lazy, I would see where this dozen road numbers instantly places this paint scheme into the all-time

19 ranking of road numbers for a single car. My guess is that it’s in the top twenty-five or so. I believe that #1 on this list is now the US Army 50 Foot Flat Car (45180/045 00 180) with 25 road numbers, which in June eclipsed the Southern Pacific black, red and yellow “Overnights” 40 foot boxcar (20090/020 00 090), which has 22 regular release road numbers. And there’s your useless trivia for today…

The following is in pre-order at present and is NOT currently available. Scheduled delivery is as noted below. UMTRR coverage is being provided ahead of the actual release in order to facilitate pre-order decisions; pre-orders close August 31. Scheduled Delivery January 2018: 993 00 136, $119.95. Reporting Marks: ATSF 312322, 312548, 312573, 312575. Quantity four of PS-2 High Side Covered Hoppers, Santa Fe (AT&SF). Mineral red with mostly white lettering including small Circle Cross herald at top left, gothic style reporting marks on left and small “Q” herald at top right. Five yellow vertical conspicuity stripes along bottom of car. White on black COTS stencils on right. Approximate Time Period: 1990s or, strictly speaking, after 2005 (given conspicuity stripes) to early decade of the 2010s. Previous Releases: None. Individual catalog numbers (in the 098 series) will be confirmed upon release. Pre- production sample shown; actual product may differ.

Where have I seen that “Q” before? Not on a Micro-Trains covered hopper; the first paint scheme released on this body style was an earlier version with large Cooper Black roadname and no herald at all. (And from a different prototype series, no less.) Well, actually, Center Flows are covered hoppers, aren’t they? And the “Q” appears on a pair of those in Mineral Brown, released back in April. Or, it’s back to my coverage of Runner Pack #65, a set of three different autoracks issued in July 2012, in which I discuss the lettering found on this car. Specifically, Micro-Scale has the Santa Fe’s introduction of that logo and the Quality Scheme as being introduced circa 1990, at least on boxcars. The reporting marks were changed to Gothic font back in 1991 per the RPI website. None of that matters, “strictly speaking,” however, given those pesky conspicuity stripes.

The series ATSF series 312300 to 312799 was built by Pullman-Standard as Lot 9553 during May and June 1971, according to captions on RailcarPhotos.com. This was the Santa Fe’s class GA-175. RRPictureArchives has bingos on each of these cars. The 312322 was caught in 2013, still without stripes. In 2006, the 312548 was found, also without the yellow stripes. There were three 2010 images of the 312573 with the stripes, and a 2012 view of the 312575 with vertical instead of horizontal stripes. Even so, I don’t think we make it to “the present” as only five cars remained in the ATSF series as of the ORER for October 2014.

20 For the dimensional data, I reached back to the July 1974 ORER. These were 4427 cubic foot and 200,000 pound capacity cars with an inside length of 49 feet 6 inches, outside length of 54 feet 3 inches, and extreme height of 14 feet 7 inches. 498 cars were on the roster at that time. I also checked the October 1991 Equipment Register, which aligns as close as I can get to the introduction of the “Q.” There were 456 total cars in service shown in that edition, including some subsets with differing weight capacities.

Scheduled Delivery December 2017: 993 00 136, $119.95. Baltimore and Ohio Heavyweight 5-Pack. Expected to consist of the following items: • 145 51 093, 145 52 094 and 145 52 095, Road Numbers 5009, 5012 and 5014, Heavyweight Paired Window Coaches. •146 54 091, Road Number 1035, Heavyweight Diner. •147 55 091, Road Number 633, Heavyweight Baggage Car. All cars have gray sides with blue bands and gold stripes, black roof, underframe and trucks and gold lettering. All but the baggage car have roadname in center of letterboard and road number at bottom center. Baggage car has offset roadname in letterboard, road number in center and “Railway Express Agency” on right. Approximate Time Period: in general, early 1950s to early 1960s at least. Previous Releases: Coach, Road Numbers 5010 and 5015, April 2012; Diner, Road Number 1036, March 2015; Baggage Car, Road Number 490, November 2015. Artwork is officially preliminary and actual product may vary.

