Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Long time no...gee, anything

Whew!  Nearly two years since a post on this blog.   2019 might see more opportunities to dabble in model trains again now that kids are more self-sufficient and home remodeling has quieted down.

Anyway, I return today with a product announcement of sorts and a (soon-to-be-) addition to the roster.

Smoky Mountain Model Works recently (April 2018) released their "return to O scale" kit for an AAR 53' 6" 70t flat car.   I heard many good things about their kits in general and from those who built this kit since its release.

Alas, I wasn't fully sold on it until finally (!) completing enough research to prove that this car type would've been active in my target era of mid-1970s to early-1980s.  Using a recently-re-discovered digital release of Vintage Freight Cars from Morning Sun Books, I found a 1973 picture of Penn Central 751355 as shown below:

I was then able to track the car series through my hardcopies of the Official Railway Equipment Registers like so:

ClassSeries
FMS751300-751383

WhenWhoHow Many
UnknownNew York CentralUnknown
Apr 1973Penn Central1+
Jul 1975Penn Central30
Oct 1977Conrail (PC)9
Jul 1978Conrail (CR)7
Apr 1979Conrail (CR)6
Oct 1982Conrail (CR)3

So, armed with this new information and previous research on customers and commodities showing that U. S. Engineering could be a customer of coiled steel, I ordered one of the car kits.   Stay tuned for future updates when (?) I get around to building either it or anywhere to operate it.