MicroTrains NASA Series

Pretty excited to get my first in the NASA series car in the mail today. Should be waiting for me when I get home.

I'm curious about what the other cars will be. I know they are primarily sticking to prototypical cars actually used by the agency, but I'm hoping they'll mix in some themed box cars dedicated to programs like Gemini, Mercury and Apollo. Also, I never saw the mention of a locomotive. I'm hoping for an SW1 style switcher, all white with the NASA meatball on the side.

As a NASA employee and all around space buff, this is probably the most excited I've been for a MTL series in a long time.

 

My locomotive guess would be a SW1500. Now there is a chance they could do the number 1 or 2, (Red & White scheme) and number 3 (Blue & White scheme)??? but those are only guesses, only time will tell.

 

KE4NYV, Are you in this photo?

 

Neat I must have missed this announcement, but will have to check it out

 

I signed up for the series. It's actually the first Micro-trains series I've signed up for. I've always been a space nut.

 

Where do you sign up? I found nothing on Micro Trains site?

Thanks

 

Atlas made a model of #1 for the N Scale Enthusiast group several years ago:

 

It was mentioned in the May and June issues of Micro-News:
https://www.micro-trains.com/publicfiles/monthly/MN1605.pdf (top of page 5)
https://www.micro-trains.com/publicfiles/monthly/MN1606.pdf (bottom of page 2)

Whether or not you need to "sign up" depends upon whether or not your preferred dealer will get the cars in without a customer pre-order.
Some dealers won't get the cars in unless a customer places a pre-order.
Others will pre-order the cars "on spec" assuming that they can sell them to those customers who haven't committed ahead of time to buying the series sight unseen.
Depends upon how your preferred dealer operates.

 

Thanks much for the info

 

I Wish! That's pretty awesome. I could live with that paint scheme.

 

MT makes a SW-1500 but not a SW-1. Going out on a limb here: the engine will be a SW-1500.

 

I signed up at N Scale Supply. They have a subscription service that will charge you once a month and automatically ship that month's car to you. It's kind of a cool surprise when it just shows up and you forgot that it was coming

 

That's what I meant, but realized after it was too late to edit that I didn't type it all the way out correctly. Thanks!

 

First one I have signed up for, too. I have always been interested in space and working at NASA, well, I just kind of had to have this set

 

Oh neat that sure is a nice service. Thanks for sharing that

 

There's a list of the types of cars that the NASA Railroad operated on the Wikipedia entry for "NASA Railroad." That might help a bit. No photos, however.

 

Type Built Count
Flat car – Spacer – 70-ton 1952 2
Flat car – Aft SRB skirt – 70-ton 1985 2
Flat car – 90-ft 1961-1969 8
Flat car –60-ft; 100-ton 1968 3
Flat car –Pig -70-ton 1968 2
Flat car – 100-ton 1952 14
Flat car –65-ft; 90-ton 1965 1
Helium Car 1961 13
Nitrogen Car 2
Hopper car 100-ton 1968-1979 11
Tank car – 70-ton 1982 2
Tank car – 100-ton 1962, 1975 4
Gondola car – 60-ft 1966, 1960 2
Gondola car – 74-ft; 100-ton 1976 2
Cover car 1960 2
Boxcar – 70-ton 1970 1
Total 75

 

N Scale Enthusiast has done a Nasa set before:

https://www.nscaleenthusiast.com/nsestore/shopexd.asp?id=610

Most of the cars can be done by MT since they were MT cars the first time. Don't know what they used for the booster flats however...

 

Here's a bunch of pictures from someone modelling NASA including prototype photos of the rolling stock:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/2713183@N21/pool