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1 Hello again everyone! Let s get right to the news and views N SCALE NEW RELEASES: IrwinsJournal.com Presents: The Unofficial Micro-Trains Release Report Issue #221 May, 2015 (Not affiliated with Micro-Trains Line, Inc.) Copyright 2015, George J. Irwin. Reproduction prohibited. Please see legal notice at the end of this document , $23.95 Reporting Marks: GN Foot Steel Boxcar, Double Doors, Great Northern. Red (the Great Northern s vermillion ), including trucks, with white lettering including reporting marks on left, and large slant serif roadname on right (including on right hand door). Black and white side facing goat herald on left above reporting marks. Simulated reflective dots along bottom of sides. Approximate Time Period: 1956 (build date) into the 1970s. The series GN 3500 to 3999 was built by the railroad itself at its Fargo, North Dakota shops during late Let s jump right to the Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) for January 1958, where we find the following dimensional data: inside length 40 feet 6 inches, inside width 9 feet 4 inches, inside height 10 feet 6 inches, outside length 41 feet 11 inches, extreme height 15 feet, capacity 3972 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds, and door opening 12 feet. Yes, that s a door thing and a bit of unusual one, since this time the prototype car has a narrower opening than the MTL body style. That s not an easy thing (pun intended) to fix. As we might expect, all 500 cars in the group were in service at the time. The Great Northern Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, Page 46, has GN 3923 from this series, but it s sporting the less large slant serif roadname that does not extend over the doors. That s the more common form of the paint scheme. I d guess that the railroad quickly realized that the larger roadname wasn t worth the tradeoff of the extra painting and maintenance required to extend the G and N onto the doors. For example, what if the door was damaged? Would the result be a quick replacement and thus the roadname reat othern? No problem, though, since the Fallen Flags site ( ) has a Jim Sands photo circa 1966 of sister car GN 3582 with the paint scheme MTL selected. The reflective dots are all but invisible on the 3582 as it appeared in the image. The doors, besides being only six feet wide each versus eight feet wide on the MTL 023 body style, are also not quite the Youngstown type. Since the real series of cars was built by the GN, I would expect differences between prototype and model. Meanwhile, the latest addition to the UMTRR 1

2 Research Accumulation is the Four Ways West book Great Northern Color Equipment Pictorial Volume One (not even on my wish list!). Page 58 has a shot of GN 3696 with the caption including more information: eight steel side panels (riveted), dreadnaught ends, steel diagonal panel roof, and friction bearing trucks. Add a straight side sill, though that can be addressed fairly easily. The large Great Northern emblazoned on the car side was distinctive and it was used on only a few car series, author Scott R. Thompson relates. It s also noted that some of these cars have the roof painted silver instead of vermillion, although I think that could also refer to unpainted galvanized steel. The 1957 photo was taken down in Tampa, Florida, so there s no doubt that these cars got around. Returning to the ORERs with the knowledge that at least one car had the large roadname as of 1966, we find 486 of the original 500 cars in service as of the January 1967 Register, and 476 conveyed to the Burlington Northern in the April 1970 ORER. For the record, 164 remained in the July 1980 Equipment Register and four cars from the group hung on all the way to the October 1986 ORER, but by then running board removal should have occurred so I think the 1970s is a more reasonable end for the Approximate Time Period. Want a weathered version of this car? Done see below , $ Reporting Marks: WSOR Foot Steel Boxcar, Double Plug Doors, Wisconsin and Southern. Yellow with gray roof, ends and side sills. Mostly black lettering including roadname, small herald and reporting marks on left. Black diagonal patch band covering Sargento trademark across car (see text). Yellow and orange swiss cheese holes on sides. Black and white double panel consolidated stencils on right. Approximate Time Period: 2009 to present. Note: MTL announced that this car is not on dealer standing orders and was delayed until after May 5, 2015, but is now available. The photo above is unofficial as MTL didn t have an official image at press time. How did an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling from 1934 result in the black diagonal band on this car? The answer in a moment. First, a brief mention of what lies beneath that band: the logo of Sargento Foods Incorporated of Plymouth, Wisconsin. Sargento was founded in 1953 by Joseph Sartori and Leonard Gentine, which explains the company name, with an o tacked on to the end for a better sound. Sargento is among the largest privately held companies in the country. Its food products are mostly dairy, including cheeses. It was the first firm to sell packaged shredded cheese and the first to use zippered-type packaging for it. As noted in Micro-Trains car copy, the Wisconsin and Southern and Sargento partnered in 2008 on the Santa Steam Train which brought Christmas trees to Plymouth, which is served by the WSOR. As is its habit, the railroad painted one of its 53 foot double plug door boxcars for the occasion, including a large Sargento trademark and decoration to simulate the look of 2

3 a chunk of Swiss cheese, one of the Sargento products. The car was released into regular interchange service following its use on the Santa Steam Train and then the trouble started. It wasn t long after the Sargento Cheese car showed up on North American railroads than notice was taken by The Powers That Be. And the same ruling that banned billboard advertising on railroad cars back in the mid-1930s was applied to this car. The underlying issue was the same: a competitor to Sargento, or even an unrelated consigner for that matter, might have to ship its products in a car that advertised Sargento. What s different from the ICC ruling of the 1930s, though, is that this time the car was illegal because it was owned by the railroad. If it had been a private owner or leased car, chances are it would have been alright for example, the Tropicana refrigerator cars in dedicated service between Florida and New Jersey. But because it was a Wisconsin and Southern car and could theoretically be used anywhere for any shipment, that was a no go. So, reluctantly, out came the paint. By no later than June, 2009, the Sargento trademark had been patched out if you can call a large diagonal stripe extending the entire length of the car a patch. It was photographed that way in Union City, Georgia. The image and several others appear on the website RRPictureArchives.net, one of which has the comment [it] just looks plain weird without its lettering. Well, it got more lettering not long after that: as of no later than September 2001, the had been thoroughly tagged, and as of September 2014, it still was. Those photos are also on RRPictureArchives, as is a pair of 2007 shots showing the car in its previous standard WSOR paint of brown with white lettering and non-standard graffiti. The 075 body style, which dates back to August 1991, isn t a match for the WSOR cars, principally because it s too short (nominally 50 foot for the MTL car versus 53 feet for the prototype). With that in mind, let s check the ORER for January WSOR is part of a short series to with just three cars. The inside length is 52 feet 5 inches, inside height 10 feet 5 inches, outside length 60 feet 3 inches, extreme height 15 feet 5 inches, door opening 16 feet, capacity 5100 cubic feet and Gross Rail Weight (car plus lading) of 220,000 pounds. There are other cars in the s that have similar dimensions , $ Foot Drop Bottom Gondola, Illinois Central. Black with white lettering including reporting marks on left, roadname and Main Line of Mid- America slogan from left to center, and split rail herald on right. Simulated scrap wheel load included. Approximate Time Period: mid- 1960s (based on paint scheme) to late 1980s. This would be the successor scheme to MTL s virtual two-pack release of this car in the brown and white Main Line of Mid- America scheme (Catalog x, June 2009, at right). The Illinois Central adopted its split rail herald in 1966, which was frequently a white stylized ic on a black circle. Well, when the entire car is black the circle is rather redundant! 3

