Anyone know what ever became of the MTH line of 19th century cars? Be nice if a line of inexpensive 34 foot boxcars lettered for new england area road names came out. Some Boston and Albany cars maybe? RMT had a very good idea bringing out their cars with multiple road numbers. Can't say how it has affected sales, but I've absolutely bought more of their cars because of that feature.
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It appears the Lionel has the molds for these cars. There are three of them (stock car, tank car, and box car) in the latest catalog on page 111 (decorated for Christmas to go with the Christmas camelback engine).
There are a lot of wood kits still around of these cars, and they look way better than the MTH Railking line when finished.
Now that Lionel has the tooling, inexpensive is a pipe dream
Thanks for the responses! I was impressed with what I've found on the internet about Craig Bisgeier's Housatonic Railroad and John Ott's Miskatonic Railroad, both in HO. I like the look of the cars and was wondering about the availability of anything similar O gauge. Agree that the wood kits look better, and that new Lionel stuff is not at all cheap. Didn't know Lionel got the MTH molds.
Before Lionel cataloged these cars I would look for the MTH ones on the auction site but always passed because the prices seemed high, but when I saw the prices in the Lionel catalog I just couldn't pull the trigger on those either. Oh well...
These are MTH 19th Century cars. I modified/added certain details and weathered to make them a bit more scale…
Tom
@Krieglok posted:These are MTH 19th Century cars. I modified/added certain details and weathered to make them a bit more scale…
Tom
Those look great!
Beautiful job! Something about the cars of that era, the wide variety of lettering and color schemes, really appeals to me.
@brr posted:There are a lot of wood kits still around of these cars, and they look way better than the MTH Railking line when finished.
Not necessarily, it depends on the skills of the builder.
I hope to see Lionel offer these cars in road names to compliment all the LionChief 4-4-0s they have offered lately. Especially Central Pacific and Union Pacific to go with the Golden Spike set from a few years back.
Love the MTH 19th Centuries.
Re-paint; re-lettering. Needs weathering a bit, at least.
Weathered MTH paint and lettering, scratch built ventilated box car doors added.
In front, the wood/metal HO kit (which I assembled as a teen in the early '60's; MDC? Roundhouse?) that inspired the MTH changes. I'm surprised that the HO wooden car survived all these years.
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