All of the cars in this announced set are reprints so I will reprint myself for most of this coverage, starting with the coaches. The Official Register of Passenger Equipment for January 1953 shows a series of ten cars numbered 5009 to 5019, described as “Coach, Steel,” with seating capacity of 74, inside length of 69 feet 4 inches, length “over buffers” of 74 feet 10 inches, and electro-mechanical air conditioning. We learned previously that the B&O’s famous paint scheme depicted here wasn’t fully adopted until 1953, so it’s nice to know that these cars were all still around then. I’ll assume that since this painting took some time, we are good with the start of the ATP in the early 1950s and the end in the early 1960s when the paint scheme was moved to the C&O colors. But mind that “at least,” and feel free to invoke Rule Number One with respect to your B&O passenger train.

The B&O Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, Page 17, has a bingo on the dining car B&O 1036, the road number previously released by MTL. It’s not really a bingo to the 146 body style. In this undated photo taken at Youngstown, Ohio, the 1036 has received

21 modernized windows. The kitchen windows have been largely plated over, leaving just small “portholes” mounted in oval shapes at the top of each original window opening. The other diner windows have been changed to rounded corners. However, the original roof, ends and riveted sides have been maintained making this somewhat of a hybrid. The car was in its own B&O Class F-4bm. Also on Page 17 of the Color Guide is a shot of diner 1035, which is what MTL will do this time. It was much more heavily modified, receiving a deep arch roof, smooth sides and new windows. It looks far more streamlined than the 1036. There are several photo citations for the 1035 on Jerry Laboda’s site ( passcarphotos.info ), all of which show it in the streamlined look. The January 1953 ORPTE listed the 1035 in a series numbered from 1035 to 1070, of which 25 cars had a seating capacity of 36 and two more cars could seat 48. The 1035, and the 1036, for that matter, probably rate a “see text” with the ATP, but we’ll leave that exercise to the reader.

The baggage car is where things get interesting. The previous run was numbered 490, which was a former Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh car rebuilt from an express car and not looking too much like the MTL 147 body style. This time, the road number is 633, which means a new lookup. Again turning to the January 1953 ORPTE, it was within the series 600 to 686, which consisted of 85 baggage cars of 70 foot inside length.

The 633 still exists—we’ll come back to that—but I don’t have any photos of it in the “tri-color” B&O paint. There is a shot of sister car 664 on the Fallen Flags website. Although it does also have deltas to the MTL 147 body style, the important item here is that the roadname is centered, just as it is on the other cars and not the way it’s depicted offset to the right on the MTL artwork. While it’s true that the B&O did have baggage cars with that pushed-over lettering, and Micro- Trains does have photo evidence of this, that may have been only for three-door baggage cars. The 633 was a two-door baggage car. I can also offer a shot of B&O 661, a two doors per side baggage car in “tri-color” as of 1953 at East Salamanca, New York, on both the cover of and on Page 115 of the Morning Sun book Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway in Color Volume One… and it’s a beautiful vintage image of almost exactly half the car! The net of it is that there may be an adjustment to the paint scheme on the baggage car before it’s released. We’ll all find out together.

Meanwhile, about the 633. It’s still around, and not far from UMTRR HQ. What is now the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad Museum in Industry, New York, received the car as a donation in 1977 from a private citizen who’d purchased it in 1971 from the Chessie System. When received it was painted in the “C&O” scheme which succeeded the “tri-color” following the Chesapeake and Ohio’s effective control of the Baltimore and Ohio. The R&GV moved the 633 to its site in 1981 after storing it; it’s called the “Tool Car” there as it was outfitted with tools and workbench space. Eventually, the museum would like to restore the car to its Royal Blue paint. See www.rgvrrm.org/about/railroad/bo663/ for more including a current photo.

22 N SCALE SPECIAL EDITION RELEASES: The following is in pre-order at present and is NOT currently available. Scheduled delivery is as noted below. UMTRR coverage is being provided ahead of the actual release in order to facilitate pre-order decisions; pre-orders close August 31.