4 The IC/GM&O Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment provides the bingo exact match to the road number, that is on Page 60. In fact, that s where we find the bingo to one of the predecessor releases as well. The MTL car copy draws from the caption for the photo of the real IC 96891, including calling out the original series for these cars, IC to 95499, as well as that by 1969 Illinois Central had permanently closed off, if not all, of the drop bottom doors on their classic 41 foot gondolas. In the Color Guide it s also noted that the door shafts and chains have been removed which would be an interesting alteration to this model. The eight-panel design aligns with the MTL 083 body style. Overall, from what I can see of the prototype which does not include the ends we ve got a good match here. The ORER for October 1969 really surprised me. When they converted these cars, they meant business: there are a total of 920 in the series IC to Ten of these were equipped with cradles for coil steel service. The dimensions: inside length 41 feet, inside height 5 feet, outside length 45 feet 3 inches, extreme height 9 feet 5 inches, and capacity 1947 cubic feet or 110,000 pounds. These are specifically described as Gondola, Solid Bottom so there s no ambiguity. Further, there are just 226 cars in the donor series to which remain with the drop bottom configuration. The October 1972 Register shows that a total of 885 cars went into the Illinois Central Gulf roster (that merger took place on August 10 of that year). That was down to 443 cars in April 1981, though I doubt that they looked pristine at that point. There were multiple subgroups of this series in the October 1986 ORER, still adding to a respectable 104 gondolas. Some of them made it all the way to the February 1988 reversion of the railroad s name back to Illinois Central. In April 1995 only three cars remained which is where I stopped looking , $27.95 Road Number: 1809 (will be ATSF 1809 in website listings). Heavyweight 70 Foot Baggage Car, Santa Fe (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe). Pullman green sides and ends; black roof, underbody and trucks. Gold lettering including roadname in center of letterboard, Railway Express Agency Inc. and car number at bottom center. Approximate Time Period: no earlier than 1929, or possibly 1948 (see text) into the 1960s. Besides being a baggage car, road number 1809 for the AT&SF was also on a steam locomotive and you can guess how I located that information. No, we ll need to be a little more creative than a search on ATSF A check of the March 1943 Official Register of Passenger Car Equipment isn t going to be helpful either, as it shows a group of Santa Fe 70 foot Baggage-Express cars- a group of 264 cars, to be specific, numbered 1585 to 1919, plus a few exceptions that were mail storage only. I would not expect that locating one of these would equate to finding them all in terms of a review. And sure enough, images cited by Jerry Laboda, on his Passenger Car Photo Index, reveal varying designs among that unusually large series of cars. 4

5 So the next stop was a perusal of the ATSF YahooGroup to help narrow things down. From there, we learn that cars 1600 to 1709 were built by American Car & Foundry and had fishbelly sides. Also, the 1849 was offered by Rivarossi and is the prototype for their N Scale car (which, in a rare reversal of the usual, makes HO Scale modelers jealous!). And then there s the group 1710 to 1839, which were built by Pullman. I believe I ve found plans for this series in the August 1942 issue of Model Railroader. The drawing spans two pages and the last two digits of the road number are cut off but the first two digits are 17. This is augmented by a 1965 photo of Baggage/Express car 1792 over on Fallen Flags ( ). Somewhat of a delta here is that the Santa Fe used what s called a monitor type roof, and depending on your perspective this could be a reasonable match to the MTL car or not. The different width doors align with the MTL 147 body style. The six-wheel trucks are largely in shadow but appear to differ from what Micro- Trains used. There are drip guards over the doors, a relatively easy addition. The 1765 is marked out of service, which helps with the Approximate Time Period. The Santa Fe had Fast Mail trains which were principally for, well, mail and express service, and once those went away so did the need for many of these cars. The lettering Micro-Trains has on the model matches the drawing in Model Railroader and the photo on Fallen Flags, except for the star that appears above the word Baggage. That star denotes that the car was equipped for a messenger. Equipped might be an overstatement, as there were just minimum, ahem, facilities that enabled the car to be closed off from the rest of the train. Messengers rode with high value shipments. There might be a strictly speaking ATP attached to this car, as the Association of American Railroads didn t require the star until 1948, however that doesn t mean that the Santa Fe didn t star their cars before that. (The Pennsylvania Railroad, for example, also had stars on their messengerenabled head end equipment.) The ATP can t be any earlier than the 1929 formation of the Railway Express Agency, as noted last month with the PRR and Erie releases of this body style. Finally, I ll pass along from the ATSF YahooGroup that there is photographic evidence of Santa Fe baggage cars appearing in New York Central passenger trains in the 1940s and 1950s, so it s possible to use one of these cars in non-santa Fe consists as well , $27.95 Road Number: 4554 (will be CP 4554 in website listings). Heavyweight 70 Foot Baggage Car, Canadian Pacific. Maroon sides and ends; black roof, underbody and trucks. Gold lettering including split roadname on letterboard ( Canadian on left and Pacific on right) and car number at bottom center. Approximate Time Period: 1958 (as numbered) into the 1960s, but see text. Unlike the circuitous route required to find anything useful on the Santa Fe baggage car above, we can go right to a bingo on CP 4554 in the Canadian Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, Page 22. And, well, the see text applies here. The car was among the group 4554 to 4559, first built in 1929 and given road number 4480, then 4422 in 5

6 1943 and finally the number MTL used in April And here s the bad news: the real 4554 was a horse-express car, and was nearly 80 feet long, unlike the 147 body style which is of a 70 foot car. There were additional small windows under the Canadian and Pacific on the real car as well, and drip guards on the roof, which is not the same shape as the MTL car well, you get the idea. This is what we ve been calling in these bytes a for completeness offering for those who would like to have a CP heavyweight passenger set and are willing to invoke Rule #1; i.e. It s your railroad. I should mention that the widely spaced roadname is appropriate on this and other of the CP s head end cars. The ATP s end isn t as easy to call as its start, which is based on the renumbering, but I think the decade of the 1960s is probably a good guess. The next use of the road number 4554 on the CP would be on one of its Montreal Locomotive Works-constructed M630s, the north of the border companion to the Alco C630, which arrived in In addition to the above, the Southern Pacific SW1500 Diesel Switchers ( and , Road Numbers 2471 and 2510, $ each) are now available. UMTRR coverage was in the December 2014 issue. As previously noted, these units have Flexicoil trucks and some SP-specific details including the numberboards. N SCALE REPRINTS: , $ Reporting Marks: ATSF Foot Steel Boxcar, Single Youngstown Door, Santa Fe (AT&SF). Seventh release in the MTL 1972 Series. Boxcar red (brown) with white lettering including reporting marks on left. Black and white circle cross herald inside black square above reporting marks. One side has Ship and Travel Santa Fe all the way slogan on right; other side has The Grand Canyon Line slogan on right. Approximate Time Period: 1953 (service date) into the 1960s at least. Previous Release (as Catalog 20072): Road Number , December What? This is the first reprint of this car since its debut in 1972? Well, yes, actually, although there have been several Micro-Trains cars which featured the The Grand Canyon Line slogan on one side. There s a bit of trivia here: Road Number which was used on the Class of 72 release reprinted this month was used again on the first run of Catalog Number in May 1977, part of the Santa Fe Map and Slogan five-pack. But that car 6

