I saw the MTH reefer in a hobby shop this afternoon (Sat the 12th). I saw two cars, individually boxed, not the 6 car set. I
suspect the shop owner split up the set. It is a nice looking car, fine wire grabs. Lettering was for PFE and is sharp. Sorry I
did not catch the number or other info. And I did not have my PFE book with me and do not feel knowledgeable enough on said
reefers to offer a confident buy or avoid recommendation. I did notice it was on the "new" shelf, and must have just arrived,
because they had not yet marked the price. Also it was the only MTH freight car I saw.

Doug Harding
www.iowacentralrr.org

--- In STMFC@..., "brianleppert@..." <brianleppert@...> wrote:

The box cars shown in the MTH catalog are actualy Model Die Casting (now Athearn). I can't see the trucks clearly, so don't know whose those are.

In the last years of MDC we made new tooling for new sides for the old 40' box car, with molded-on Youngstown, Superior and double doors.

MTH says theirs will have working doors. So what's shown are only stand-ins for MTH's PS-1 box cars.

Brian Leppert
Carson City, NV

I should add... A couple months ago I stated on this list that I can identify the USRA twin hoppers in the MTH catalog photos as being Accurail products. The close-up photos showing wire grab irons were either modified cars, or who knows? It's obvious that MTH filled the catalog with "stand-in" images, and it's not worth my time to delve into it again.

Dennis Storzek
Accurail, Inc.

Jon Miller wrote:

In general MTH is a toy train company and make what they believe will sell to the toy train market. I would never buy sight unseen .

Perfectly stated, Jon. No more need be said.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

The box cars shown in the MTH catalog are actualy Model Die Casting (now Athearn). I can't see the trucks clearly, so don't know whose those are.

In the last years of MDC we made new tooling for new sides for the old 40' box car, with molded-on Youngstown, Superior and double doors.

MTH says theirs will have working doors. So what's shown are only stand-ins for MTH's PS-1 box cars.

Brian Leppert
Carson City, NV

MTH is a different and militantly (some say litigiously) independent toy train company that is well known for keeping their own counsel, while studiously ignoring all others, not the least industry standards that are in any ways different than their own perceived proprietary products and visions for their use.

More to the point of those of the avowed prototype modeling fraternity, they are not really interested in "our" business, nor what we might think. MTH's HO products are aimed at the Toy-Train-Writ- Small niche market, a small but apparently relatively affluent group that teeters between traditional toy trains and scale models. IMHO, lIke most such "neither fish nor fowl" products, they are unsatifying (I am also a toy train collector), and they are destined to become orphans.

Denny

Denny S. Anspach MD
Sacramento

Norm

Interesting, but it could be (1) misinformation or (2) disinformation.
In business salesmanship, it's generally considered a huge mistake to
tell your customer that product A will be replaced with product B in
the future, since customers will stop buying the very profitable "A"
immediately while they wait for "B".

Athearn's last release of the quad hoppers was in 2008, and they sold
out of them. I don't know how that amounts to "little demand". Little
production generally leads to little sales.

It would be nice if Athearn would upgrade the 2-bay offset hoppers too
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=34%27+Offset+Hopper&PageSize=72

Tim O'Connor

. I'd like to see one of

the MTH cars up close to see whether or not its worth the price.
Norm Larkin

In general MTH is a toy train company and make what they believe will sell to the toy train market. I would never buy sight unseen .

--
Jon Miller
For me time stopped in 1941
Digitrax--Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI User
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS

Hi, Tim. A little over a year ago, I emailed Athearn regarding upgrading the A.R.A. 4-bay similar to the MDC upgrades. There was no response. Finally, I caught up with the product engineer (can't remember his name or "official" title) of Athearn at the Springfield, Mass. January show, and I asked the same question. He said the molds were nearly worn out for that car, there was little demand for it, and redoing the tooling would be too expensive. He then said that they 'absolutely' would not be upgrading the car. I think that means they have no plans for upgrading the car. I'd like to see one of the MTH cars up close to see whether or not its worth the price.
Norm Larkin

Fred Freitas wrote:

R-T-R makes me even more wary that it will be 'blue box' in a new box and color. The only thing I saw in the catalog that I considered good was on the last couple pages; the R40-X? PFE cars. Until Mr. Thompson passes them as accurate, I won't touch them. Why? Two reasons, Not sure if the paint & lettering is correct; and the 6 pack is not the most affordable.

