Yes I tend to wear an AZL hat on this forum, but props to MTL. So time to put on my Ztrack hat. This month, MTL has released 51' rivet side mechanical reefers. These are the first mechanical reefers (injection molded) in Z scale. They represent a circa 1950/60s cars that still retain their roof walks. I just received our cars for Ztrack Center, and I have to say they are quite nice. The silver NP cars especially show off the car details. Below are the MTL images. It is wonderful having another new body style in our Z inventory. MTL is planning another mechanical reefers body style. InterMountain also has one set to be released. This is all excellent news for Z scalers! Rob
TO MTL - These mechanical reefers were some of the first deployed and are awesome especially. Kudos MTL Kudos! The 1950 NP paint scheme is beautiful.Will you be using the same 1950 paint scheme (small lettering) on the PFE version of these mechanical reefers? More units were deployed with the smaller PFE lettering than those that were available to be repainted into big bold PFE lettering. By the time the large bold PFE lettering was used the newer more modern mechanical reefer were being delivered and rapidly replacing this older model.
Not speaking officially for MTL here, but they have done the scheme you're speaking of on the N Scale version of this car in August 2010, so it's certainly reasonable to expect the same on the Z Scale version. The other mechanical refrigerator in N is what they call the "rib side" version, which I believe is after a later PFE prototype.
Not my road(s) but this new style will get into my rolling stock ! Thanks MTL. Great to see something new !
The CN version is reasonably close to the prototype: http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cn231027&o=cn I've not yet found photographs that clearly show the roof pattern, but this car is more than acceptable to me.