7 had the straight line map and not the slogan. MTL Catalog Number also had the map and a differently arranged Grand Canyon slogan. Am I confused yet? Anyway, this is a not a reprint by way of the much improved lettering, including the more correct version of the circle-in-square circle cross herald with the drop cap S and F. The Ship and Travel slogan replaced the system map starting in The service date of May 1953 is better, though, since in the mid-1950s the railroad switched from black car cement for the roof to the same mineral red paint used on the rest of the car. The EM in EM 5-53 stands for Emporia, Kansas if I recall correctly. This paint scheme was replaced in 1959, when the Santa Fe dropped the Name Train slogans and adopted the revised large circle cross herald. I m calling the ATP through the 1960s and adding an at least since the Santa Fe took its time repainting boxcars. MTL didn t provide an image of the slogan side of the car, but I can (at right). I ll also note that the known road numbers of the Santa Fe s BX-37 class of boxcars that had this slogan were to and to , into which fits, of course. That is, as long as you can overlook the fact that while the BX-37s were built by Pullman- Standard, in 1941 to be exact, they are Modified 1937 AAR design cars, not PS-1s which are the prototype for the 020 body style. Our ATSF Special Correspondent George Hollwedel tells us that they have riveted sides, and different ends and roof. The side sill contour is the same so from the side they appear similar to PS-1s. (Full disclosure: George did actual PS-1 ATSF models as MTL Special Runs; those were the Santa Fe s BX-57.) For a sample ORER check, we ll go to January This car was part of the large group numbered to , of 2957 cars, more than the entire rosters of many railroads as we like to point out once in a while, but still only about 3 ½ percent of the over 84,000 cars that the Santa Fe had in service at the time. The inside length of these boxcars was 40 feet 6 inches, inside height 10 feet 4 inches, outside length 41 feet 10 inches, extreme height 14 feet 11 inches, door opening 6 feet, and capacity 3837 cubic feet or 100,000 pounds , $32.90 Road Number: 1136 (will be SP 1136 in website listings). 36 Foot Steel Caboose, Offset Cupola, Southern Pacific. Brown (including trucks and couplers) with orange ends. White lettering including gothic style roadname across top of side and road number below cupola. Simulated window glass installed. Approximate Time Period: mid-1950s to mid-1970s. Previous Release (as catalog ): Road Number 1134, December

8 Although I was writing the UMTRR in December 1996, information available to me since then has increased so much that I think a do-over is needed. So let s do, over: these cars were built between 1940 and 1942 as MTL reports, but they would have carried the earlier Railroad Roman version of the SP roadname at that time. The larger gothic version was first adopted circa 1955, and the Southern Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment (Volume One) calls its use on cabooses as post-1956 so the ATP starts in the mid-1950s. Page 78 of that Color Guide includes a shot from 1959 of SP caboose number It, like the two road numbers MTL has done, are part of the C-40-3 class. Moving to the Southern Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment Volume 3, Page 77, there are shots of the 1075 as of 1975, the 1112 as of 1972, and the 1128 as of 1975, the last of which has three of its four side windows covered over. It s noted that after the early seventies, the railroad would begin to aggressively blank out side windows. That helps with the end of the ATP. All in all, there were 215 of the C-40-3 cabooses built in several groups, thirty of which went to the Texas and New Orleans subsidiary. The batch in which the two MTL-offered road numbers fall was numbered 1100 to 1149 and was built in early I ll cite one more photo on Page 78 of that Color Guide: it s of SP 1208, found in Ogden, Utah in 1958 and captioned as being in its as built condition excepting the paint scheme, of course. I should mention that in all of the photos, the grab irons and parts of the end railings were painted white. That s a quick and relatively simple change for the modeler. Model racing car enamels work well on the slippery engineering plastic Micro-Trains utilizes for those end rails, as that paint is formulated to stick better. Comparing prototype photos to the model, the match isn t bad. There are some differences with respect to the exact shape of the cupola and its windows, and the lack of end windows on the MTL 100 body style. The switch to Bettendorf Swing-Motion trucks for this run better aligns the model with the real thing; I m debating whether that qualifies this as a not a reprint. I suppose the now-standard inclusion of the plastic window inserts, which was not done back in 1996 with the first run of this car, is not a good reason to call not a reprint here. I did confirm that the word Local appeared under the road number on the original run as well. Meanwhile, this is the first regular run release on this body style since the Burlington Route (CB&Q) silver caboose back in July 2007, though there have been several Special Edition and Weathered Releases since then , $33.95 Reporting Marks: KTTX Foot Tri-Level Open Auto Rack, Pennsylvania Railroad/Trailer Train. Freight car red with mostly white lettering including reporting marks near center of flat car and Trailer Train logo to right of flat car. Red and white Keystone herald on black placard on left of racking. Approximate Time Period: late 1960s and early 1970s. Previous Releases (as x): Road Numbers and , June

9 Here s an almost eleven year old Oops: When this car was first issued as a virtual two pack in 2004, I don t know what possessed me to declare the start of the Approximate Time Period as the early 1970s, considering that the Pennsylvania Railroad itself was a Fallen Flag as of 1968! Perhaps we ll blame improper copy and paste, a skill at which I continue to be operating at less than perfect. Anyway, let s note a quote from the PRR Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment Volume 2, Page 127: The Pennsylvania Railroad obtained its automobile racks from two builders. One was Paragon Bridge and Steel Company. and the other was Whitehead and Kales Company. During February 1968 it was reported that the PRR had installed 1,629 automobile racks on Trailer Train flat cars. And on Page 43 of the PRR Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment (Volume 1), there is a bingo to previously released road number The first thing I notice is the added cross-bracing, which, on the prototype as well as the model, is asymmetric. Specifically, the crossbrace is one panel (for lack of a better term) from the left end of the rack and two panels from the right end of the rack. This appears to be true on both sides of the car. Second, note that the placard is mounted directly atop a panel which has the crossbracing attached. For most folks, this racking is going to be dead on, although I m sure that the more fastidious will locate some differences. The flat car on which all of this was mounted does appear to be a different story. It s of a thinner top to bottom profile at the sides, or maybe I should just say thickness, than the 091 MTL body style used as a base. I believe it would be an older Trailer Train car, but I can t be absolutely sure. The key giveaway is that the lettering is mounted on placards instead of being directly applied to the car. There wouldn t have been enough room otherwise. Turning to an example ORER, the April 1970 listing for Trailer Train (remember we go there, not to the railroad) shows the series KTTX to with AAR Classification FA and TTX class F89ch. The inside length was 89 feet 3 inches, the outside length 93 feet 7 inches and the capacity 117,000 pounds. Once again the height is meaningless as the racks aren't included. KTTX reporting marks were assigned to cars equipped with hinged end tri-level auto racks furnished by member railroads according to the listing. Pictures of similar cars in the PRR Color Guide indicate that the K in KTTX was added later, sometimes just barely squeezed into the placard. Because there s no way for me to tell when the PRR Keystone yielded to the Penn Central friendly worms, or perhaps even to the herald of another assigned railroad, the ATP remains no more than a guess based on the more general movement to enclosed auto racks. But there is one clue in the Walthers book Americas' Driving Force: a TTX car from the same series is pictured with the explanation that it received an enclosed Paragon rack in