There was indeed a PFE Class R-40-2 (and you can build quite a nice model of it with the Tichy kit). The MTH announcement seems to show wood sides and ends, 6-hinge doors, grab-iron rows in the ladder location and . . . that's about all I can see in the images. Of course ALL the private owner schemes shown are bogus in one or more ways. The PFE cars LOOK basically right--I can't read the car numbers--and they have black roofs with red ice hatch platforms, a 1930s feature which didn't much survive the start of WW II. The UP "Overland" emblem is one discontinued in 1942 and had become rare by 1950. The center sill looks too deep to me, but of course it's pretty hard to judge with these images.
But for 29.95?? Like the rest of this "new" line of cars, it's totally repetitious and as far as I can tell, a waste of time. Whenever someone on the list gets a look at an actual car from this line, I'll be interested to read their evaluation.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Bob Witt wrote

The [MTH] ARA 70-ton quad hoppers do appear to have door locks and the
ladders appear to [be] very thin or separately attached parts. This model
may be a useful addition.

I don't know why Athearn has upgraded a number of the old MDC open hoppers
with wire grabs and other improvements and NONE of their own cars - yet -
but I figure they could always do it very quickly if they wanted to. So
barring someone coming out with a Kadee quality ARA 4-bay, I'll just wait
patiently to see if Athearn ever does one. If not, well, it's not like I
don't have scores of other projects in the queue...

Tim O'Connor

Yeah I caught that too.



Brian J. Carlson, P.E.

Cheektowaga NY

prrk41361@...



From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of
rwitt_2000
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 11:01 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: New MTH HO scale freight cars






Brian J Carlson wrote:

Not sure which PRR car you are talking about but the "PS-1" boxcar,

which

has already been pointed out is more like a 1937 AAR car, it's

ENTIRELY

BOGUS. It is numbered and labeled as an X29. The X29 would never be

confused

with anything else. The PRR had NO AAR 1937 boxcars. As for the USRA
hopper, the Pennsy had 300 in 1920, and 30 were left in 1955. Unless

you are

modeling the Pennsy in the 1920's you probably don't even need one.

And the PRR boxcar model didn't even receive MTH "Imagination and Fun"
designation.

Bob Witt

IMO -- ugh!! Not one original (not already available) model freight
car; prices way out of whack with evident quality; but mostly -- why
did they bother????

Tim O'Connor

Brian J Carlson wrote:

Not sure which PRR car you are talking about but the "PS-1" boxcar,

which

has already been pointed out is more like a 1937 AAR car, it's

ENTIRELY

BOGUS. It is numbered and labeled as an X29. The X29 would never be

confused

with anything else. The PRR had NO AAR 1937 boxcars. As for the USRA
hopper, the Pennsy had 300 in 1920, and 30 were left in 1955. Unless

you are

modeling the Pennsy in the 1920's you probably don't even need one.

And the PRR boxcar model didn't even receive MTH "Imagination and Fun"
designation.

Bob Witt

Peter:

Not sure which PRR car you are talking about but the "PS-1" boxcar, which
has already been pointed out is more like a 1937 AAR car, it's ENTIRELY
BOGUS. It is numbered and labeled as an X29. The X29 would never be confused
with anything else. The PRR had NO AAR 1937 boxcars. As for the USRA
hopper, the Pennsy had 300 in 1920, and 30 were left in 1955. Unless you are
modeling the Pennsy in the 1920's you probably don't even need one.



Brian J. Carlson, P.E.

Cheektowaga NY

prrk41361@...