Expected Delivery January 2018: 149 00 200, $33.95. Heavyweight Horse Car, Ringling Brothers “Advertising Car #1.” White with aluminum roof and black underframe and trucks. Red with black shadow lettering “Advertising Car No. 1” across top center. Gold decoration and stripes across car. Gold framed portraits of the five Ringling Brothers between left and center door; red “Ringling Bro’s” left of center door; blue “World’s Greatest Shows” on right.

Wait, another “Advertising Car #1?” Wasn’t there just an “Advertising Car #1,” well, advertised, in the May pre-orders for September release? Yes, there was, and let’s not forget “Advertising Car #1” released in July 2009. But if you ran the circus, you wouldn’t want potential patrons to think that their location was not worth Advertising Car Number One, would you? How would you feel if Advertising Car Number Twenty-Eight showed up on your town’s railroad siding, for example? Anyway, it’s safe to say that more than one Advertising Car existed over the lifetime of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus; and besides, this car is for only the first half of that Combined Shows. Which would place the Approximate Time Period end at about 1919 when the Shows were actually Combined.

I don’t recall the last time I mentioned anything specific about the actual Ringling Brothers, so let’s go there. Although there were seven sons of August Frederick Rungeling (who changed his name to Ringling after emigrating from Germany), only five participated in what became the circus. Charles, Albert, Otto, Alfred, and John are the ones portrayed on the forthcoming horse car, then, although according to the Brittanica website, August and Henry did occasionally participate. The brothers performed as a song-and-dance troupe for two seasons before the debut of the actual circus on May 19, 1884 in Baraboo, Wisconsin—now the home of the Circus World Museum. By the time the show was officially merged with the Barnum and Bailey Circus, only Charles and John were still alive. Charles died in 1926 and John managed the show for ten more years until his death in 1936. Fun fact: There were a lot more combined shows; the Ringling empire consisted of eleven different circus companies by 1929, the last bought being the American Circus Company.

NARROW GAUGE (Nn3) RELEASES: No releases this month.

23 Z SCALE NEW RELEASES: 500 00 950, $25.95 Reporting Marks: GN 18588. 40 Foot Steel Boxcar, Single Youngstown Doors Great Northern. #7 in the MTL Z Scale Great Northern Circus Car Series (pre-orders taken in October 2016). Red with white lettering including large slant roadname across entire car (including door), reporting marks on left and small “side facing goat” herald without roadname on right. White simulated reflective dots along bottom of side. Black trucks. White end markings. Approximate Time Period: 1956 into at least the 1960s.

Lindsay Korst’s description of this car differs on two points, one of which I agree with. The one I don’t with which I don’t necessarily concur is that the car is “bright orange”—I think the image (via www.gngoat.org/circus_boxcars.htm ) has a color shift. What I do see is that the reporting marks on the 18588 might appear to be in yellow, not white. Well, on further review, it’s hard to tell. The trucks are brown, though, not black. Some touch-up paint would fix that on the model.

The 19588 was part of the group GN 18500 to 19499, which as listed in the January 1958 ORER had 986 of the possible 1000 cars. The dimensions included inside length of 40 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 2 inches, outside length 41 feet 10 inches, extreme height 14 feet 8 inches, door opening 6 feet, and capacity 3775 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds.

500 00 991 and 500 00 992, $25.60 each Reporting Marks: SP 606101 and 606106. 40 Foot Steel Boxcars, Single Youngstown Door, Southern Pacific. Brown including trucks and couplers. White lettering including reporting marks on left and large roadname on right. Black “C” inside yellow circle on door. Black lettering on yellow panel left of door. Approximate Time Period: 1964 (service date on car) through early 1970s.

Just for a little variety, I’ll begin with the end note for these cars from the January 1967 ORER: “Cars in series 606100 to 606299 have partial plywood side lining for copper loading.” The special service is noted in the description: “Box, All Steel, Copper Bar Loading” though the AAR Designation remains the “standard” XM. While I’m here: inside length 40 feet 7 inches, inside height 9 feet 11 inches, inside width 9 feet 4 inches, outside length 41 feet 10 inches, extreme height 14 feet 7 inches, capacity 3993 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds, and door opening 10 feet 3 inches. Which means, yes, a “door thing,” even in Z Scale. There were 198

24 cars in the group at that time. The lesser inside height is probably the result of the reinforced flooring MTL calls out in its car copy.

