Jerry's thread on the 'container' flatcar got me thinking.... was there any other company 'other' than Minitrix that inexplicably managed to mass-produce equipment that was virtually unknown in real life? That frame-container car is one of several that were selected - who knows why - to be available in N as as a 'typical' US-style freight car. Right along with it, they also did the helium 'tank car', which according to my 1975 ORER had 225 of those pressure helium tanks, period. I think Trix also wins (by a wide margin) the award for most mass-produced rare locomotive - the U30CG, with six actual prototypes actually produced. I'd like more nominees...but to me the best part is the story. Is there any legend of HOW this happened? Did somebody send a 1965 Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia to Germany and they just leafed through it or put it up on the wall and threw darts? Nominees need to be injection-molded and EXISTED, that's about all.... Foobies like the ICBM on a flatcar (Bachmann) don't count unless you can produce a photo of a prototype... Brass doesn't count and neither does resin. I'm thinking there's still a champ of a car I've forgotten. We have lots of threads on 'why don't they make...' this is 'how and why did they ever pick THAT???'
Rivarossi chose a very rare car to represent the 12-1 Pullman sleeper. I think the floor plan was 2410i . I don't think there was more than 30 of them in real life. They coulda picked the 2410 or the 3410 of which there were thousands of prototypes. As far as I know the Milwaukee had a bunch of the rare cars built for the Pioneer Limited , I don't know of any more roads that had them. Randy
Speaking of Rivarossi .. how bout a heavyweight combine that had nearly no prototype whatsoever? I think that combine had 10 real life prototypes? Anyone for Santa Fe dining cars and baggage cars? Both are definatly ATSF cars... why not follow a common car design and not one so road specific ? Randy
Stewart's Vinegar car. And the Rocco Ingot car. And I just have to include the Bmann water car with its little open wood tubs. They existed briefly for awhile back back in the woodburning days but there must have been thousands of those made by Bmann. Problem is that Bmann forgot to put tops on them. Great little fodder though for logging flats.
How bout the Atlas Vinegar tank car ? A model of a very specific car with less than a dozen prototypes. (personally I thought it was a bit out of scale and too large)
Wow, that's right on the ATSF combine - those were the rider cars for the Fast Mail and I think the car series was in the 2600's, and they even deviated from that. And the 1500-series Cafe Observations (which was a Pullman plan) were ATSF but relatively rare. Those are two of my favorites because one of the 2600's and the 1511 are both still running down on the Texas State Railroad in excursion service. The bachmann 'wood tubs' are actually very close to the first oil tankers used out of Northwest Pennsylvania on the Atlantic & Great Western. The prototype is on display at the Oil Creek State Park in Titusville, PA. http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1CC
How about the Atlas/Roco 94' tank car? AFAIK, only one such car ever existed in the 1:1 world. Cheers, -Mark
Hands down... as far as locomotives is the BL-2... what was LifeLike thinking at that time? This is not as rare as the U30CG that Minitrix did... but it was just as illogical to produce... and much uglier. When Minitrix did the U30CG... at least they were Santa Fe models which would sell at a time that most N scale products were heavily slanted toward Santa Fe & Union Pacific in the late 1960's to 1980. The BL-2 just didn't make sense at their release in the mid 1990's.
If you are from the North East, then the BL2 is a much more interesting and important locomotive. B&M and BAR used them, BAR for a decently long time. Not too oddball to me. I think that little Atlas 0-4-0 shifter (and the tank engine version) is an oddball... how many did B&O really buy? I wouldn't guess more than 10 and Atlas released it with decals for a few roads when B&O was the only actual user. ***EDIT*** Just looked it up... there may have actually only been 4 of the tank locomotives and two converted to tenders.
I've got three of the BL-2 models... which are good runners BTW! The locomotive is definately a northeastern to midwestern model railroaders potential purchase. There were 58 of the prototypes made and the furthest west owners were CRI&P & MoPac. Perhaps because LifeLike was based in Baltimore MD, the owner of LifeLike may have seen these around in his lifetime. C&O had the most of them... 14... and Western Maryland had 2.
As I suggested in the other thread this is all stuff of which manufacturers today would just laugh at you if you went up to their stands at a show and suggested they make it. We can't get a CF7, RSD15 or Alco and FM switchers let alone a U30CG.
The already noted 94' tank car (can't beat a one-off) and Docksider (at least the tender version) have to lead the list. Also there is the Rivarossi IHB 0-8-0 (only 3 made). Though they certainly aren't "unknown", the streamliners (Con-Cor Pioneer Zephyr, M-10000, Aerotrain, FVM Hiawatha) are all prototypes made in the single digits.
I can think of lots of passenger cars but as the title of this thread is Freight Cars and Locomotives, I can't think of many other than those mentioned already. There are a lot of Foobies that are not very prototype. I have one that is kind of prototype, an old LIMA flat car with two 20 foot containers plugged into the deck. The car is Great Northern and the containers are for Freightliner and Sea Land. I have seen single stack containers chained to flat cars. This one has no chains. As to why they produced more odd balls in the past, I mentioned in another thread that back then anything would sell. Not much was available so whatever you put out there would be scooped up. Now folks have more choices and are more likely to pass over any new odd balls that come out.
The MDC "High Cube" 50' boxcar with plug door doesn't have any (well known) prototype as far as I know, although it shares some design elements with other real cars.
Off topic: Its a real shame too because CF-7s are really common locomotives now that Santa Fe sold them off. Almost every shortline in the U.S. has or has had one (or more). Atlas could make these with minimal tooling changes and there are hundreds of prototype road name variations... An ALCO HH600 series would be nice in N too. Back on topic: I forgot to mention Bachmann's short heavy weights. I'm pretty sure they are based on a really obscure prototype used by one road yet Bachmann made them for years in a number of road names (Im actually repainting several for B&M since there arent any Laconia cars in N scale).
On the other side of the railway's boundary fence - most lines over here have a fence, while yours don't - in the early 1950's a firm called Dinky Toys made a model bus called the Duple Roadmaster. Roughly to OO/HO scale, I have two on my model tramway. Dinky Toys sold far more of the model than Duple ever made of the real one, and most went to one operator in North West England. Regards, Pete Davies
I think we may have a winner in the 94' tank car..... Yeah, I'd completely forgotten all about that one. And the cool part is that it's real, and still alive and well at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis.... http://www.jeffstrainsite.com/railfan_pics/railroad_museums/stlouis/gatx_tankcar_96500.jpg http://www.visi.com/~spookshow/freight/atlasroco94tank.jpg Anybody ever run this thing around 9 3/4 curves? Love it. Inexplicable and impractical no matter the scale, equally applied to 12"=1' and 1:160.
I love the way this one looks Still commanding $30 on Ebay. I'll definately pencil this on my wish list
