N Scale Atlas 73' Centerbeam's

[Missaberoad]

Is the word "Centerbeam" copyrighted or something?

IIrc "centerbeam" was trademarked by Thrall.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Anyone know when these were introduced into service?

[GaryHinshaw]

The BNSF and TTZX date to the early 2000's (2003+).  The other roads are very likely 2000+ as well.

[kiwi_bnsf]

The Norfolk Southern road numbers are the earliest. These are in NS series 120250-120424 built by Trenton Works class F75, May-Jun 1998.

I know this because I model Tehachapi in January-June 1999 and so I can justify precisely one of these cars 

In my era, the majority of Centerbeams were single panel examples from NSC (the Rapido model) and Thrall (the Red Caboose model).

The zero panel variants scream 2000 onwards, so I expect Atlas will do well with these.

There is probably room for a manufacture to do more prototypical opera and standard panel variants as well — Red Caboose was a bit more fast-and-loose with those types.

Cheers

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The Norfolk Southern road numbers are the earliest. These are in NS series 120250-120424 built by Trenton Works class F75, May-Jun 1998.

I know this because I model Tehachapi in January-June 1999 and so I can justify precisely one of these cars 

In my era, the majority of Centerbeams were single panel examples from NSC (the Rapido model) and Thrall (the Red Caboose model).

The zero panel variants scream 2000 onwards, so I expect Atlas will do well with these.

There is probably room for a manufacture to do more prototypical opera and standard panel variants as well — Red Caboose was a bit more fast-and-loose with those types.

Cheers

I think I'm just going to folow your research as I model 98-99.

Thanks guys!

[Ike the BN Freak]

On the announcement with the intro in 1986, do they just mean center beams in general? Or this body style?

[Sokramiketes]

I've been following Grant's exploits with centerbeams (mostly the Rapido models).  Gary's too, after seeing one perform well at the front of a train across Tahachapi.

With nPossible couplers and better truck to underframe connection, they can perform at least as well as the prototype (which dumps these things pretty frequently if not marshalled correctly!).

A few more varieties will be welcome, so kudos to Atlas.  If good trucks mount with little play, then the coupler part will be an easy addition as well. 

[bbussey]

Looks like Atlas has decided to finally produce the modern 73' centerbeam or I should say "center partition car".
What's interesting is it appears they are using either their knockoff MTL clones or now possibly genuine MTL couplers.

They have been using MTL-type couplers on the ex-BLMA rolling stock since the acquisition. It appears this model was going to be grouped with that collection of models.

[milw156]

Was this something Craig was working on before/when Atlas purchased BLMA?

[kiwi_bnsf]

On the announcement with the intro in 1986, do they just mean center beams in general? Or this body style?

The first major production run of Centerbeams from Thrall was in 1977, and these were all 60' cars (primarily Opera Window) and are covered by the Micro-Trains model.

There were some 71' Centerbeams produced from 1984 to 1986.

The first 73' Centerbeams were produced from 1986, which will be why Atlas references this date — but these were Opera Window.

The first "zero panel" truss design Centerbeams (where all of the truss is open right up to the ends), that I can find records for were produced by Gunderson from late 1996 onwards. These included GNRR, UMP, CNA, CENX, WCRC, and CRLE. The first zero-panel TTX batch was TTZX 856000-856499 delivered Jan-April 1997.

Trenton Works also switched to zero-panels at the end of 1997, with early runs being CRLE, CLC, NOKL, HLSC, WPRR, HE, SERA, and NS in 1998.

So pretty much all Centerbeams were manufactured with a completely open "zero panel" truss from the end of 1997. A huge number of new Centerbeams were produced from 2002 onwards

I recommend joining https://www.railcarphotos.com to make use of their excellent search features — I use these every time there is a new run announced by any manufacturer (but then I have a particularly acute case of prototype-itis).

Hope that this helps!

[samusi01]

@Ike the BN Freak

The first major production run of Centerbeams from Thrall was in 1977, and these were all 60' cars (primarily Opera Window) and are covered by the Micro-Trains model.

As an addendum to what @kiwi_bnsf posted, earlier cars in the late 1960s seemed to be mostly Thrall cars - a small run for the Northern Pacific and HTCX marked cars, and then SCL had a run of simply massive cars (see here: apparently designed to carry trusses - cube out before gross out.

Thanks to our friends at ScaleTrains, the ExactRail magazine archives are available again and should you want more detail, I encourage you to visit the Railmodel Journal archives, most specifically the article beginning page 29 of January 1996.

Sam