Fun with Foobies...defending the not quite right

[nkalanaga]

I don't particularly need a heavyweight baggage car, but you might talk to Lowell Smith at Railsmith.  He's started doing a few heavyweight cars, and seems to have an interest in mail trains, so might be willing to do one.

[OldEastRR]

I'd like to have a B60b, but those kits seem to be rare as hens teeth these days.

www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=61235.0

[N Scale Train Boy]

As much as we here on TRW like to poke each other ever closer to accuracy, sometimes its important to use the Marie Kondo method of "Does it spark joy?" and I think for most of us, even if we notice inaccuracies, it does indeed spark joy to see a representation of what we want, even as nothing more than a placeholder until we have time to upgrade and correct things!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Dave, just an idea for that MTL coach...  I also have plenty of BLI P70s...

What if you put in a KD balloon roof and added KD 2D-P5 trucks so you have a quasi-modernized P70?  The closest match to that might be the P70hR per Jerry Britton's fantastic research.

I LOVE the KD balloon roof one I did.

[Dave V]

Dave, just an idea for that MTL coach...  I also have plenty of BLI P70s...

What if you put in a KD balloon roof and added KD 2D-P5 trucks so you have a quasi-modernized P70?  The closest match to that might be the P70hR per Jerry Britton's fantastic research.

Somehow I missed this post the first time... Great idea!

EDIT: I don't see that in the current Keystone Details catalog.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Somehow I missed this post the first time... Great idea!

EDIT: I don't see that in the current Keystone Details catalog.

If John's not currently printing them I've got one I can send you in your next care package.

[Lemosteam]

I’m taking requests at keystonedetails@gmail.com…

I really don’t have time to read every TRW post, and I need a way to track requests, hence the email request…

[Dave V]

I’m taking requests at keystonedetail@gmail.com…

I really don’t have time to read every TRW post, and I need a way to track requests, hence the email request…

Email sent!

[NorsemanJack]

It is a big gap, NGL. But given that the inside curves on a standard T-TRAK layout are a mere 11", it's a necessary evil.

Another option is adding operating American Limited diaphragms.

It's not.  If they had resisted the urge to body mount the couplers, the overall appearance would be MUCH more prototypical.  Why does the curve radius have anything to do with the crazy big gap?

[turbowhiz]

It's not.  If they had resisted the urge to body mount the couplers, the overall appearance would be MUCH more prototypical.  Why does the curve radius have anything to do with the crazy big gap?

That would mean that the steps would need to go…. You can’t truck mount a coupler on a heavyweight with steps and have it go around 11” corners, there isn’t sufficient clearance for the truck mounted coupler swing. The new Lowell Smith heavyweights won’t navigate an 11” corner at all because they have truck mount couplers.

The issue here isn’t body mounting; it’s a function of coupler box placement (limited at some point by truck swing clearance, but you can move the stock box back a bit to help), and the monstrous slack of MTL couplers.

This makes 11” corners. Steps are there, and the clearance is much more reasonable. And that gap is constant, unlike a MTL joint with its scale 1.5’ of slack.

[brokemoto]

I had read that PRR and NYC though baggage cars were common,

I have seen more photographs of New York Central baggage cars taken in Texas than in anywhere else in the U.S. of A.

[/quote]

Finally got the Micro Trains Pennsylvania Express Mail Train Runner Pack.



Honestly, the only perfectly prototypical car in the pack is the X29 express boxcar.  the rider coach is somewhat similar to a P70

The coach is based on a B&O HW.  There was a time in the very late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries that the  PRR controlled the B&O.  I noticed the similarities, as well.  Perhaps the two were first put to the drawing boards during the Penn's control of the B&O thus the simiilarities.

[OldEastRR]

Isn't the Atlas/RR coach based on the same car?

[mcjaco]

I have always wanted to model the California Northern/Northwestern Pacific.  Atlas' GP-15 isn't the correct air filter version, for the ex CNW units.  I sat and pondered how I was going to update it to the correct ones for years.

Kids, a divorce, basically just limited time.....I came to the realization that running something with added details that make it look "right" like the gong bells, and other details would go farther in my enjoyment rather than dread cutting up shells and going all out proto.  I want the overall feel for my home layout to bring me back to great trips with my Dad, Grandpa and Uncle chasing trains in the Napa Valley.

[randgust]

Here's always the 'lightning rod' question to me.    You have a choice between:

1)  A spot-on accurate model down to the rivets, right trucks, windows, panels, even etched roofwalk and accurate lettering down to the build date and home road for repairs - but most certainly 'off' on paint color and finish, nearly glossy, and looking like it just came out of the paint shop.....  and to complicate things, an older car on a modern-era layout?  Let's say 50' PS box on a 1990's layout.

or

2)  a 'foobie' that on close examination, has the wrong trucks, wrong side panels, a plastic roofwalk, but sporting 'close but not perfect' lettering for the car, absolutely spot-on with paint color and finish, that has a better visual first impression but you know it's 'not quite right'?   And to make it even worse, possibly expertly weathered?

Ponder that.    Oh, and for this exercise, you're buying it with no intention of modifying it.

[peteski]

I venture a guess that a large majority of model railroaders don't care that much about accuracy. Especially in N scale, and even more  so if a member of T-Trak or NTRAK. Only the top 1% elite modelers are such sticklers for accuracy.  Railwire seems to have a sizable membership of those elite modelers, but we also have plenty who take their model train hobby a bit more lightly.