From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of
Peter Ness
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 9:16 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: New MTH HO scale freight cars






So in the minds of MTH a New Haven 1937 AAR 40' 10'IH box can be
represented as a "PS-1"? I think not. If someone tells me the Pennsy
or PFE cars are accurate I probably still won't purchase any.

my two cents,

Peter Ness

Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@...> 06/11/10 7:51 PM >>>

Jim, Eric, & list
The photos do nothing for the models shown. The statement Jim H.

refers to is a bit worrisome.

Why they always make what has been done 3 times over never ceases to

amaze me. Is there no critical thinking

at some of these manufacuter's offices?

Fred,

Urban legend has it that a certain burger chain, rather than doing
extensive market research, would simply located at the same intersection
as the golden arches, figuring that the other company had done the
research so why bother to do it again? <G> Sound familiar? (BTW, they
were pretty successful at it too)

WRT the R-30-2, that car is the Tichy car and has been done RTR by IM,
so its not a new car.

Regards
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

So in the minds of MTH a New Haven 1937 AAR 40' 10'IH box can be
represented as a "PS-1"? I think not. If someone tells me the Pennsy
or PFE cars are accurate I probably still won't purchase any.

my two cents,

Peter Ness

Though they won't interest most of us, I supspect the Athearn Blue Box cars will again be available as RTR's at a higher price and therefore duplicate what MTH is doing...

Maybe they should spend less time in court and more time in product developement?

Victor Baird
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Eric Hansmann wrote:

The MTH PS-1 box car offering will be the third or fourth PS-1

iteration of

this car in HO scale. Kadee and Accurail models can be found at swap

meets

and on dealer shelves. Granted there are now fewer box car prototypes

that

have not been produced as plastic HO scale models, but there are still

a

couple of different prototypes that could have been considered.

Eric,

I zoomed in on the boxcars and they have 4/5 Dreadnaught end with "W"
corner posts so it appears to be another version of the AAR 1937
standard boxcar for which we also have enough versions.

The ARA 70-ton quad hoppers do appear to have door locks and the ladders
appear to very thin or separately attached parts. This model may be a
useful addition.

The USRA hoppers were discussed earlier when they first appeared. Yes,
they seem expensive and for the B&O they are numbered and lettered for
the class N-12 as one of their "Imagination and Fun" products rather
than class N-17 that the B&O assign to their USRA twin hoppers. Now an
older twin hopper with end platforms would have been a very useful
addition to the model hopper fleet.

All of these models will require "hands-on" examination before we will
know if they will have any value with our modeling efforts.

Reagrds,

Bob Witt
Indianapolis, Indiana

Jim, Eric, & list,

                          The photos do nothing for the models shown. The statement Jim H. refers to is a bit worrisome.
Why they always make what has been done 3 times over never ceases to amaze me. Is there no critical thinking
at some of these manufacuter's offices?
R-T-R makes me even more wary that it will be 'blue box' in a new box and color. The only thing I saw in the catalog
that I considered good was on the last couple pages; the R40-X? PFE cars. Until Mr. Thompson passes them
as accurate, I won't touch them. Why? Two reasons, Not sure if the paint & lettering is correct; and the 6 pack
is not the most affordable. Enquiring minds, etc...

Fred Freitas



________________________________
From: Jim Hayes <jimhayes97225@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Fri, June 11, 2010 8:15:35 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] New MTH HO scale freight cars

Looking at and reading the catalog, I smell Athearn 'blue box' quality at
best. When they list features such as "4-wheel metal trucks" (not 2-wheel
but 4!) and "Brake wheel", and say "perfect way to add to a Ready-To-Run
set", I don't think I'm interested.

Jim Hayes
Portland Oregon
www.sunshinekits.com


On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Eric Hansmann <eric@...> wrote:

On a discussion list of NKPH&TS members there has been some discussion of
MTH HO scale freight car models pictured in a new catalog. As recent STMFC
discussion was centered on possible plastic injection molded models, I
thought this may be timely. Here are the freight car pages:

http://www.mthtrains.com/sites/default/files/catalog_files/index_2010ho2.htm

Details and opinions here are based only upon the images in the MTH catalog
at the above link.

