@Scott M posted:I see that MTH had offered two different 5 car sets quite a few years ago, both of which included a mix of different length trailers and containers.
I believe that 2, 3 or 5 car sets dedicated solely with 45', 48' or 53' trailers would be a huge hit. No one else makes them.
Resurrecting this old thread as it is a subject I am very emotionally invested in. I had four pair of the Lionel spine cars with Apple Computer trailers, back in the 90's when they were first offered. Loved them, but over the years our train preferences evolved away from O-27 trains and they were sold off. *
I had always hoped to re-create that consist in O scale, and did acquire both MTH Premier 5-car sets of spine cars from the late 90's. Extremely disappointed that was the end of the line, so to speak. MTH did continue making 2 car sets available, even lettering them ABCD for a while, but the CD pair was a stand alone set and did not "fit" in the middle of the AB set for a true articulated set of cars. I had a short-lived dream of sacrificing five sets of two to create two 5-car sets, but on further examination the CDE cars from the actual 5-car sets are from different tooling, and it is more involved than just swapping the trucks around. Beyond my limited modeling skills anyway.
I collect and model modern era, so have a lot of intermodal rolling stock, almost exclusively MTH Premier. IIRC, Atlas O bought a lot of MTH tooling, but specifically NOT their containers or the cars that run them (husky stacks and spine cars). I assumed because Atlas O has their own ToFC and container products. which I believe are not fully compatible with MTH. I do get the (daily) announcements from the new MTH, which appears to be a lot of limited run proprietary lines - have never seen any intermodal offerings. Anyone here have this same problem, and what will be our best options for growth when the MTH intermodal stuff is no more?
* started with a Lionel RTR set, slowly adding in some K-Line and MTH Rail King. But the toy train dimensions were an irritant and we wanted a more realistic appearance, when planning a permanent layout became an option. Temporary swing through HO (liked the realistic look but not the size) and returned to 3 rail with MTH Premier in the early aughts.
