Hi All, I wanted to buy the new CNJ Micro-Trains Line gondola for my father who worked for the New Jersey Central Lines. But was told by my fathers' N scale club members they totally got the color wrong. It's the #10500300 sold out on their website. I was told it should have been black and MTL did it in brown. He also said there was a problem with the CNJ boxcar they just released too but I don't see anything wrong. The pictures of the real thing I found show a brown boxcar. Does anyone know if the gondola is truly painted the wrong color or if there is a mistake with the boxcar? I'm not an expert in trains, just have a passing interest in them. But, my father is an expert so I want to get this right. Thanks, Rick
I'm reluctant to state that the CNJ never had a brown gondola, but I've never seen one. I just checked my CNJ/LV Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment by Craig Bossler (c. 1994) and see only the usual black gons and red gons. The class of CNJ gons including M-Ts CNJ 1521 is not shown in my April 1974 Official Railway Equipment Register, so they had left the roster by then. I have some other CNJ color books. If I get a chance, I'll look through them for a brown gondola. The newly released CNJ 50' boxcar is M-T 034 00 470. The book noted above has a photo of M-T's prototype taken in 1972. It's battered and Miss Liberty is faded, but within reason I don't see a problem with this M-T model. The prototype is listed in my April 1974 Official Railway Equipment Register, being one of only two cars in this class -- Nos. 3000 and 3001. They were built by ACF in 1956. Fans run the gamut, with one extreme not caring a wit about the prototype and the other extreme rejecting models for minute infractions. Bowser, M-T, Athearn, Bluford Shops, Intermountain, Deluxe Innovations, Red Caboose, Atlas and probably others have produced CNJ N Scale cars, so you may want to poke around. One of my favorites is M-Ts 28040 from 1974:
Hi Hardcoaler! Thanks for the detailed information. So, it might be right? I await your research. Thanks much! As a side note I heard from the club member and he said "CNJ gondolas in the 1500 series were all black, and never brown as MicroTrains has done. This is a mistake. Also the 50' double door CNJ boxcar is wrong because they did a yellow lady liberty logo and it should be white on all boxcars." Perhaps this is what the issues was? How big of a deal is the logo being the wrong color?
In looking at the photo of the prototype boxcar in my book, it has a heavily weathered yellowed cast which could have been from oxidized white paint. Hard to say from the photo alone. The club members likely know far more than I do. You might ask them about M-T 20196 40 FT Boxcar in the Coast Guard scheme and M-T 50 FT Double Door 37040 Boxcar. These are beautiful cars to my eyes. If these too are somehow defective per club appraisal, you may want to ask them which cars pass muster or perhaps resign yourself to cars that aren't perfect representations of what was.
What is the time frame for the CNJ 1521 gondola? The reason I ask, CNJ also had a GP7 that was numbered 1521. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3345795 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=5012858 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1177104
That's a very good question Rich. You have a head for numbers. Based on what you noted, M-T's gon could date from the steam era and color photos would be pretty rare. The CNJ's GP-7s arrived in 1952. Those Geeps lasted forever. I snapped this awful photo of the 1529 in Raritan as a kid in the summer of 1976. Dig those heavyweight cars. I think these were the prototype for Atlas' recent Trainman-series passenger car release.
Well that is Interesting that they also had a locomotive with the same number. So the gondola came before the locomotive? Was the gondola most likely re-numbered then? I heard from another person that the gondola should be black to be accurate and the lady liberty should be white, so both do seem to be done incorrectly by MTL. Because of the problems with the Micro-Trains cars, I think I'll go with Atlas and Inter-mountain because they seem to be more accurate and have better features. Thanks to everyone for the help figuring this out! Rick
Based on its car number, it's highly likely that the gon was delivered to the CNJ in the steam era, pre-dating the diesel. If the gon survived into the diesel era, its series would probably have been renumbered. I don't have the reference materials to research this. Gons lead a hard life, so don't often live long.
Micro-Trains announced they have "discovered" that the CNJ gondola should have been painted black, instead of brown. They'll be re-making it in black, with availability scheduled for next March or April. If you already bought the brown car, you have the option to return it to your dealer for replacement with a black car. You can also pre-order one of the black cars, which will have the new item number 105 00 301. https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=45
AH ha! Thanks '353. I have to give a bonus point to M-T here. Although they messed up, they're correcting the problem. Fifty years from now, the brown car will fetch money from collectors because few were sold.