10 In addition to the above, the following item is in pre-order at present and are 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 May 31. Scheduled September 2015 Release: , $ TTX Wind Turbine Set. Will consist of five 091 body style 89 foot flat cars in the current TTX (Trailer Train) scheme (road numbers and individual catalog numbers TBD) of yellow with white reporting marks on black panel on left and red TTX on right. Simulated wind turbine blades (propellers), one engine, two hubs and one tower section. Approximate Time Period: The present. Preliminary artwork shown; actual product may differ. The harnessing of wind power has been around a long time. The picture that forms in my mind is the classic smock mill windmill found in Europe (and how many of you out there remember the Aurora Postage Stamp kit complete with motor to turn the sails?). But think further back than that to, possibly, the Greeks of the First Century AD, or even the Babylonian emperor Hammurabi in the seventeenth century BC. Then, of course, there are the windmills used on farms all around the country to pump water up from below ground level; several N Scale models of those exist as well, including one that s awaiting installation on my own layout. Today s wind turbines, meant to generate electricity, are a long way from all of that, although again, they go back farther than I thought. The first working versions appeared before the turn (no pun intended) of the Twentieth Century. Denmark was a pioneering nation in the technology, with 72 wind turbines in use by They also led the way in modern turbines starting around the end of the 1980s. That country gets about 40 percent of their power from turbines. Here in the USA, NASA was involved in the development of wind power as well. Modern wind turbines are tall. A popular version from General Electric has 116 foot (35 meter) long blades that sit atop a 212 foot (65 meter) tower. That s 328 feet (100 meters) in total height. This model can generate 1½ megawatts of electricity at optimal wind speeds, but it s noted that since wind speed varies, so does the output of power. A logistical 10

11 problem with wind farms is that they tend to be away from population centers, requiring new infrastructure to bring electricity from where it s generated to where it s needed. Despite these issues, the use of wind power is increasing, and so is the need to transport the components of these modern machines. And so you have a right-up-to-date offering from the folks in Talent, Oregon, a state, by the way, which plays host to Shepherds Flat Wind Farm, one of the largest facilities of its type in the world. I can discern no more from the preliminary artwork than that the reporting marks are TTYX, which translates in TTX nomenclature to guess what? Flat cars used for windmill components. You might have already noticed that the middle 1 ½ cars of the drawing are a flip with the lettering backwards! Not too easy to do anything with that. Further, even with help (i.e. a magnifying glass) I can t tell what the road numbers are or if they are actually all the same road number. The ORER for January 2011 does show TTYZ 89 foot flat cars numbered in the s and some onesie-twosie road numbers elsewhere, along with a set of cars in the s with 89 foot inside length and 185 foot outside length- permanently coupled pairs of flatcars, perhaps? I guess we ll all find out in September. N SCALE WEATHERED RELEASES: The following items were announced as mid-month releases via the Micro-Trains website, the MTL Facebook page, and via the Micro-Trains E- Line, all on or about May , $25.95 Reporting Marks: GN Foot Steel Boxcar, Double Youngstown Doors, Great Northern. Red (the Great Northern s vermillion ), including trucks, with white lettering including reporting marks on left, and large slant serif roadname on right (including on right hand door). Black and white side facing goat herald on left above reporting marks. Simulated reflective dots along bottom of sides. Moderate weathering in shades of gray and black. Approximate Time Period: 1956 (build date) into the 1970s. Previous Release: Road Number 3763, May 2015 (i.e. earlier this month). Please see the coverage of the unweathered version of this car ( ) above , $27.80 Reporting Marks: RDG Foot Steel Boxcar, Plug Door, No Running Board, Full Ladders, Reading. Green with yellow band in which roadname is painted in green (faded for this release). White lettering including reporting marks on left. Moderate to heavy weathering including simulated rust on sides. Approximate Time Period: 1970s to early 1980s. Previous Releases: None, though this paint scheme has been done on Catalog 32320, 50 foot plug door boxcar with running board in February 1995 and April

12 This car might not officially be based on a prototype photo, but check out the images of the real thing over on RRPictureArchives.net and you ll see where Micro-Trains might have been inspired. The real RDG was found at the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg, Pennsylvania in 2008, and was still there, out in the open unfortunately, as of January 2013 at least, and getting more and more rusty by the year. The photo that s closest to the MTL release was taken in 1998 and can be found on the Reading Railroad Online site ( ). The 038 body style is not an exact match to the prototype, with respect to riveted versus welded sides, the side sill and the precise plug door, but it s fairly close. With one exception: the real somehow kept its running board! How about that? Fortunately, that can be fixed if desired with a convenient spare part from MTL, painted and weathered to match. Yes, Micro-Trains could have used the 032 body style to begin with instead, I know. How could a car have kept its running board (and note that I m now using the more appropriate term in place of roofwalk ) for that long? We might have a clue from the 2008 image, which includes lettering at the bottom left of the side reading [Something] Chocolate Company Interplant Service [somewhere] Pa. I think the [somewhere] is Lititz, Pennsylvania, a bit north of Lancaster and still served by rail if Google Maps is accurate. A search on chocolate Lititz Pa results in the Wilbur Chocolate Company, now a subsidiary of Cargill. I can t completely make out the [Something] but I don t think it s Wilbur. No, it s probably Suchard which makes sense since the company was known as the Wilbur- Suchard Chocolate Company from 1928 to There s more about the company history on its website wilburchocolate.com. Be that as it may, if the really was used for interplant switching that could be how it survived long enough to be preserved by the Reading Company Technical and Historical Society. By the time the car s picture was taken in 1998 there was nothing left of the Reading s RBLa class of insulated boxcars in the ORER. This series of insulated boxcars with load-restraining devices was originally numbered to and were rebuilds from the line s older XMy boxcars according to the society s website ( ). I first pick these up in the January 1967 Equipment Register where the full complement of 65 in on the roster. The inside length was 50 feet 3 inches, inside height 9 feet 4 inches, outside length 54 feet 8 inches, extreme height 15 feet, door opening 8 feet, and capacity 4323 cubic feet or 108,000 pounds. An end note calls out load dividers and side fillers in addition to the plug door, which was sufficiently new to be mentioned in the footnotes. Of the 65 cars, 64 went into Conrail as shown in the April 1976 ORER. Just one remained in the October 1986 Register. I don t know if these cars were absorbed into the Conrail roster. Let s wrap this up with one more photo reference, a bingo on the in the Reading Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, Page 90. The car s photo was taken in March 1971 on the Reading itself in Muhlenberg Township, Pennsylvania. It s noted that the ladder rungs and corner steps were painted yellow, but it seems to me that the paint would have worn off or become nearly invisible by the time the car looked as rusty and weathered as it does in this release. 12

