Bethlehem Car Works announces Conrail OCS cars

[middledivision]

www.facebook.com/BethlehemCarWorks

[middledivision]

Fingers crossed that they work with Rapido to get the color right.

[edgecrusher]

I don't facebook, but given the stuff I've gotten from Bethlehem in the past the color will be up to the person that builds the kits.

[ambluco]

Yuo don't have to do Facebook to just look, especially company pages. It's personal pages that are many times closed to viewing, along with other special interest pages. I don't do Facebook either but you can at least look.

[Mr. Trainiac]

Good to see Bethlehem operating under a new owner. It sounds like they will be branching out and creating some new models. I'm looking forward to the OCS cars. Maybe that means we can get some HEP underbody kits for refitting other types of cars?

[wagnersteve]

3/6/24, about 10:12 p.m., EST, which ends Sunday

Thanks VERY much for this thread, with a lot of info I hadn't known about since I couldn't get to the West Springfield show.

[NS4122]

FYI the new owner of Bethlehem Car Works is White Rose Hobbies of York PA.

[Mr. Trainiac]

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the brand. I didn't even realize Bethelehem was restored under new owners, but the facebook page seems pretty active with lots of new posts and photos. Under Green, I don't think they had any social media presence.

Passenger car modeling is an interesting part of the hobby, and the OCS cars are a good choice as a debut product for the new iteration of the company. Modern-era kits are sorely lacking in the hobby, so any modern model is good to have. Hopefully they can coordinate some of the releases to coincide with the delivery of the Rapido Conrail E8m HEP locomotives. I've built a few Bethlehem kits, and my one complaint about the company is that they don't offer complete trains. Their product offerings feel very piecemeal, so you end up with a lot of oddball cars without matching equipment to run them with.

With the OCS set, maybe this is a sign the new owners will focus on larger groups of cars like the annual Walthers Proto name trains. Hopefully this encourages people to place larger orders and get more than one model at a time. I can think of plenty of smaller name trains that would make great kits for Bethelehem to create. Their specialty is heavyweight cars, so what about trains like the Wabash Cannonball, ATSF Valley Flyer, or IC Burnside rebuilds?

Coach Yard has also been on a business car kick lately (BNSF and CSX OCS announced recently), so having Bethelehem offer lower-cost options instead of $900 dollar brass cars will be benefitial to modelers who don't have a 10 grand budget (which is basically everybody).

[nstophat]

Applicable NS OCS cars will be available as well!!!!

[wagnersteve]

3/7/24, about 5:08 p.m., EST

The most historically significant open-platform observation car, which I'd like to see in an HO craftsman kit or mass-produced mostly plastic, not brass, model is the "Ferdinand Magellan", most famously used by FDR and by Harry Truman in his 1948 "whistle stop" campaign. It was armored against possible terrorist and/or other attacks and enormously heavy. FDR didn't like to go more than about 30 mph because of his legs crippled by polio. Truman understood how heavy the car was and was alarmed when it was being moved at about 100 mph at the end of a long train. An emergency brake application would have sent it plowing into the cars ahead of it. He sent word via the conductor to the engineer that a substantially slower speed would be fine. For years it has been at a museum in Florida. When a hurricane hit the place, it was under a train shed, not fully enclosed. When a hurricane hit the place, the caretaker(s) took shelter in it and survived fine, as did the car, though part of the roof of collapsed onto the car.

[edwardsutorik]

The Big Guy weighed 140 tons:


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_(railcar)



Ed

[wagnersteve]

3/7/24, 5:42 p.m., EST

Ed, thanks for the link. I think the anecdote about Truman's slowing down his campaign train was in the late David McCullough's book about him. I remember writing that fine historian about the incident at the museum in South Florida. He used to summer at West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard.

[Baikal]

Mar 7, 2024 14:15:15 GMT -8 wagnersteve said:

3/7/24, about 5:08 p.m., EST

Truman understood how heavy the car was and was alarmed when it was being moved at about 100 mph at the end of a long train. An emergency brake application would have sent it plowing into the cars ahead of it.

