Brown TT flush Deck flat cars?

[riogrande]

As far as I know, there have been some brown or oxide red Trailer Train 89' flat cars from BLMI and from Genesis (channel side), but has there been anything out in the flush deck style 89' flat car? I know Accurail made some brown Trailer Train flats, I have one of those, but since then more detailed and accurate 89' flush deck flat cars have come out from Atlas and Walthers, but were any released in the pre-yellow Trailer Train scheme? Or do the Atlas and Walthers flat cars represent flush deck cars that were built after the yellow Trailer Train paint was first used?

I'm just curious because I'm adding a few flat cars to model pre-yellow TT era TOFC, which were brown/oxide red, and some of which lasted well into the yellow TT era. Allegedly a few even past 1990?

[edwardsutorik]

There were flush deck brown cars:

www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1621236

Looks to be an ACF car. So the Atlas should be close. The jack pads on the model look like the wrong ones to me. That could be fixed or ignored. You could also convert the Walthers car to an ACF style.

Perhaps Atlas has in mind doing this car in brown. I have heard they MIGHT run the flats again in maybe a year or so.


Ed

[riogrande]

I vaugely recall some of the 89' flush decks which were said to have been produced starting after the yellow TT paint was initiated. I have definitely seen photo's of the Trailer Train brown versions on flush deck flats - I'm pretty sure there is a photo of one in the Rail Model Craftsman 2 Part article on the History of the Trailer Train corp. Unfortunately my magazines are all boxed up at another house right now but maybe it's in Trainlife too.

I don't recall Atlas or Walthers offering their Bethlehem and ACF 89' flush deck flats in the brown Trailer Train paint scheme, which Genesis and BLMI has offered. But I don't know if they didn't offer it because it was low on their priority or demand list or they were actually trying to offer only prototypically correct paint schemes and there were plenty to choose from.

At present, the only brown Trailer Train flats I am aware of are:

-Athearn bb (RTR?) TOFC 85' flat car, the non flush deck version
-BLMI F89-F brown (as delivered) Trailer Train version
-Athearn Genesis RTR F89-F 89' oxide red Trailer Train channel side flat car
-Accurail (kit) 89' brown Trailer Train flat car (TTX, TTCX)

I have an example of all of the above (just ordered teh Genesis channel side version).

If Atlas offers the brown Trailer Train and it is prototypical for that make, it would be a good addition for late 60's and 70's era modelers, and still be useful in small numbers into the 80's too I would expect.

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Edit:

I just did a search of Walthers website which covers quite a few of the 89' flat cars and it looks like Atlas and Walthers haven't offered brown trailer rain in the Bethlehem or ACR flush decks yet. I'm not sure if one of them was not produced until after the yellow paint era but surely one of them was built pre-yellow era.

I seem to remember Rob or someone at Atlas stating that their 89' flush deck represented a flat begun to be built in the early 1970's so we may need Walthers to do this, if we don't want to "roll our own". Accurail does do 3 brown flats IIRC, TTX, TTCX and TTAX, although folks who are particular may cite that they are too wide etc. The only Accurail flat cars I plan on selling off are the ones which I bought which are TTX "speed logo" which were repainted in the new style beginning around summer 1991 which is my latest cutoff date.

[edwardsutorik]

More research on this subject reveals that there were non-container (TTX rather than TTAX) flush decks in brown by Bethlehem, ACF and Pullman. The largest group was Bethlehem TTX 156000-158314 with 2090 cars (from the April 1970 ORER)--the Walthers car. I found three photos of these in brown on the usual sites.

Which sorta solves a problem I've got:

I bought some of the Walthers non-container flats in FEC. As far as I can find, FEC didn't have any--all theirs being dual-use. SO, what if I strip the lettering off and decal them in brown TTX? HUZZAH!!!!


Ed

[riogrande]

Ed, that might be a good way to get some older flush deck flats, remove the lettering on the TOFC only flats and letter for TTX.