Before I forget, I’ll note that this series does not appear in the January 1964 Equipment Register, so the later 1964 service date (I think it’s August) makes sense for the start of the Approximate Time Period. Just two cars hang on in the July 1974 and April 1975 ORERs before being gone from the April 1976 ORER. That’s a pretty short ATP for these cars.

Page 27 of the Southern Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment Volume 2 has a “close enough” photo of car 606467, from the next series of modified boxcars SP 606300 to 606499. These cars have an identical paint scheme and were also reinforced for copper bar service and received ten foot doors, up from the previous seven foot doors. The Espee liked to fit ten foot wide doors to forty foot boxcars, more than any other railroad I can think of.

518 00 430 and 518 00 440, $28.80 each Road Numbers: 1001 and 8702 (will be preceded with “CRLX” in website listings). 40 Foot Wood Double Sheathed Refrigerator Cars with Vertical Brake Staff, Cudahy Refrigerator Line. Both cars have yellow sides and brown roof, ends, and side sills with white reporting marks and other lettering on ends. Car #1 (the 430), Side A, has blue and white “Dutch Maid” artwork and brown “Old Dutch Cleanser” left of door, brown “Cudahy Refrigerator Line” and road number right of door, and additional lettering in black. Side B has brown “Cudahy Refrigerator Line” and road number left of door, brown “Puritan Hams – Bacon – Lard” right of door, and additional lettering in black. Approximate Time Period: 1929 to no later than the mid- 1930s. Car #2 (the 440), Side A, has blue, white and red “Dutch Maid” artwork on left, brown “Old Dutch Cleanser” across side, black “Chases Dirt” left of door and “Cudahy Refrigerator Line” with road number right of door, and additional lettering in back. Side B has brown “sunburst” on left, brown “Cudahy’s Sunlight / Butter • Eggs • Poultry • Cheese” across side, black road number and “Refrigerator Line” bottom left of door, and additional lettering in black. Approximate Time Period: 1932 to no later than the mid- 1930s. Please see the coverage of the N Scale releases above (049 00 760 and 770).

25 Z SCALE REPRINTS: No releases this month.

Z SCALE WEATHERED RELEASES: The following was announced mid-month via the Micro- Trains website, the MTL Facebook page, and via the e-mail “Micro-Trains E-Line,” all on or about August 14.

534 44 021, $49.95 Reporting Marks: SP 460698 and 460701. 33 Foot Two Bay Ribside Hoppers, Southern Pacific. Base car is brown (including trucks and couplers) with white lettering including reporting marks on left, Southern Pacific Lines circle herald left of center, and gothic style roadname on right. Heavy weathering and rust effects across car. Simulated sand load included for each car. Approximate Time Period: mid-1950s to as late as the late 1990s. Previous Releases: Unweathered, Road Numbers 460600 and 460676, April 2012; then Runner Pack #69 with Road Numbers 460583, 460595, 460610, and 460631, September 2014. Catalog numbers for the individual cars are 534 51 021 (the 460698) and 534 52 021 (the 460701).

Please see the coverage of the N Scale Release above (056 44 431).

Z SCALE MULTI-PACKS: No releases this month, however there is a pre-order announcement…

The following is in pre-order at present and is NOT currently available. Scheduled delivery is as noted below. UMTRR coverage is being provided ahead of the actual release in order to facilitate pre-order decisions; pre-orders close August 31.

Scheduled Delivery January 2018: Runner Pack #104, 994 00 104, $119.95. Road Numbers 2261, 2264, 2266 and 2268 (will be preceded by “AMTK” in website listings). Quantity four of Lightweight Streamlined 6-6-4 Sleeping Cars, Amtrak. Platinum mist (entire carbody) with aluminum trucks. Red, white and blue stripes across center of side. Black lettering in white stripe including road number and “Sleeper” on left, “Amtrak” left of center, and “Sleeper” and road number on right. Approximate Time Period: 1976 to 1981. Previous Release: As Catalog 550 00 050, no road

26 number, June 2009. Individual catalog numbers expected to be 550 5x 550. Micro-Trains pre- production model shown and is subject to change.