As a former railroad trainmaster and a railfan, I heard a lot of these.  That's a good one.

I like the one about the train that was speeding down a series of curves along a lake one dark and stormy night.  The brakes were gone!  The engineer struggled to keep his train under control!

The cars were swinging and swaying on the rough track! On one particularly sharp curve, a top-heavy car swayed so much it tipped-over, clean off the track and PLOP! into the lake!

The train, now unbeknowngst in two secrtions hurtled down the main!  As the brave engineer managed to slow the engine and front section of the train, the rear section caught-up and re-hooked onto the front section!

The engineer finally was able to stop his train, now less one car, in Springfield, it's destaination.  It wasn't until the next morning when an accountant was counting cars that it was discovered one was missing!

The car in the lake was found three weeks later by local fishermen.

[hudsonyard]

I've been holding out hopes for years that BCW was going to be the one to take on doing CNJ commuter equipment, or LIRR 2900 cars.

[lvrr325]

I would buy a few CNJ commuter cars

[gmpullman]

All the while I was working on one of my recent 'projects' I was thinking in the back of my mind —  "now watch some manufacturer come along and make these cars commercially available". I had been contemplating an OCS train for some time now and finally got around to knocking a few cars off.
First the 'Big Dome':


Conrail 55 hose diaphragm by Edmund, on Flickr

A Walthers Proto Santa Fe model. I rode this car when it was in the original white and purple Auto-Train livery and later toured it in Altoona at one of the Railfests ('97 maybe?)

Recently I began hacking together the #11 crew car (former Erie 10-5 Spirit of Youngstown) and a Pennsy Congressional parlor car turned into #12 the conference car.

Conrail 11 12 sides L by Edmund, on Flickr

I will still need a theater car and one of the smooth-sided business cars to complete my train so I'll certainly welcome the Bethlehem cars when they're available. As for the Ferdinand Magellan I had hounded Walthers for a while to see if I could get anywhere with them to produce an economical model. I bit the bullet and finally picked up one of the Overland models:

Ferdinand Magellan by Edmund, on Flickr

I've read several accounts of engine crews not liking the 'run-in' when braking with the car in tow. I've heard, too, that FDR enjoyed a more leisurely pace and sometimes the usual track speed was reduced a bit.


Broadway recently announced some business cars but, for my use, I'm not too encouraged as they are all older versions of the PRR Z78 cars and not more modern versions (like the 120 after rebuilding) with smooth sides and wider windows.


Regards, Ed 

[keystonefarm]

A few years back Lionel showed a test shot of a HO scale CR theatre car at Springfield. It was supposed to come with a rear view mini camera in it. Have not heard anything since. I wonder if White Rose will be offering kits or RTR cars ? The only cars John Greene did RTR were the Reading coaches if I remember correctly. He had enough of the Branchline passenger parts to last a long time and that's why he only offered kits. He worked with a number of historical societies to produce what they were looking for. He will be missed. --- Ken

[lvrr325]

I don't remember ever seeing anything about that Lionel car. But every so often I see the new ex-Model Power Lionel HO and had no idea it had been actually produced.

[middledivision]

Mar 11, 2024 16:30:45 GMT -8 keystonefarm said:

A few years back Lionel showed a test shot of a HO scale CR theatre car at Springfield. It was supposed to come with a rear view mini camera in it. Have not heard anything since. I wonder if White Rose will be offering kits or RTR cars ? The only cars John Greene did RTR were the Reading coaches if I remember correctly. He had enough of the Branchline passenger parts to last a long time and that's why he only offered kits. He worked with a number of historical societies to produce what they were looking for. He will be missed. --- Ken

Kits.

[gevohogger]

I was prepared to be indifferent as to the OCS cars but I probably shouldn't be; I did get to tour a couple of them one day when I was making my student trips. I don't remember which cars though..... And sadly no photos either (they'll always be around, right?). LOL

[champagnetrail]

Besides #11, the former Erie/EL "Spirit of Youngstown", were any of the Conrail OCS cars ex-EL?

