Micro Trains February release

[thomasjmdavis]

are they the old PFE body with a Santa Fe paint job, or is there some new tooling?

Otto,

Comparing the newsletter drawing to the photos on Spookshow's site, I am 95% sure they are same old, same old.  Luckily, I bought up a whole bunch of the Intermountain cars when they were on sale years ago.  And MT is doing maps, which I have a lot of, and not Ship and Travel slogans, so I am not really tempted.


No "must haves" for me this month, so if there is anything left after paying insurance bills, mortgage, propane and the last of the Christmas credit card bills, it goes into the Micro-trains single window coach fund or the Bluford hopper fund.

Tom D

[Mark5]

The Gas Tank Loads are available separately, I'm wondering how else they could be used.

Interesting question. I never saw the Linde cars with the doors open in real life.

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_64&product_id=2482

[cjm413]

Interesting question. I never saw the Linde cars with the doors open in real life.

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_64&product_id=2482

Railway Prototype Cyclopedia #14 covered these cars (also Air Reduction, etc), but I don't have a copy of it to know what photos it does (or doesn't) have:

http://www.rpcycpub.com/v14.html

[Mark5]

Railway Prototype Cyclopedia #14 covered these cars (also Air Reduction, etc), but I don't have a copy of it to know what photos it does (or doesn't) have:

http://www.rpcycpub.com/v14.html

I've seen it and it has great pix, but I don't have it. The Linde box/tanks were covered in RMJ July 1993 - I do have this as a reference.

Trainlife had the article but those pages (starting at page 48) currently can only be viewed as text (still some good info though):

http://original.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/149/0/railmodel-journal-july-1993

Mark

[peteski]

The Linde Liquefied Gas 4pk looks very tempting.

They are really diluting their NSC/NSE brand. I bought few of those couple of years ago as exclusive models frome the N Scale Collector Enthusiast (for big bucks) and now they are making them available as a regular MTL release to every Joe-Schmoe out there. I also had to buy two 2-packs to get 2 paint styles (they came in 2-packs of the same paint scheme).  If I knew they would offer a 4-pack with all the paint schemes to the general public I could have waited for the (less expensive) MTL version.

[JoeD]

The only injection molded 737 fuselages I have ever been able to find were 1:144, 1:180, and 1:200 scale.  But nowadays there are properly scaled 1:160 fuselages on Shapeways.  One of my many projects is to make decals for them (for my friend's Boeing train).

We are cutting the tooling for an injection molded fuselage.  We will be painting them, and have printing for the masked off windows on the side of the fuselage.  The cockpit windows and other details will be decals to match the sides.  We will also be producing the supports and ice breakers as seperate pieces.

Joe

[ryan_wilkerson]

Really looking forward to these. Would like to see samples as you can share.

We are cutting the tooling for an injection molded fuselage.  We will be painting them, and have printing for the masked off windows on the side of the fuselage.  The cockpit windows and other details will be decals to match the sides.  We will also be producing the supports and ice breakers as seperate pieces.

Joe

[JoeD]

They are really diluting their NSC/NSE brand. I bought few of those couple of years ago as exclusive models frome the N Scale Collector Enthusiast (for big bucks) and now they are making them available as a regular MTL release to every Joe-Schmoe out there. I also had to buy two 2-packs to get 2 paint styles (they came in 2-packs of the same paint scheme).  If I knew they would offer a 4-pack with all the paint schemes to the general public I could have waited for the (less expensive) MTL version.

Ill be sure to post what we are doing 6 years from now...my bad  LOL  I'm happy we could finally do them as the statute of limitations ran out on the property.  There are a few more schemes to do, plus more numbers.  The cars come with the gas tanks installed...I believe we are offering them separately as well.

Joe

[James Costello]

We are cutting the tooling for an injection molded fuselage.  We will be painting them, and have printing for the masked off windows on the side of the fuselage.  The cockpit windows and other details will be decals to match the sides.  We will also be producing the supports and ice breakers as seperate pieces.

Joe

Sounding good @Shipsure - will the 89' flats be the new deck with no TOFC hardware? What flat will you be using on the idler / tool flat?

[peteski]

We are cutting the tooling for an injection molded fuselage.  We will be painting them, and have printing for the masked off windows on the side of the fuselage.  The cockpit windows and other details will be decals to match the sides.  We will also be producing the supports and ice breakers as seperate pieces.

Joe

Wow!  That's impressive.  Sounds like you determined that these will sell well enough to make the expense of injection-mold tooling worthwhile.  Hopefully you will make them accurate and with plenty of wing-root details (rather than just a blob of plastic).

Are you planning on just a single fuselage or several lengths (like -600 and -800 variants)?

About 13 years ago I was involved in modeling a Boeing train.  At that time we used a 1:200 737 fuselage (the 1:144 was just too large to clear the tunnels on the layout).  At that time the fuselages were silver (no green protective coating).  For cars we used the LBF Skybox flat cars and other flats to hold the fuselage.





Last year we found a modeler who was selling 3D printed 737 fuselages rendered in true 1:160 scale. He offers 3 lengths and the supports, and ice breakers.  At first he was printing those on a filament 3D printer and they needed a lot of work. But we talked him into offering them in FUD on Shapeways and now they are much easier to work with (but more expensive).

We have the fuselages all painted but I still have to design and print the decals. Going by the number of projects I'm working on, I suspect that your model will probably be ready before mine.  Our train will have 4 fuselages and several Skybox cars.

[Point353]

They are really diluting their NSC/NSE brand. I bought few of those couple of years ago as exclusive models frome the N Scale Collector Enthusiast (for big bucks) and now they are making them available as a regular MTL release to every Joe-Schmoe out there.

Perhaps the agreement with NSC/NSE is different, but a rather narrow window of exclusivity is a potential risk to be incurred by anyone who commissions a special run product from MTL. It seems that MTL retains the right to re-release "your" special run item to the "Joe-Schmoes" as soon as six months after the finished product was shipped to you - plus they assume ownership of any artwork involved.
https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=14

[nkalanaga]

Here's one picture of the airplanes in the river, from the Missoula paper:


I tried to upload a second picture, but every time I clicked "browse" on the Gallery page Firefox hung up.  This one loaded fine, from the same directory.  Very odd.

[nkalanaga]

And, here's the second picture.  Seems that fourth times a charm here...

[JoeD]

Lots of legal stuff there but in practice we avoid doing a special run subject for years most times...even then we do it reluctantly.  I think about more than half the special runs are proto-fantasy subjects mixed with unique cars that may have only been painted once.  We almost never get camera ready artwork and have to use our time and resources to get thing prepped.  I am not privy to all the finer points of the program...but considering what you get compared to what you pay, it's a pretty good deal.

Joe

Perhaps the agreement with NSC/NSE is different, but a rather narrow window of exclusivity is a potential risk to be incurred by anyone who commissions a special run product from MTL. It seems that MTL retains the right to re-release "your" special run item to the "Joe-Schmoes" as soon as six months after the finished product was shipped to you - plus they assume ownership of any artwork involved.
https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=14

[peteski]

We almost never get camera ready artwork and have to use our time and resources to get thing prepped.

LOL, you are dating yourself with the "camera ready" phrase.   But I'm with you - I still use that term too.  When was the last time we needed to use a film camera and photograph artwork?  There should be better term for this. Maybe "production ready artwork"?