MTH Rail King Husky Stack cars usually contain 2 similar containers (ie: two Sea Land containers). This may be for licensing reasons. I live near a large container port and most rail container cars I see have mixed brand containers. I collect Rail King Husky Stack cars because their size accommodates my layout better. To mix brands (ie: Maersk, Sea Land etc) I have to buy complete stack cars. I can't attend York. Could someone attending ask MTH why they can't offer the new containers listed for their Rail King Husky Stack cars separately in their catalogue so we can mix up our consists without having to buy the whole car? Why can't they be considered an accessory? I know containers have been sold in the past but I don't seen any listed by MTH in this catalogue. Thank you.
You are absolutely right, Daryl. I saw that last summer in passing a long stack train on the line. This was also posted in "Weekend at the Movies," but I'll repeat here because it illustrates your point. Looks like we could also use some "undec" containers for weathering, too.
I guess I would ask why I couldn't buy them individually? I would buy one of the Sea Land and one of the Clarke Transport containers for sure. I'd be willing to pay $25 to $30 each as an accessory.
You will have to call Midge at MTH in the parts dept. She can find anything if they have it available. Many items they have are not listed anywhere but Midge finds them anyway. Might take her a few days or even weeks, but if and when she finds them, she will notify you. She's a great asset to MTH and works very hard to help their customers!
Atlas has containers for separate sale, they have some at my LHS, but they probably would not fit the MTH cars? Don't know about that one either?
AS FOR RAILKING CONTAINERS MTH HAS NEER OFFERED ANY OF THEM OFF THE CARS. IN PREMIER THEY DID. ALSO THE RAILKING CONTAINERS ONLY FIT THE RAILKING CARS. I HAVE ABOUT 160 STACK CARS AND I HAVE NEVER FOUND ANY OTHER MANUFACTURES CONTAINERS TO FIT A RAILKING CAR.
But if you look closely many of the containers in your video, the cars in the first third of the video seem to have MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) logos on them on the yellow or brown 40’ containers & the second third of the train seems to have a lot of Hamburg Sud cotnainers. When I became interested in O-Scale intermodal offerings a few years ago I watched many videos on YouTube when I had time, on anything intermodal. Most of the containers are owned by shipping companies who also own the container ships. From a Discovery Channel video on the Port of Los Angeles / Long Beach, most of containers in a ship being unloaded / loaded seemed to be uniform, with few exceptions. Since they don’t like wasting time stacking the containers on the dock, most of the trains leaving the port, seem to have a greater portion of containers of 1 specific brand. You might find different colors based on the companies the shipping company acquired or merged with. Using my favorite shipping company, Meaersk, the world’s largest owner / transporter of intermodal containers, you might have the gray color as well as the refrigerated white color containers. You might also have brands that Maersk acquired over the years like Sealand or P&O NedLloyd. Or you could have a subsidiary brand of Maersk like Safmarine. Maybe other regions in North America have different traffic patterns but watching YouTube videos & around here in Central Illinois, most of the intermodal unit trains have a unique majority brand of containers on the trains I have seen.
So whenever I buy an intermodal Husky car, I sell the containers that come with them & replace them with just Maersk containers. For Atlas Gunderson cars, that don’t come with containers. I again populate them with just Maersk containers.
These are just my opinion,
Thanks,
Naveen Rajan
Originally Posted by BANDOB:
You are absolutely right, Daryl. I saw that last summer in passing a long stack train on the line. This was also posted in "Weekend at the Movies," but I'll repeat here because it illustrates your point. Looks like we could also use some "undec" containers for weathering, too.
Just saw this post. I might be late to the party but hope someone at MTH listened. I was lucky this past fall to jump all over an eBay listing of someone selling some mixed Railking boxes. Glad I jumped on it. I still scour eBay looking for more. My layout is too small to keep buying more cars and paying on average $75 a husky stack just for the containers isn't exactly a prudent play.
I personally would hate it if MTH sold the car and the containers separately like Atlas does. I got my 1st MTH RK well car for Christmas and I love it. I just plan on buying at least 2 more, and then mix the containers up between them (I'll put them all in a bag and have the wifey blindly pull one out at a time to fill the cars.). That's more than enough mix up for me.
More support for Naveen's point above. Watch the following video and count how many Evergreen containers are in the last 2/3 of the train. Then count all the Italia's and Lloyd Trestino containers (Evergreen owns them too now). Your intermodal train will be more prototypical if the boxes are dominated by one or two major shipping lines, and just a handful of the smaller ones.
It's really not an issue of "only" offering the containers and cars separately, but that "in addition to" offering them together as a set, they offer them separately as well. Many of us have set up intermodal operations and I can agree, we need more containers than cars.
I love the RK sets. I just like the options of seeing more variety. Your correct, you will see some of the same containers. Being an owner of a "small" layout I just really like seeing and having options.
I have the 4 car set with the NS containers but I have never any NS containers in a real consist. So at last two York meets I talked to Andy about coming out with some extra containers to replace the NS ones. I asked why they hadn't since they do sale the containers for the premier Husky Stack cars. He passed this along to Charlie and said they would and they might be in the next catalogue. Got my fingers crossed. Altogether I have 14 of the MTH and 4 of the Lionel Husky Stacks. Can't wait to get all 18 in a consist.
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