13 , $47.95 Reporting Marks: TTGX Foot Tri-Level Enclosed Autorack, BNSF Railway. Orange (flat car and racking) with mostly black lettering. White reporting marks on black panel on left. Red TTX logo right of center. BNSF Swoosh herald on racking on right. Yellow conspicuity stripes along bottom of side. Prototypical graffiti based on prototype photo on one side. Approximate Time Period: the present (2014 rebuild/repaint date previously given by MTL). Previous Release (in unweathered form): Road Number , September I said in September that you couldn t get much more to The Present than with this car. The clean release was a 2014 rebuild and repaint into railroad colors - unusual but not unheard of for TTX cars. Like it or not, it doesn t take long for freshly painted cars to get tagged, and this one did, no later than March 2015 when it was photographed. The image is on RRPictureArchives.net and was taken in Clarksville, Missouri. As if to prove the point that racking doesn t always stay with its flat car, I came across a January 2009 photo of the same car, TTGX , also on RRPictureArchives. At the time, the car was painted in the much more typical yellow with black lettering, and attached to it was racking bearing the Union Pacific herald. N SCALE RUNNER PACKS: In addition to the below announcement, Runner Pack #104 ( , $119.95), four Grain Train 3 Bay Center Flow Covered Hoppers with Trough Hatches, is now available. UMTRR coverage was in the December 2014 issue. The individual catalog numbers and road numbers for these items are as follows: , 1008; , 1015; , 1019; , These are the third through sixth road numbers for this car. The following item is in pre-order at present and are 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 May 31. Scheduled October 2015 Release: , $ Quantity four of 3 Bay Center Flow Covered Hopper with Trough Hatches, Union Pacific. Reporting Marks: UP 90800, 90806, 90852, Gray with mostly black lettering including reporting marks on left. Black We will deliver slogan with red, white and blue shield herald on 13

14 right. Approximate Time Period: 1996 to present. Previous Release (as Catalog 94120): Road Number Individual catalog numbers for this release should be 094 5x 120. I suppose that the UP would prefer that we not bring up (again) the way that their We Will Deliver slogan, adopted in 1996, was not exactly being, well, delivered, following the meltdown that resulted from the absorption of the Southern Pacific. There are numerous articles, case studies and analyses online for your perusal. The UP s own website mentions the adoption of the Building America slogan in 2002, but there s nary a word about We Will Deliver. Interesting RailcarPhotos.com has a variety of shots of these cars including a bingo on the previous The October 1996 ORER had the series running from to 91347, of 871 cars, but RailcarPhotos captions show the group as being from to They re part of the UP class C (noted that some were delivered as C ). They were built by National Steel Car Company in 1996 and may have been the first UP cars to carry the We Will Deliver slogan. Since the 094 body style is based on the older AC&F 4650 cubic foot prototype, there will be differences, including the actual size of the prototype cars. The ORER for January 2011 confirms this: outside length 60 feet 1 inch, extreme height 15 feet, capacity 5127 cubic feet and gross rail weight 286,000 pounds. There are a total of seven subsets between and 91499, adding up to (reaching for calculator) 1093 cars. Despite the rather quick abandonment of the We Will Deliver slogan, cars in this series remained painted that way at least into the beginning of the year, so to present should work for the ATP. I note that some cars had ellipses after the wording while others had only a period. N SCALE SPECIAL EDITION RELEASES: In addition to the below announcements, the American Civil War FT-A Shell ( , $36.95) and American Civil War Caboose ( , $32.95) are expected to be released mid-month and should be at dealers as you read this. UMTRR coverage was in the January 2015 issue. Remember, this isn t a full loco, just the shell: MTL s official word is Due to the uncertainty of being able to secure a power chassis for our FT locomotive, we are offering this loco shell so customers can switch their existing MTL chassis over to this shell. Again, once the official photos are available for this pair, I ll add them to the UMTRR website. The following items are in pre-order at present and are 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 May

15 Scheduled Delivery September 2015: , $ SW 1500 Locomotive, Christmas Postcard Series. Red with green cab and details. White Mail Delivery on long hood and North Pole USA postmark on cab. No road number. Preliminary artwork shown, actual item may differ , $28.95 Bay Window Caboose, Christmas Postcard Series. Red with green roof, underframe and details. White North Pole USA postmark across car, split by yellow modified bay window decorated to appearance of a mail slot. No road number. Preliminary artwork shown, actual item may differ. A locomotive and caboose will also be offered with this series, quoth Micro-Trains in the announcement of the Christmas Postcard Series last June, and here we are. Based on the reports I ve heard about the SW1500, it should be more than sufficient to handle the ten cars (nine boxcars plus caboose) as long as you re not attempting a slope similar to that actually used by Santa and his reindeer to pull out of North Pole HQ on Christmas Eve (!). You might remember upon the announcement of the Postcard Series that I described the Penny Postcard as the Twitter of its day. Well, here s your useless trivia for this month: the mail slot depicted on the bay window caboose is from the same Approximate Time Period! According to a citation to the National Postal Museum (a dead link, unfortunately) on the Wikipedia entry for letter box, Until 1916, U.S. mail carriers knocked on the door and waited patiently for someone to answer. To correct this problem, the U.S. Post Office Department ordered that every household must have a mail box or letter slot in order to receive mail. You d probably not be surprised to know that there are acceptable dimensions and specifications for these and for mailboxes in general. Scheduled Delivery Starting September 2015: Ringling Brothers Heavyweight Series, $32.95 each. Expected to consist of ten heavyweight passenger cars and two flat cars with wagons, all variously decorated with circus poster art and Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus lettering. Initial preliminary artwork shown, actual release may differ. And here I thought we were reaching the end of the association between Micro-Trains and the Greatest Show On Earth nope! It will continue well into 2016 with this latest announcement. The very first hit on an image search for Ringling 50 clowns appears to be the poster from which some of the artwork for the above Heavyweight Railway Post Office was derived. Even before its combining with Barnum & Bailey, Ringling Brothers was 15

