MTH Premier Centerbeam cars

@hibar posted:

Did Atlas acquire the tooling for the Premier CenterBeam cars ? if not this would be an ideal Master line car for production in the future, these are one of the most common cars on the railroads today.

No, we did not acquire that tooling.

If there are any MTH people reading this, I and I believe many others would like to see another run!

If ATLAS O did not acquire the Premier Center beam flat cars, then who has them right now?

MTH still retains the tooling unless Lionel bought it and hasn't told us.

@bigboy25 posted:

If there are any MTH people reading this, I and I believe many others would like to see another run!

I FINALLY got my first, and had to pay top dollar. MTH should definitely consider another run of these soon. Great modern freight car.

- Jason

@hibar posted:

Nice cars, only the early runs of these cars had the trucks mounted in the correct positions , all later models had a retooled under side to move the trucks out to the car ends to correct operational issues [I assume]. I have one converted to 2 rail , see pic MMW models is showing their new brass model painted w/load ck the price!

The ones in the 2019 Volume 1 catalog run had the correct truck placement too, I have one the NS road names from that production run

I checked the original catalog listings AP 1998 vol 3 and AP1999 vol 3 and the pictures of the first 4 cars appear to be HO models small pictures and very small couplers. 2000 catalog vol 2 shows full pictures of CP Rail car with trucks mounted at the car ends. My car UP 20-68658 is pictured with end mtd trucks in catalog vol 2 2008 . It would seem that MTH retained the same catalog # when it was made again in the early 20s. MMW showed a Brass super detailed center beam car at the .Chicago O scale show this past weekend with loads and empty delivering late this year, still time to get the pre delivery price with a paid reservation.

Catalog illustrations were probably done before the retooled chassis moved the trucks. Just like the autoracks, the trucks were out at the ends of the carbody on the initial runs, and later ones moved them more inboard.

Here's the photo from MTH's site:

Here's the actual car from my collection:

My example was from the most recent run of these cars. I think it and the three others accompanying it were the only ones issued with the repositioned trucks prior to MTH's reorganization.

---PCJ

I have several and I've snagged all of them off that big auction site at various prices. The early ones had the trucks at the ends, but MTH retooled the chassis and placed them in the correct spots (same chassis is used the the Auto Carriers). They're pretty easy to convert to scale (as many have done). I've replaced the plastic loads with wood loads from "TrainDetailsMike" which look better, but add quite a bit of weight. By the way, it turns out that the supporting center sill "spine" in the chassis was not part of these particular cars as the center beam provided the structural support. But I'm too lazy to remove the center sill and reconstruct the cross bracing.