-pat

[gmpullman]

Now it seems the OCS is a hot ticket item.
RAPIDO has just announced that they will be rerunning some of their 'classic' Super Continental Line with upgraded features and included in the mix is the former E-L Spirit of Youngstown painted as Conrail OCS #11.

Rapido 10-5 by Edmund, on Flickr

Isn't that always the way?

For anyone looking for more OCS information there is a pretty good summary here:

CONRAIL OCS

www.the-boring-the-adoring.com/conrail-office-car-special

Good Luck, Ed

[keystonefarm]

Doing the CR OCS train would be a good move. You can do NYC obs which PC and CR ended up with some Southern cars which came when Stanley Crane came aboard. The the split to NS and CSX . Multiple paint schemes for the modern era modeler. Much easier to justify the capital cost to produce --- Ken

[middledivision]

Mar 12, 2024 16:53:47 GMT -8 gmpullman said:

Now it seems the OCS is a hot ticket item.
RAPIDO has just announced that they will be rerunning some of their 'classic' Super Continental Line with upgraded features and included in the mix is the former E-L Spirit of Youngstown painted as Conrail OCS #11.

Rapido 10-5 by Edmund, on Flickr

Isn't that always the way?

For anyone looking for more OCS information there is a pretty good summary here:

CONRAIL OCS

www.the-boring-the-adoring.com/conrail-office-car-special

Good Luck, Ed

That's good thing. One less car to assemble and paint. My only hope is Rapido gets the color right on the E's and cars.

[cpr4200]

Mar 7, 2024 21:46:31 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

I've been holding out hopes for years that BCW was going to be the one to take on doing CNJ commuter equipment, or LIRR 2900 cars.

Weren't some of their first cars RDG and CNJ heavyweight coaches and combines, with arch and monitor roofs? First available as kits and later RTR.

[hudsonyard]

Mar 25, 2024 14:47:07 GMT -8 cpr4200 said:

Mar 7, 2024 21:46:31 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

I've been holding out hopes for years that BCW was going to be the one to take on doing CNJ commuter equipment, or LIRR 2900 cars.

Weren't some of their first cars RDG and CNJ heavyweight coaches and combines, with arch and monitor roofs? First available as kits and later RTR.

Yes, and those are great cars, kind of hard to find and pricey now, i'd like to build a consist with a REA reefer and B&O express car to represent a Philly train that would run via the Reading. The CNJ was very similar to the LIRR of that era where the commuter fleet was cobbled together from various second hand heavy and lightweight cars.

But what I'd like to see is the later cab control cars, these ran in phillipsburg service all the way to the end in the early 80's (a GP40P wouldn't be too bad either...)

[cpr4200]

^^^ I'd think a Reading coach with windshields cut into one end would pretty much nail a CNJ cab car.

[wagnersteve]

3/25/24, starting about 9:46 p.m.

cpr4200, I think you're right in your last post. I rode the CNJ to Phillipsburg during a summer sometime in the fairly early 1980s en route to Bethlehem, PA, to do some of the historical research for my doctoral dissertation. I frankly don't recall what the loco and cars on that train were. I probably went there following some research in New York City; I remember that we went through High Bridge, NJ, where my mother had taught for a while in the 1940s. From Phillipsburg I walked across the bridge over the Delaware River to Easton, PA, where I caught a bus to Bethlehem, where I stayed for a week or two. In Bethlehem I saw and bought, for the first time, Railpace magazine; all of the photos in it then may have been in black & white. I also got to a model railroad show or club in Bethlehem one evening, and I had at least a drink and/or a snack in the former CNJ station on the north side of the Lehigh River, which was much smaller than the ex-LV station on the ot her side. Part of the Bethlehem Steel plant was still active then. I don't remember how I got back to Massachusetts, quite likely partly by bus and partly by train. For a while in the 1980s I was commuting regularly in the summer between my parents' home west of Philadelphia and the Big Apple, catching Amtrak's Valley Forge in Ardmore that whisked me to Penn Station in Manhattan without stopping at Philly's 30th Street Station, returning on slower trains in the evening. I preferred that to trying to find reasonably decent lodgings I could afford in New York City.