Will we ever see a heavyweight baggage/coach combine from MTL?

[Maletrain]

Maybe Joe can give me a hint about whether there is any hope of seeing a baggage/coach combine in the MicroTrains heavyweight passenger car line? 

The B&O seems to have put one of some type on just about every passenger train.  Many were converted to "baggage dormitory lounge" cars, which would require me to blank some windows, but some were unaltered well nto the 1950s.

Are others here interested in such a car/

[Mark5]

Yes, much interest. This has been discussed off and on here in recent years.

Apparently Joe @ MTL would like to do one as he mentions this in the 1st post here:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=40925.msg510123#msg510123

Mark

[jmlaboda - RIP]

Give 'em time... there are still a number of things from what I have gathered that they want to do but it will take time to get further along on the To do List... be patient (and hope that the combine they do is the one that matches your coaches)...

[Bill H]

The B&O seems to have put one of some type on just about every passenger train.

Are others here interested in such a car/

Yes!

[thomasjmdavis]

I'm sorry, this is another post that is distracting MT from getting the SINGLE WINDOW COACH out of the molds.  Please stop asking for more heavyweight passenger cars (unless they are ATSF prototype or something else I want) until I have at least 2 single window coaches painted in Erie 2 tone green and 1 or 2 in L&N blue.

That said, the problem we will have after is a big tussle over whether the baggage coach combine should be a paired window car or single window.  I vote single window, since, like the B&O, L&N converted many of theirs to baggage-dorms and they headed up a number of the "Dixie" trains and the Humming Bird in and out of Dearborn station.

[brokemoto]

It always has been one of the minor mysteries of N scale why there are so few baggage/passenger combines available and why those that are available are oh-so-road specific.  A baggage/passenger combine would fit the short passenger trains that many run on their home pikes. 

The only one that is oh so road specific that I ever understood was the B-mann.  The Bachpersonn is a shorty, which operates well on the sharp curves of many home pikes.  The other two are quite specific to All Tramps Sent Free and the Penn,  The one specific to the Penn is actually baggage/mail/passenger, which is a good car for a short passenger train, but it is still unmistakable for anything but a Penn car.  The one specific to ATSF has those oh-so-huge windows that I have not seen on too many other combines, except perhaps, Harriman  cars (I can not remember, though).

The B&O made several different modifications to their baggage/passenger cars over the years.  Some had the baggage section expanded leaving only a few passenger seats.  I remember seeing (and riding in) one such car, on occasion, on the Capitol Limited in its last year of B&O operation.  I have seen others that retained the same passenger space.  Then, as another poster mentioned, there are the baggage/dormitories, baggage/lounge and baggage/dormitory/lounge cars.

I would buy several combines with the proper paired windows for the B&O.  In addition, I would buy single window combines (and coaches), as P&LE (and, indeed all of the NYCS) operated single window coaches.  If someone would sell WM passenger lettering, I might even buy a single window and strip it.

For CNJ modellers, the upcoming Atlas open deck observation is a scrunched version of a car the operated on the Blue Comet.  It would be possible to cut two in two pieces, each, butt together the vestibule ends and come up with something close to a CNJ coach, as CNJ did operate single window coaches.

You might be able to butt together the open deck ends to make a Delay, Linger and Wait Boonton coach.

I would doubt that you could cut up an open deck observation and a baggage on the Atlas cars, as the baggage is a CNW(?) prototype while the observation is a CNJ.  I doubt that the rivet lines would match.

Has anyone tried adding a p iece to the middle of the Bachmann combine to come up with  a full size paired window combine?  I had thought about it, as I have managed to butt two baggage ends of a combine to make a full baggage.  I simply have not done it.

[thomasjmdavis]

The one specific to the Penn is actually baggage/mail/passenger, which is a good car for a short passenger train, but it is still unmistakable for anything but a Penn car.

While I would guess it is an ex-PRR car (or built by their shops, as it is identical, as far as I can see), Virginian #151 is a dead ringer for the Lima/MP car, other than having trucks that look (as much as I can see in the one photo I have) more like the ones MT put under the PRR diner. There is a photo on page 141 of Railroad Post Office History- but rather fuzzy black and white so hard to see details.  Can't find a photo on the web- there were Virginian electrics numbered in the 130's- and that is all that google and yahoo will show me.

[JoeD]

It's on the to do list, at least mine.  Still lobbying for an SP specific car but I'm not sure I could handle the blow back out there.  LOL

Joe

PS  we are working on the single window coach and a few other things.

[Maletrain]

Glad to hear it is on the "to do" list.

I vote for a paired window version, to match the paired window coaches that are already out.  At least before a single-window version.

If you give those single-window guys TWO things that they really want in quick succession, they will start expecting too much.

[JMaurer1]

Still lobbying for an SP specific car

+1. I got your back.

[SandyEggoJake]

+1. I got your back.

me too!

[SandyEggoJake]

@Shipsure

Make mine SD&A #175.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-waymarking-images/96835c74-9a2a-4764-a4ac-15e8ec3b6f4a.JPG

Perhaps the most loved Pullman in SoCal, and still in service at OERM. 

[brokemoto]

Still lobbying for an SP specific car

Wheels of Time already sells them.  We need more eastern or even a southern road or two.  Has anyone done a southern road specific car?  There must be one or two out there that also would pass for cars that other roads ran.

[thomasjmdavis]

No offense, but I don't think WoT has a combine, at least I did not find one on their website (have I missed an announcement?).  In the old days when they sold resin shells, maybe?  I have a baggage car and a mail-baggage from those days.  Of course, they COULD make one easily enough it they wanted to, as they seem to have an affinity for SP equipment/

"Make mine SD&A #175"  SP had the same car, of course, but that was the only heavyweight baggage-coach style I could find for SP on the web (I am by no means an expert- I don't have much in the way of resources on SP).  Other than the rounding at the top of the doors, that looks not too unlike the new Atlas car, with a harriman roof swapped in.  Personally, I'd rather have a 73-74 foot car like the L&N 1601 series
  which I would use both as-is and as a core for BCS L&N modernized coaches (which it should be perfect for, since L&N rebuilt the coaches using the prototype combines).

"If you give those single-window guys TWO things that they really want in quick succession, they will start expecting too much."
Well, if I don't get the combine I want, I am going to keep cutting up paired window coaches to make my L&N modernized cars.

You may have a point, though.  Given the pent up demand for the single window coach, most of us won't have any money left for another car, anyway.  So if a paired window combine came out first, it would give us some time to rebuild our finances.

[Point353]

We need more eastern or even a southern road or two.  Has anyone done a southern road specific car? 
There must be one or two out there that also would pass for cars that other roads ran.

One like this, perhaps?