16 advertising 50 Funny Clowns although some of them looked a little scary if you ask me. While I didn t try to locate the caption Ludicrous, Laughable, Humorous Incidents Free From Vulgarity in advertising, it s fair to say that the phrase still applies today, unless things have changed dramatically since my kids were in the key demographic for the circus. Arguably the most famous of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus clowns was Emmett Kelly ( ) was a master of the craft. Kelly is best known for his Weary Willie tramp character who only acted and never spoke while in character (including as the mystery guest on the quiz show What s My Line? in 1951). Unlike the other clowns, he was given free rein to improvise during the show as he wished, and he could, and did, turn up anywhere, including in the audience. Kelly s son Emmett Kelly Jr. ( ) was not associated with Ringling Brothers but became famous playing his own version of the Weary Willie character. Kelly Jr. is also probably the only circus clown to be pictured on the cover of a model railroad magazine specifically, the September 1970 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman, for which he authored the article Circus Trains and Modeling. Kelly Jr. was a railroader prior to becoming a clown, and built an extensive circus train collection. NARROW GAUGE RELEASES (Nn3, HOn3): No releases this month. Z SCALE NEW RELEASES: , $23.95 Reporting Marks: TCX Foot Single Dome Tank Car, Texaco. Black with white lettering including reporting marks on left and Sinclair Oils across side. Reporting marks and additional data on ends. Equipped with Arch Bar trucks. Approximate Time Period: 1918 (build date) through mid-1930s. Release #11of an expected twelve in the Tank Car Series. There are some subtle differences between this release and the cars in the Z Scale Runner Pack #20 released in September 2010 which preclude a direct copy and paste from that coverage. First, there are the words Asphalt Products below the Petroleum Products on the right side. Second, the build date is different: 1930 versus Third, the road number for this car is far away enough from the previous ones (which were 8099, 8128, 8246 and 8268) to require another dive into the ORERs. Which is where we ll start. The Equipment Register for February 1931 showed the series 9750 to 9999, simply listed as Tank, Oil with a 10,000 gallon or 100,000 pound capacity. General American purchased Texaco s tank cars in 1935 and assigned them to its subsidiary Pennsylvania-Conley Tank Line. In the January 1943 Register there were 278 cars remaining in the series from the original 500. By the January 1945 ORER, the TCX reporting marks were under the main General American registration. In the April 1952 ORER the series in which we re interested had dropped to 255. I suspect, though, that once GATX got hold of these 16

17 tank cars, any reference to Texaco was eliminated and only the TCX reporting marks were kept, similar to the N Scale Micro-Trains release from back in May 1990 (catalog 65250). There were exceptions, however, like a silver and black TEXACO car photographed in the 1950 s, which is why I ve left the ATP out to as late as the 1950 s. The book American Car & Foundry Company , Page 73, provides the bingo to this car via the usual builders photo. The 9019 was part of Lot #1093 built at AC&F s Milton, Pennsylvania shops in April The second half of the series shown in the ORERs was in this group, 9750 to The cars were 10,040 gallon capacity heated and insulated cars with 50 ton trucks, probably a little bit closer to MTL s Bettendorf type than the Arch Bar that is supplied with the model. The underframe of the time also doesn t match the MTL 530 body style, and there are some I don t know what this is for piping and valves near the dome on top of the car perhaps used for cleaning the heating coils? Never let it be said that I m an expert on tank cars of the Depression Era! , $27.80 Road Number: (will be D&RGW in website listings). 30 Foot Center Cupola Caboose, Rio Grande (Denver & Rio Grande Western). Orange with black underframe and trucks and white end rails and grab irons. Black Speed Lettering Action Road herald in parallelogram box below cupola and road number at bottom left. Black and white double panel consolidated stencils at bottom right. White simulated reflective stripes along bottom of side. Approximate Time Period: 1976 (build date) to at least the mid-1980s, but see text. I ll speculate that this release is mostly to give the Z Scaler a caboose to run behind that new set of Rio Grande F7 locomotives (see below). The prototype is actually an International Car Company wide vision caboose which doesn t look much like the MTL 535 body style. In fact, even the herald isn t in the same relative position on the Micro-Trains car as it was on the real one. So see text it is. Photos of the real are on RRPictureArchives.net and elsewhere. Based on the dates of these photos, the car was in service through at least the mid-1980s. There is a better ending than usual for this particular caboose. The real was sold by the Union Pacific and was transported to the vicinity of Palmer Lake, Colorado in At the time, it had been tagged quite a bit, but was still intact. The Rumor Mill speculated that it was going to a private collector of 1:1 scale railroad items and , $9.95 each Reporting Marks: BNAU and Foot Containers, BN America. White with black reporting marks. Red and blue BN America logo on ends (large on the 220 and small on the 230). Red and blue BN America logo 17

18 and stripe on the 220 release, with black We Care About Kids artwork on the 230 release. Approximate Time Period: 1990s at least (1994 start for the 230 release). Note: Micro-Trains did not include these items on dealer standing orders. Only the artwork was available at press time and will be updated with actual product photos on the UMTRR Website. I haven t been to Roger Simon s City View Trailers page on the QStation website in quite a while. That page is mostly about the famous City Series of trailers and containers that Burlington Northern rostered starting in the 1980s, but covers more than that, start quote: In addition to the City View Trailers, there were a number of other decal programs that took advantage of the public exposure railroad containers and trailers have through-out North America. One such program was the We Care for Kids program which put a public service message for teens on the side of a container along with a hot line for teens to call for help. The container was also a feature in the Burlington Northern's exhibit at the Atlanta Expo and received a lot of favorable comments. End quote. There are official photos of containers with this artwork and there s a press release dated November 15, 1994 and that certainly helps with the Approximate Time Period for that container! The Intermodal Container Web Page site ( ) has a bingo for BNAU It s actually a 48 foot sheet and post trailer built by Stoughton, so the MTL 761 body style, a forty foot container, is a stand in. The photo is undated but the container is loaded on a BNSF well car with the circle cross logo, so that would have to be sometime after the 1996 merger of the BN and the Santa Fe. BNAU is on the same site, also in an undated photo. (Look for the 48-foot Domestic Containers list.) It s also a 48 foot Stoughton sheet and post container. I think it s safe to say that the ATP for this container series starts previously to the We Care About Kids design and , $ each and , $ each Reporting Marks: D&RGW 5641 and 5644 (A units); 5642 and 5643 (B units). F7 Powered A and B Units, Rio Grande (Denver & Rio Grande Western). A units are Aspen Gold with mostly aluminum roof and four black stripes on which the black speed lettering roadname is superimposed. Reporting marks in small black lettering at rear of unit. B units are Aspen Gold with aluminum roof and band on lower side with four black stripes and small reporting marks at front of unit. Approximate Time Period: 1951 (build date) into the 1960s. Note: These items are scheduled to be available mid-month and should be in stores as you read this. Only the artwork was available at press time and will be updated with actual product photos on the UMTRR Website. 18