So the largest group you found was TOFC only flat cars? If Walthers was to offer those in the future, the price will be the usual much denero, so it would be most economical to go your route, especially if you can find some of the TOFC only run flats for cheap.

Even if we model the post introduction of TT yellow 89' flat cars, we could always justify/use a few brown TTX painted flat cars as they reportedly will roamed the rails, a few lasting as late as post 1990? Didn't Athearn Genesis offer a brown TTX channel side in a ratty weathered state because they had found one still in use in the 90's? In there case I think it was lettered WTTX with a non-matching W font in front of the TTX markings.

[edwardsutorik]

Jun 18, 2012 12:00:00 GMT -8 riogrande said:

So the largest group you found was TOFC only flat cars?

There looks to have been roughly 2700 trailer-only flush deck TTX's in April of 1970. There were about 1200 dual-use (TTAX)--ACF and P-S--no Bethlehem.

Yup, Athearn's done a pretty neat job of producing their trailer flats. Walthers didn't really do all that poorly, either. I've got an NOPB and an HS that are really pretty neat. I am surprised Walthers hasn't done a brown car yet.


Ed

[riogrande]

Jun 18, 2012 13:18:22 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

There looks to have been roughly 2700 trailer-only flush deck TTX's in April of 1970. There were about 1200 dual-use (TTAX)--ACF and P-S--no Bethlehem.

Yup, Athearn's done a pretty neat job of producing their trailer flats. Walthers didn't really do all that poorly, either. I've got an NOPB and an HS that are really pretty neat. I am surprised Walthers hasn't done a brown car yet.

Ed

I did some searching of old Atlas forum posts and found the following:

forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=39074

In there I must have checked Atlas announcement back when they first offered the 89' flat car I said the following:

According to Atlas's own description, the flat car was introduced in 1973, ...

Here is Trailer Trains website historical page:

www.ttx.com/aboutttx/history.aspx#1970

"•1970: The highly visible Trailer Train yellow paint scheme replaces the old freight car red paint scheme."

So with the above info, Atlas's would never have been painted brown since they began production after the switch over.

I agree, Walthers should have offered their TOFC only TTX flat in the old TT brown. Most companies traditionally have offered "original" paint scheme in the first run, and Walthers has not offered it at all so far.

[edwardsutorik]

I have the change to yellow from brown as August 1971, not 1970. Here we have a case of railfans versus corporate history. For now, I'll go with the railfans.

And the photo I referenced early on is an ACF dual purpose car in TTAX brown. The difference is the jack pads. The Atlas car appears to me to have later jack pads. So, if you desperately want a TTAX car in brown, get an Atlas car, change the jack pads, and paint it in TT brown. Or you can modify the Walthers jack pads to Pullman-Standard and do the same. Maybe I'll do that with one of my Walthers FEC dual-purpose flats. But it's true; the Atlas and Walthers dual purpose cars are not exact matches for the brown TT cars.


Ed

[riogrande]

It had been my understanding also that it was sometime in 1971 also that the change to yellow was made. But since I was going on memory here, I went back to search to find out what I could from the website. Perhaps both are right, as in TT corp might have decided in 1970 to change the color, but the outward changes, as in actual painting may not have commenced until sometime in 1971, which is what matter to modelers imitating practice.

As far as the Atlas car goes, I'll take their word for it for now that their version was not produced until 1973, certainly well after the yellow scheme was introduced, and not bother with trying to make their flat fit the brown era.

When I have looked closely at the jacking pads, it is indeed hard to match them to many of the photo's but here is a close up of the Accurail (top), Atlas (middle) and Walthers (bottom) 89' flat cars:



Interestingly, I checked Accurails website and they have offered a 3 number set of the brown TTX. They are a bit wider and even taller than th emore find Atlas and Walthers products, but interspersed in a freight train might not look too bad.