Time to pull out the spotting features of the various phases of Amtrak paint schemes. OK, so Phase I featured red and blue stripes and the “chevron” logo (less kindly known as the “pointless arrow”). Phase II was Phase I without the “chevron.” That brings us to Phase III, introduced in 1976. This version had red, white and blue stripes across the side, each eight inches in height. That looks like a match. It also means I called the ATP wrong for the first run of this car. Goodie, an eight year old Oops.

The first run of this car had no road number, but did include decals for all possible road numbers according to MTL’s car copy at the time (pre-orders December 2008 for a June 2009 release of all four Smoothside body styles). That made prototype alignment, let us say, difficult, for this byte-slinger. This time it’s a lot easier thanks to the efforts of Don Strack and others who compiled the information on Don’s “Utah Rails” site. The four sleepers to be released here were originally part of the Union Pacific’s fleet. The 2261 was the UP’s “Placid Harbor”; the 2262 was “Placid Haven,” the 2266 was “Placid Sea” and the 2268 was “Placid Valley.” The “Placid” series of ten cars were built by Pullman-Standard in February and March 1956 under their Plan 4198. They were eleven bedroom sleeper cars. All of these cars were off the Amtrak roster by 1981.

The Union Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment (Volume One), Page 12, has a company photo of the “Placid Haven” in UP colors. The window configuration differs from what MTL shows, but I could be looking at the opposite side of the car here. Page 85 of the Union Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment Volume Two has a shot of the “bedroom side” of the “Placid Lake” which became Amtrak 2263 (not a number MTL chose), while the next page has “Placid Valley” which became Amtrak 2268. By the way, opposite the “bedroom side” is the “aisle side.” Let’s see if I can remember that for next time.

Jerry Laboda’s “Passenger Car Photo Index” ( passcarphotos.info ) has bingos on all four of the cars on the Amtrak roster, though none of them are in the Phase III scheme. With the 2268, also still named “Placid Valley” as of early 1976, we finally get a look at the “aisle side” which has just six widely spaced windows. The 2261, 2264 and 2268 were in Phase I paint while the 2262 still hadn’t been repainted from UP colors as of mid-1972.

And as an aside, I find another justification for changing the header for these groups of cars to “Multi-Packs.” This is a Runner Pack consisting of four of the same body style, but releases of more than one body style are being called “Four-Packs” by Micro-Trains.

Z SCALE SPECIAL EDITION RELEASES: No releases this month.

MTL ANNOUNCEMENTS: If you attended the National Train Show in Orlando, Florida the first weekend in August, and stopped by the MTL booth, then you already know about the N Scale “Union Pacific World War II Poster Series” set of Special Editions. If you didn’t attend,

27 you might have seen the photo of Micro-Trains’ display there, which included a poster advertising, well, the poster series. MTL posted (pun not intended) that photo on its Facebook page. Which is how I, and my current zero travel budget, found out about it. More to come in the next UMTRR as pre-orders will open on September 1 for this set of twelve decorated troop sleepers, FT locomotive and caboose.

Meanwhile, the loads included in the N Scale B&O Gondola Runner Pack this month are already available as separate parts, namely, the “Scrap Wheel Load 3-Pack” (499 43 935, $12.95) and the “Scrap Metal Load 3-Pack” (499 43 936, $12.95). The N Scale 53 Foot Corrugated Container is now offered in an undecorated version (469 00 500, $8.75). Finally, MTL reminds us that the 68 Foot DODX flat car multi-packs have another month in the pre-order window, which closes August 31.

INCREMENTAL INFORMATION DEPARTMENT: The BNSF Fuselage Transportation Four Pack released last month (993 01 560) is getting some good press on the several Facebook N Scale groups on which I lurk. Ken Garst posted a photo of what this set looks like in the box, and granted permission for me to reproduce it here.

