Trainworx 52'6" Thrall gondola

[kbj99]

New Trainworx thrall 52'6" gondola is in and ready to ship RoadNames are Rio Grande in Orange,Rio Grande in Black,Western Pacific in Black,Union Pacific in Brown, Rock island in Brown and The Rock in Blue. Also have new 85" TOFC flats,Trailer Train in Brown,Rio Grande in Black and Santa Fe in Redish Brown
Kris
KBJ Models
www.kbjmodels.com

[ljudice]

Is this gon good for SOUTHERN? 

[kbj99]

Lou
I don't know I'll have check out some pics
Kris

[Mark5]

According to sirenwerks,

This Thrall car design started being built in the 60s actually, so I hope we'll see some earlier schemes. Other owners included ADN, BN, C&EI, CCR, C&S, CGW, C&NW, CR, CSS, DLRX, DTI, FEC, GN, GRR, ITC, L&N, LSBC, MILW, MKT, MP, RF&P, SOO, SP, and WC.  There's an article in RMJ that chronicles the design's development.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=27184.msg278539#msg278539

Mark

[ljudice]

Thanks - I missed that...

I am strongly leaning in the direction of foobizing some of these - what really are the odds that SOU 52' gons from the 60/70s will be made?

[Denver Road Doug]

I have one DRGW and one UP waiting for me at the LHS.   Can't wait to see how these turned out...the pics I've seen online so far are pretty nice.

Here's what they will become, sans conspic striping:

DRGW 56427


UP 32232


As part of this train:
 https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108735916990594255526/albums/5784769240518360401

Now I just really need a bunch of MoPac corrugated side gons.  The next run of Trainworx is a step in that direction and I'll use a few of them as stand-ins for now, but hopefully the others will follow someday.

Incidentally, if anyone can help identify some of the other gons in this album that may be either available or an easy bash I would appreciate it.   I've started down that path but always welcome input from others.  Some are (I think) obvious, like the Railgons and the CNW (what I believe to be) Evans car like Atlas does.   While the train shown is all gons, it also ran in leaner times with fewer cars coupled with Ortner and Greenville rock hoppers which is how I'll run it.  So in reality the gons will be something like (7-8) Mopac's, (1-2) TWX-style UP-heritage, (1) TWX-style DRGW, (1-2) Railgons, 1 CNW Evans, and 2 or 3 "others" that would make a representative train.  Those "others" are really all I would need to come up with...thinking at least one SP and one GVSR...something like that.

[6axlepwr]

Thanks for this thread. I did not know about the Trainworx gons. Gons are my favorite car. I looked at their web site today and I am really leaning toward 12 road numbers of the PC ones when they come out.

They really do look nice. Definitely a step in the right direction with all the add on ladders and such. Gives them the look they should have. it is companies like Trainworx, ESM and BLMA that are raising the bar to give us much better looking models. Definitely models we can dress up with some great weathering and bring to RPM meets and show what N-Scale can really represent.

[cv_acr]

As part of this train:
 https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108735916990594255526/albums/5784769240518360401

Not one of the Thralls, but this car is cool:



CNW patched ex-MPA with the original logo fully visible. Unsure of the builder.
Edit: Actually I think that's a Berwick/Whittaker car. IC has a bunch of similar cars.

[unittrain]

Gondolas are my favorites too and these are really nice models I have a Rock Island red scheme.

[Denver Road Doug]

CNW patched ex-MPA with the original logo fully visible. Unsure of the builder.
Edit: Actually I think that's a Berwick/Whittaker car. IC has a bunch of similar cars.

Cool, I always wondered what the heck that logo was!

[ljudice]

Pretty similar to the SOU Greenville gons - except missing one rib - although it is not too obvious unless you count...


Actually the Trainworx model seems slightly  different from the UP/DRGW gons above - in that the second panel from each side is larger than the middle panels.  In this respect, the model matches the Greenvilles better...

[Mark5]

Thanks for this thread. I did not know about the Trainworx gons. Gons are my favorite car. I looked at their web site today and I am really leaning toward 12 road numbers of the PC ones when they come out.

The PC cars are close to the model:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28685.msg302968#msg302968

I'm definitely in for the GN one of the corrugated.

Mark

[Denver Road Doug]

Actually the Trainworx model seems slightly  different from the UP/DRGW gons above - in that the second panel from each side is larger than the middle panels.  In this respect, the model matches the Greenvilles better...

Yes, as it turns out the model is a little different than those pics I posted.  My initial research was comparing announced road numbers with online photos and then comparing those to my pics.  I didn't pay too close attention to the drawings since in my experience (a) drawings are often flawed and (b) there's not much likelyhood of me impacting tooling when multiple roads all have differences so I generally figure you just take what you can get, especially since there's a major lack of quality, modern-ish n-scale gons.

I picked mine up on Friday, and I'm very happy with them, even if they're not spot-on.  They're certainly light years ahead of anything else that is remotely close to this prototype at this point.   They are very nice looking cars, good weight, excellent decoration, and of course nice features like body mount couplers and metal wheelsets.   I will say that there's on minor issue on the UP car regarding the large UNION PACIFIC lettering.  Compared to my photo, the drawing had the lettering slightly larger, and the actual model was there again slightly larger than the drawing, IMHO.  So it's larger than what I would have preferred, but with the weathering to be done that will almost completely obscure it anyway, it's mostly a moot point.

[ljudice]

Doug, totally agree and I did not mean to nitpick!

I'm peeved that SOU's had one more rib - which is a big deal because it puts "SOUTHERN" off center on the TW cars....

I'll find some way around it - most of them today are very weathered with restenciling of their reporting marks on the sides.

[Denver Road Doug]

Doug, totally agree and I did not mean to nitpick!

I'm peeved that SOU's had one more rib - which is a big deal because it puts "SOUTHERN" off center on the TW cars....

I'll find some way around it - most of them today are very weathered with restenciling of their reporting marks on the sides.

No worries, I like the nitpicking aspect of this forum....certainly don't want to dissuade that.

That's a bummer about the SOUTHERN spacing...I've run into similar situations before like that.  Definitely a tougher problem than I have.