19 The website of the Rio Grande Modeling and Historical Society ( ) has a unit by unit rundown of each of the F7s (and most other diesels) that were purchased by the D&RGW. All of the units were built in 1949 as the four-unit 564ABCD and were individually renumbered in The 5641 and 5642 were sold to the Penn Central in 1970 and were placed into service with minimal relettering, creating an unusual sight on the PC even for them. The 5643 and 5644 were in a wreck in 1956 and were rebuilt by Electro- Motive in The 5643 was traded in and the 5644 sold, both in Photos on the site reveal that the four stripe paint scheme on the 5641 was redone to a single stripe sometime between August and December 1966 (and how s that for getting lucky on prototype photos?). The 5644 was already in a single black stripe as of February According to Don Strack s UtahRails website, the Prospector scheme with four stripes that MTL used was in place from 1951 into the 1960s, with the single seven inch wide stripe first used in The initial use of the Prospector scheme was for units assigned to passenger train service. As usual, details differ on these units versus the MTL model. The one that caught my eye first was a set of grab irons leading up to the cab window. Those would be a challenge to add in 1:220, but I think some Z Scalers are up to it! Z SCALE REPRINTS: Something for those BN container releases and , $29.80 each Reporting Marks: BN 64094C and 64094D. Husky-Stack Well Cars, Burlington Northern. Red with white lettering including reporting marks on left. Blue, red and white BN herald on right. Approximate Time Period: 1993 (build date given by MTL) to mid-decade of the 2000s. Previous Release (as Catalog 13002): Road Number 64094A, August 2004 (with containers), then Runner Pack #18 ( ) with Road Numbers 64115A, 64115B, 64130A, and 64130B, June As noted in the pre-review of Runner Pack #18, provided in the December 2009 UMTRR, the October 1996 ORER shows that various single unit, three unit and five unit configurations of double stack cars were numbered in the 60000s, more than twelve hundred cars in fact. (Regardless of the number of units, it s still a car from the ORER point of view. The series BN to is shown with 177 five unit articulated cars, which was a bit of a divergence from the single car MTL offered as BN in There was somewhat of an acknowledgement of this in the Runner Pack, with two A and B pairs being offered. When this paint scheme was initially released in 2004, I was able to check the Gunderson site for the specifications on this car. I determined that, well, it s worse: comparing dimensions between the Gunderson site and the ORER, it looks like the prototype cars are Husky-Stack 19

20 IIIs. They share trucks between cars, except at the ends. It was noted in 2004 by MTL itself that the is the A unit of a five unit articulated intermodal well car. So this release provides two more of the original set of five. The appropriate decals with a second copy of this virtual two-pack will net the Z Scaler all five cars needed, with the caveat that there will be extra trucks. Note that Gunderson manufactured both shared-truck and drawbar-connected Husky-Stack units; in the latter case, couplers can be swapped for the drawbars and the cars can be run in different configurations for more flexibility. Tracking the A to E units when they all have the same road number might be interesting depending on the flexibility of the information technology in place! As with the other multi-unit double stacks, the dimensions are kind of interesting. The inside length of 48 feet of course refers to each unit, and is pretty important to understanding what size containers will fit inside the wells. The outside length of 300 feet 10 inches refers to the overall size of this car. Other dimensions: inside width 8 feet 6 inches, height to eaves just one foot, extreme height 4 feet 9 inches (unloaded), and capacity 582,000 pounds. The January 2002 ORER listing for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe reveals that 54 of the Husky-Stack sets remained in the BN series, and with the changeover of capacity listing from lading to Gross Rail Weight, you ve got to love that number: 799,000 pounds! Based on the dimensions again, it appears that the former BN series crossed over to BNSF road numbers to , with 123 cars in that group at that time. By the October 2007 ORER, just one car, the 64217, remained with BN reporting marks in the original series. Z SCALE WEATHERED RELEASES: The following item was announced as a mid-month release via the Micro-Trains website, the MTL Facebook page, and via the Micro-Trains E- Line, all on or about May , $28.90 Reporting Marks: RBOX Foot Exterior Post Boxcar, Single Door, Railbox. One side is green with extensive graffiti portrait The Freight Heavyweight across entire car, based on prototype photo. Otherwise, yellow with aluminum roof and black door. Mostly black lettering including roadname and reporting marks on left. Small black, red and blue Next Load / Any Road logo on right. Approximate Time Period: 2012, plus or minus. Previous Releases (in unweathered form): Eight Pack #4 ( ) with Road Numbers 20520, 20648, 20664, 20682, 20750, 20794, and 20883, March Cars like these make me wonder how long rolling stock sits in the same place without anyone noticing. Yes, there is a prototype for the car s, ahem, incremental decoration, which was lensed in August 2012 and can be found on RRPictureArchives.net. At the time, it was in 20

21 a train at Newburgh, New York, which probably puts in on CSX s ex-new York Central West Shore line. But where was it before then and how many days did it sit there while being tagged, in a huge way? Or am I severely overestimating the length of time required to, well, redecorate the entire side of a fifty foot boxcar? Anyway, while the Micro-Trains source material for this Weathered/Graffiti release was mostly like the leftovers from Eight Pack #4, the prototype car is not in the same series. The group to 20899, in which all the Eight Pack road numbers were included, was off the Railbox roster no later than July The which was the, ahem, canvas for this artwork is from the prototype series RBOX to which had just 29 cars remaining as of the January 2011 ORER. These were 5076 cubic foot boxcars with a 50 foot 6 inch inside length, 10 foot 7 inch inside height, 55 foot 7 inch outside length, 15 foot extreme height and 10 foot door opening. According to RailcarPhotos.com this was part of the series to built by Pullman-Standard in 1976, Railbox s class XPF11A. The ends and side sills are different between prototype and model. The ATP is always a guess with respect to graffitied rolling stock, since we don t know when (or if) it was repainted following the application of the, er, artwork, and we also don t know how long it, well, looked that way prior to a photo being taken which was posted to an online collection. Z SCALE RUNNER PACKS: In addition to the below announcement, Runner Pack #78 ( , $124.95), five APL Husky-Stack Well Cars, is now available. UMTRR coverage was in the December 2014 issue. The individual catalog numbers and road numbers for these items are as follows: , 4837A; , 4837B; , 4837C; , 4837D; , 4837E. (The C, D and E units don t have road numbers on the car.) These are the first through fifth road numbers for this car, though the prototype is a single five-unit set (B, C, D, E, A or A, E, D, C, B if looking from the other side) as noted in the pre-release UMTRR coverage. Also, Runner Pack #79 ( , $69.95), four Great Northern 33 foot offset side open hoppers with loads, is not available. UMTRR coverage was in the December 2014 issue. The individual catalog numbers and road numbers for these are as follows: , 73215; , 73230; , 73282; , These are the first through fourth road numbers for this car. 21

