(If I were a) MTL Paired Window Coach

[Cajonpassfan]

Forgive me if I missed a thread on these, but I can't find anything other than a discussion about balloon/Harriman roofs for these. Do we know what prototypes these MTL cars are based on?? They look similar to some HW UP cars...
Thanks, Otto K.

[Norway2112]

Otto, @Lemosteam is working on 3D printed roofs for these cars as well of the other MTL car bodies.  See his thread he just started for the 60' Harriman RPO roof.

[Cajonpassfan]

Yea, I know, but what about the MTL car, as it comes? Just curious about its prototype.

I've converted some old Rivarossis with new roofs some thirty plus years ago, see below. I'm curious about the new cars.
Otto

[jmlaboda]

They look similar to some HW UP cars...

The prototype is a B&O coach.

Not really that close.  And if you are dealing with Harrimans the detail is much further off.  For one the letterboard extended up over the vestibule doors.  Also the letterboard was about half what is found on the MT (and Rivarossi) coaches.  And the way Harriman sides were made not only did they have twice the rivet rows of more common heavyweights but the sides were also much flatter overall.

[thomasjmdavis]

I know they made a sufficiently good stand in for FEC cars that the historical society or one of its members commissioned a run of custom lettered cars which looked pretty close.   And I think GM&O also had some coaches that were very close. Other folks have added Pennsy details and trucks and made pseudo P70s.

My recollection from long ago conversations about the Rivarossi car was that it was also a B&O prototype, not sure if they were both of the same car, but B&O modelers have had pretty good luck in terms of coach availability almost from Day One of N scale.  I have a Rivarossi that is painted up in CN colors, and makes a good stand in, although the window pattern is not correct (at least, different from the CN photos I've seen).  I was planning to paint up a MT car for NC&StL (this would, again, be a stand in) but could not find any decals in either Palmer Script or RR Roman- so it is awaiting the "cutting torch" to be turned into a core for M&R sides.  Which, BTW, the MT coach is a very good fit for M&R ATSF coach, smoker, and divided coach sides (I think Bruce Arbo did a thread a while back on this conversion- he's been very generous in sharing his skills on building models from car sides in several threads).

In general, I think they make a pretty good stand in for most clerestory roofed twin window coaches (certainly better than other readily available alternatives) although they may be off by one window pair (ie- 20 total windows on the model, many in real life having 18 or 22 or lavatory windows offset or ?).  So depends what details you consider "spotting features" for a given road.  But with the MT coaches being the new de facto standard, I think we can also expect that before long, we will see more etched sides or RP or resin car bodies and roofs designed for those who want to be closer to particular prototypes.

I do wish MT would make the coaches available unlettered in "kit" form as they have with other cars in the series (I'm guessing the demand has been such that they are painting them as fast as they can turn them out- since for any given train, you need more coaches than anything else). 

[jmlaboda]

I was planning to paint up a MT car for NC&StL (this would, again, be a stand in) but could not find any decals in either Palmer Script or RR Roman- so it is awaiting the "cutting torch" to be turned into a core for M&R sides.

Yah, it would be a major foobie for the NC.  But if you can get your hands on some of the former J-n-J Trains' Harriman coaches and apply those to the MT model you would be getting pretty close to what the NC purchased for their coach stock, which were of the "gothic" design (odd, really, considering that the L&N owned the road for so many years, yet did not influence the design of their cars).  The J-n-J coach would only need a little modifying to better match the NC's coaches making the effort worthwhile...

[thomasjmdavis]

But if you can get your hands on some of the former J-n-J Trains' Harriman coaches and apply those to the MT model you would be getting pretty close to what the NC purchased...

That is an excellent suggestion, to get something close to the "as built" look of the cars.  But I was interested in using them as components of a mid-50s Dixie Flyer. L&N Passenger Trains, The Pan Am Era (Castner, Chapman and Dorin), has before and after shots of cars 712 and 713 {p 166, if you have a copy) which included installing AC, and creating a new wide letterboard that covered the old transoms, resulting in a coach that more resembles the NYC and similar cars. Certainly not an exact model, but the closest I can come without major kitbashing and a lot of time. 

What is really interesting about those cars is that they were built in 1923, and still have the Gothic style transom making the car look more like it had been built in 1913- or earlier.  In fact, the windows are very much like the roads wooden cars of around 1900.

And I will confess that I have no documentary evidence of the car being used on the Flyer, but it seems plausible The train carried cars of C&EI, L&N, NC&StL and ACL on a regular basis, as well as at least occasionally FEC and CoG, it makes for a sort of heavyweight version of the kind of thing you saw during early Amtrak, plus, at least in off season months, streamlined sleepers were also in the mix in the early-mid 50s.

Also of note are those old JnJ car sides.  Really unfortunate that the company is gone.  They had many unique detail products, and my first experiments with car sides were their ATSF diners and coaches.  I have a partially assembled baggage car based on their sides on a Rivarossi core (planning to paint it for Monon, as they had a number of oddball baggage cars).  I moved recently, and the partially assembled model ended up in a different box than the rest of the parts, and I haven't found those yet.

[jmlaboda]

They had many unique detail products,...

But the detail parts, those that were not etched, are still available.  They were simply rebranded Miniatures by Eric parts.