OOPS PATROL: The N Scale Special Edition “Canada 150” refrigerator car (059 00 566) commentary inadvertently had a pre-order heading above it. No, it actually was released last month. As Bob and Doug MacKenzie might have said about this author, “What a hoser, eh?” (Look it up…)

An Oops dating back to April: When checking on the prototype series for this month’s Z Scale Great Northern Circus Car #7, I found that I quoted the wrong prototype series for GN Circus Car #4. No, the 19617 would not be part of a series numbered 18500 to 19499! How about the group 19500 to 20499? The dimensions were typical: 40 foot 6 inch inside length, 10 foot 2 inches inside height, 41 foot 10 inch outside length, 15 foot 7 inch extreme height, 6 foot door opening, and capacity 3775 cubic foot or 100,000 pounds.

An Oops dating back to June, and Great Northern again: I gave the completely wrong information for the individual items in the GN Heavyweight Five-Pack (993 01 570). Here is the correct list: 140 51 020, RPO, Road Number 30; 142 52 020, 12-1 Sleeper, Car Name “Havre”; 145 53 020, Paired Window Coach, Road Number 902; 146 54 020, Diner, Road Number 1038; 144 55 020, 3-2 Observation, No Road Number.

DISCONTINUED ALERT: MTL, in keeping with the bi-monthly schedule for the bye-bye board, has nothing listed as outta here this month. I’m also therefore taking a break on updating the website tables (besides, at this writing I’m well behind again on adding the new

28 stuff). I can report that none of the Weathered Releases from July have left the building, therefore keeping my string of the use of “sold out” clichés unbroken.

FINALLY, A TREASURE TROVE OF PHOTOGRAPHS: Yes, here’s another place on the Internet in which to get thoroughly lost. John W. Barriger (1899-1976) was a railroad executive and railroad scholar. Among his positions were President of the Monon, Katy, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, and Boston and Maine, and Vice President of the New Haven and Rock Island. From 1933 to 1941 he was the chief of the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and during World War II he worked for the Office of Defense Transportation. During this time he and his staff took a multitude of photographs of railroad right of way, buildings and freight cars… lots and lots of freight cars! Many of these photographs are now on Flickr as part of an effort to make them widely available. Pretty much weekly, if not daily, at least one of these photos is discussed on the Steam Era Freight Cars Group on YahooGroups. For example: www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/15604835363 , which shows a PRR “Merchandise Service” boxcar, one that’s been modeled by Micro-Trains in fact. Expanding the URL to www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/15604835363/sizes/o results in the “original” size of the scanned negative, along with a number of resizing choices to fit your particular monitor size. I should mention that a number of the negatives are reversed, so don’t be too surprised to see backwards lettering. Images can be downloaded and manipulated so no worries if you’d like to see the correct orientation. The landing page for the Flickr set is www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/ …but don’t say I didn’t warn you. OK, well, maybe one more: check out www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/16038384558/sizes/c/ for a possible inspiration for one of the cars in the N Scale Runner Pack #135 announced last month. You’ll see what I mean.

Barriger also amassed a collection of over 45,000 items which are now housed at the St. Louis Mercantile Library (see www.umsl.edu/mercantile/barriger/barriger-history.html for more). Wouldn’t that make an interesting road trip. Well, not this month! And until next month, do the best you can…

Cheers, George

[Legalese: You’ve received this because you’ve requested a UMTRR e-mail subscription. If there’s been some mistake, please let me know via e-mail at [email protected], including “UMTRR” in the subject line (all other e-mail is automatically deleted unread). You may also reply to this e-mail, but PLEASE delete attachments and other text first. All information contained herein is supplied “as is” and no warranties are express or implied. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Images of releases provided through courtesy of Micro- Trains Line, Inc. The Federal Trade Commission considers this effort to be an “endorsement.” I assume readers can make up their own minds. The UMTRR is copyrighted and all reprinting, reposting and other transmission is expressly prohibited, except for “Fair Use” quotes, unless prior permission has been obtained from me.]

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