22 The following item is in pre-order at present and is NOT currently available. Scheduled delivery is as shown below. UMTRR coverage is being provided ahead of the actual release of these items in order to facilitate pre-order decisions; pre-orders close May 31. Scheduled October 2015 Release: , $74.95 Quantity four of 33 Foot Offset Side Hoppers, Southern Railway. Road Numbers: , , , (will be preceded with SOU in website listings). Brown with white lettering including large roadname and road number in center. Simulated coal loads included. Image of previous N Scale release shown; actual Z Scale release may differ. Approximate Time Period: mid-1950s into the 1960s. Previous Releases: None. Individual catalog numbers will be confirmed upon release. N Scale cars shown for representation. I think Micro-Trains is in a groove with Runner Packs of twin hoppers, since we have one released this month, one announced this month, and two other Runner Packs (SP and NYC) and an Eight-Pack (PRR) in the last twelve months. I can mostly borrow from the February 2014 coverage of the N Scale reprint of the , which is one of the road numbers in this quartet. (So is the road number which was the initial N Scale release back in October 1990.) That small C.N.O.&T.P. means more than I thought it did, not so much on the hopper but in terms of the Southern Railway System, and its successor Norfolk Southern. When NS trains are operating on the rather expansively named Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, they are on trackage that s actually owned by the City of Cincinnati. In fact, the actual railroad isn t called the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific that s just the operating company that, well, operates over the line, which is officially called the Cincinnati Southern. It was chartered in 1869 by the city, which was concerned that railroads would usurp river traffic and render the city relatively irrelevant. Initially intended to reach all the way to New Orleans, thus completely bypassing the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the railroad did get some 337 miles to Chattanooga, far enough to be an important connection between North and South. When completed in 1881, the line was leased to the CNO&TP, which was independent, but the company fell into receivership in 1893 and the Southern Railway System ended up in control. They still had to lease the trackage, however, and the NS still does, with the latest 25 year agreement coming to an end in 2026 (I ll hasten to add that there s an option for another 25 years). The CNO&TP included the famous Rathole Division which sported steep grades, tight curves and 27 tunnels. Several realignment projects including the Southern s in the 1960s eased much of the difficulty in navigating that part of the line. As of 2009, though, the City of Cincinnati was pulling in nearly $19 million in rent payments. Not bad for an initial investment of $18 million in mid-1800s dollars. 22

23 I ll again reference the article Modeling Southern Railway 55-Ton Offset Side Hoppers by Jim King in the December 1991 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. In 1937, Pressed Steel Car Company built 500 cars, numbered to , for the CNO&TP, and another 600, numbered to , for the Alabama Great Southern, another line in the Southern Railway System. These 1100 were among 2850 total cars of this type built between 1937 and They were generally lettered as shown on the Micro-Trains model, with some minor variations. By the 1960s, according to the article, these cars were becoming outdated. Some of them were rebuilt into articulated paired hoppers and others were relegated to hauling raw coal on the Southern s branch lines. In 1959, though, the Southern s block lettering appeared, replacing the Railroad Roman that was the as delivered typeface for these cars. And there s one other detail that I almost missed: as delivered, the Southern hoppers were black, not brown. This is not at all easy to pick out in the black and white photos that accompany the RMC article; in fact, if it hadn t been explicitly stated, I wouldn t have caught that delta between prototype and model. Some heavy weathering might disguise this issue. Or you can wait until 1955 or thereabouts, which is when the Southern Railway apparently switched to brown for its hoppers. That s a bit of Incremental Information by way of the RPI Website. The January 1940 ORER shows the series to at its full complement of 500 cars. The inside length was 33 feet, outside length 34 feet, extreme height 10 feet 8 inches and capacity 2124 cubic feet or 110,000 pounds. From there I jumped to the July 1963 Register, where 418 were still in service, though they could have been carrying the later block lettering by then. Eighty-eight cars remained as of the July 1970 Equipment Register. Z SCALE SPECIAL EDITION RELEASES: No releases this month. MTL ANNOUNCEMENTS: It didn t take long for MTL to issue a Table Top Train Set with the N Scale Southern Pacific SW1500 ( , $259.95). The reprint of the SP caboose this month makes sense in that context as well, though their Bay Window body style would have worked also. The Santa Fe Blue Bonnet F7A unit is in a Z Scale Table Top Train Set, either with track ( , $239.95) or without ( , $214.95). The latest N Scale structure kit is a Pump House ( , $24.95). For N Scale bulkhead flat cars, there s a set of the #5 and #6 loads ( , $11.95). Meanwhile, in cyberspace, Micro-Trains continues to build on their new website presence with, among other things, downloadable images of their current products, which is quite helpful for this reviewer. (Note to the folks in Talent: We need the MTL databases back!) Next up in the N Scale Heavyweight Passenger Car series of body styles is a Mail/Baggage Car, based on a CB&Q prototype, and behind that is a Horse Car based on one that operated on the Southern Pacific and is in the Arizona Railroad Museum, per the latest MTL R&D information. Joe D Amato also noted that a single window coach is expected at some point. 23

24 DISCONTINUED ALERT: And I thought last month was busy how about 18 outs in N Scale and another 15 in Z Scale? (And that s not counting the N Scale Ringling Brothers Wagon Pack wait, I think I did just count it.) Time for a deep breath let s plunge into the list, starting with the N Scale items. And starting with two 40 foot boxcars: Norfolk and Western black ( , June 2014) and the Canadian National in aluminum ( , March). The Minnesota, Dakota and Western Weathered Two-Pack of x-post boxcars is outta here ( , February). The Santa Fe red x-post boxcar is gone ( , May 2014). The Seaboard System black boxcar has rolled away ( , September 2013), as is the B&O blue and yellow boxcar ( , October 2014) and the Muncie and Western yellow wood sheathed boxcar reprint ( , January). The Western Maryland Drop Bottom Container Car gondola has been emptied ( , November 2013). The Staroline tank car ( , December 2013) is drained. The first number of the Department of Defense TOFC flat has retreated ( , October 2013, second number still available), as is the Weathered CP Rail COFC/TOFC flat car ( , March). The not a reprint Great Northern boxcar ( , February 2014) and the reprint Great Northern tank car ( , August 2013) are gone, as is the Weathered green unlettered log car ( , December 2014). Three heavyweight passenger cars have left the station: the Union Pacific 12-1 Sleeper ( , April 2011) and the Burlington 12-1 Sleeper and Paired Window Coach ( , March 2013 and , October 2012). Finally, the Western and Atlantic Civil War Era caboose has marched off ( , April 2013). Moving to Z Scale, it s closing time for the last five Brewery Series refrigerator cars: the Manhattan Brewing, Fox Beer, Senate Beer, Eagle Beer and Heilmann s Brewing ( through , December 2013 through April 2014), which puts that entire twelve car set on the bye-bye board. Returning to catalog number order, the first number of the Canadian Pacific Spans The World boxcar has left the building ( , February) and so has the first number of the State of Maine boxcar ( , March). The Weathered Norfolk Southern x-post two-pack ( , January) is sold out. MTL lists the (January 2013) as being sold out with the roadname Canadian National, however that catalog number is for a Missouri Pacific boxcar. We ll try to get a clarification. The first two Nose Art flat cars with containers have flown away: the Belle Wringer ( , July 2013) and Caboose ( , August 2013). Three well cars are dry: both numbers of the CP Rail ( x, July 2012) and the first number of the Santa Fe ( , January). Wrapping up for this month is the Northern Pacific Streamlined Dome Car ( , February 2015). INCREMENTAL INFORMATION DEPARTMENT: Last month s UMTRR didn t have the image of the N Scale Reading SW1500, but it was posted to the Micro- Trains website after my press time, so here it is (at right). We re still awaiting official portraits (or otherwise, for that matter!) of the Z Scale Western Fruit Express mechanical refrigerator cars. 24