Brian Carlson submitted these thoughts on the mill gondola:

It does appear MTH is tooling the Greenville 70 ton Mill Gon. This is a
shame since P2K already did the car in both kit form and RTR. The RTR cars
were available for about $12 when they came out years ago too. MTH would
have been better served doing the Bethlehem 70 ton mill gon, oh well. The
NKP cars being offered in numbers 66040, 66044, 66047. These are accurate
for the July 1944 delivery to the NKP, 66000-66049. The prototype cars had
wood floors, wine end door locks, 70 ton double truss trucks, and Universal
pump hand brake. These cars were delivered in the swing tail R lettering
scheme. Also in the late 40's 45 cars were converted to container service.
Note: the NKP also received 67000-67399 in March 1949, these cars had
subtle
differences from the 66000 series cars.

The MTH car has the straight leg paint scheme so it models a later repaint.
The MTH model also doesn't show some of the end lettering or smaller
lettering on the sides. These may be pre-production models so the actual
models may have full lettering. The trucks are not correct for NKP either.
Also the NKP cars had grabs on the sides whereas the MTH model looks to
have
modeled ladders which is only correct for the NYC and P&LE. The ends should
drop also. it's not clear from the artwork if these do. The details look
cast on, the P2K car has separate details. The B end and interior are not
visible in the photos so it is unclear if MTH model contains the correct
details for NKP.

In summary they look mostly correct for NKP but the P2k car may have
saturated the market years ago. This email is my opinion based on a review
of the image in the MTH catalog and the actual model may be different.
YMMV.

Thanks to Brian for the use of his comments. I agree that a Bethlehem mill
gon would have been a great choice. Or possibly a Lot 326-G NYC mill gon,
as
over 10,000 similar gons were rostered on NYC lines. See Kline & Culotta's
"Postwar Freight Car Fleet", p 187.

As for the other MTH HO scale freight cars in their latest catalog, the
70-ton quad hopper offering may be a upgrade over the old Athearn molds.
The
B&O had thousands of these hoppers in service for decades. I believe the
sill steps may have been different on B&O cars, but overall this model
could
be a real plus.

The MTH PS-1 box car offering will be the third or fourth PS-1 iteration of
this car in HO scale. Kadee and Accurail models can be found at swap meets
and on dealer shelves. Granted there are now fewer box car prototypes that
have not been produced as plastic HO scale models, but there are still a
couple of different prototypes that could have been considered.

MTH also lists a 55-ton USRA twin hopper, which lists for $29.95. An HO
scale USRA 55-ton hopper is currently available as a similar grade model
from Accurail and Walthers, plus the Tichy kit and the RTRs offered by
Intermountain. Why would MTH choose that hopper? Why not a different one?
Like maybe the USRA 70-ton triple hopper? That would have been soooo sweet
for NYC, C&O and many other fans/modelers.

Lastly, the MTH catalog shows a R40-2 wood side reefer. I'm not as informed
on reefer detail or history as I am on hoppers and gons. A quick compare
with detail in the Thompson/Church/Jones PFE book looks solid, but the
catalog images get fuzzy as the view is magnified. I am unsure if this is
an
upgrade on an older model or repeats something currently available.

These are my personal thoughts based on reviewing MTH catalog pages. The
actual models may be different

Model railroading is not a huge market. Sales can be maximized by wisely
choosing prototypes for model production. By introducing a model that has
been recently produced or remains available, a company is already losing
part of the market share.

Eric

Eric Hansmann
Chagrin Falls, Ohio
Modeling the railroads of Newburgh, Ohio, circa 1926.
http://designbuildop.hansmanns.org/

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------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

"4-wheel metal trucks" (not 2-wheel but 4!)"

Hmmm... 99% of all trucks I've seen do indeed have 4 wheels ;-)

Joe Gartman
Locomotive Engineer, BNSF
Bakersfield, CA