MTL's April Weathered Release.. WOW

[learmoia]

That Southern Airslide are on a 'nother level!..

Unable to access the MTL website to get a picture, and I didn't want to post N Scale Supply's watermark'd picture.

[Missaberoad]

https://www.nscalesupply.com/mtl/mtl-99305830.html

Wow... Those are really sweet looking!

Might have to pick them up for some Minnesota Commercial love.

[thomasjmdavis]

That Southern Airslide are on a 'nother level!..

Unable to access the MTL website to get a picture, and I didn't want to post N Scale Supply's watermark'd picture.

Another potential market for MTL- custom trademark shadow graffiti for hobby shops.  They could also do 40s-50s era cars with MBK, NSS, FIF, DPH, etc reporting marks.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I was so impressed with the ACL ones that I had to send @MTLJoe a PM high-fiving him.

This weathered stuff is next level.

[Dave V]

Seriously, these MTL weathered cars are the bee's t!ts.

[peteski]

I have to admit that MTL's graphic artists sure have the art of photo-realistic ink-jet weathering mastered!  Amazing!  Their graffiti artwork is also top notch.

[Mark5]

Way out of my era, but that SOUTHERN 4180 is sweet!

[Cajonpassfan]

Way out of my era as well, but still very impressive!
Otto K.

[basementcalling]

The NdM rust is impressive too, but not a road name I am even slightly interested in. Maybe I should be.
Glad to see them getting into other weathering effects besides just the graffiti series. Not every car has been tagged in a modern train. It just seems that way. I think you can have overkill with too many graffiti cars on a layout.

They obviously went with quality not quantity this month.

Does anyone see a day when all MT releases are weathered and there are no clean cars?

[Mark5]

Does anyone see a day when all MT releases are weathered and there are no clean cars?

No. I certainly hope not!

Modern trains are tagged in excess, but none of that existed in the 1960s (except for chalk scribblings for the most part). Graffiti started to change in the mid to late 1970s, when cheap spray paint became an easy to get thing.

Also, in those times, it seems that most railroads didn't let the equipment become as decrepit and "freshened" up older equipment with new paint.

[Rivet Miscounter]

Glad to see them getting into other weathering effects besides just the graffiti series. Not every car has been tagged in a modern train. It just seems that way. I think you can have overkill with too many graffiti cars on a layout.

They obviously went with quality not quantity this month.

Does anyone see a day when all MT releases are weathered and there are no clean cars?

I have been harping on them about this exact thing from the git-go (when I was in N, and now in Z) so hopefully enough like-minded folks have gotten through to them.   They have done a few in N-scale in the past year or two.    In Z, they are still stuck in their old ways unfortunately.

Quality over quantity, yet the second consecutive month without a Z-scale release.

In Z, Micro-Trains has gone to a pre-order system.   In the past couple of weeks I sent them a message imploring them to have "weathered" as an option for the pre-order.  Obviously I would want them to back-off the trend of garish/over-the-top graffiti before I would blindly commit to such a pre-order, but I *rarely* buy new releases from them anymore.   Figuring they will do a weathered/graf version soon. (as they are wont to do....or at least they used to be wont to do...)

Maybe with the weathered preorder you could select a level.
1 = Weathered only, possible sparse era-appropriate chalk/line-art. (Bozo Texino)
2 = Weathered and line-art, and occasional smaller or bottom-half-of-car graffiti
3 = Go crazy
To simplify further, I would probably say only two choices, with them picking 1 or 2 above for the first option and 2 or 3 above for the second.  And era would come into play...you'd never get a 2 or 3 on a 50's era car and less chance of a 1 on a 2010's car.   So the chances of being surprised would be greatly reduced.   Dunno....not sure I think this is a GREAT idea or anything, but just fodder for discussion.    MTL seems so enamored with the full-car-side "artist series" stuff that I'm not sure they'll ever get away from it in Z.   I know, I know....just do it myself, and I will.   

I do agree the N releases this month are greatness.

[JoeD]

thanks guys...

[OldEastRR]

If MTL can bring out new paint schemes every month, why can't the big guys like Atlas and Bachmann do it? For the Atlas PS-1 there's still hundreds of different paint schemes they can do. For the FA god knows how many years a guy will have to wait until they make a factory paint job in his road name colors out of the huge numbers possible.

[nickelplate759]

If MTL can bring out new paint schemes every month, why can't the big guys like Atlas and Bachmann do it? For the Atlas PS-1 there's still hundreds of different paint schemes they can do. For the FA god knows how many years a guy will have to wait until they make a factory paint job in his road name colors out of the huge numbers possible.

I'm guessing that one reason is that MicroTrains' product planning, art department and production are all in the same place and under control of the same management.

I'm pretty sure that MicroTrains is one of the big guys in N scale, even though they don't really produce locomotives.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

If MTL can bring out new paint schemes every month, why can't the big guys like Atlas and Bachmann do it? For the Atlas PS-1 there's still hundreds of different paint schemes they can do. For the FA god knows how many years a guy will have to wait until they make a factory paint job in his road name colors out of the huge numbers possible.

I'm guessing it's easier when you own more of your supply chain.

But at the same time, it's why there's probably also an upper limit to the complexity of what they can produce (hence why the locomotives were done offshore).