Articulated Spine Cars w/ Trailers

MTH already makes these. They were mis-labeled as "Spline" cars.

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.

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.

Saying this for years.

Too bad it probably won’t be made, or if they are, it would be $500 a 5 car set 

The great thing about the Lionel cars were that they were okay to run on tight curves.  All other articulated cars currently made require wide curves.  I run my old Lionel ones on O36 all the time and have been wanting to get more, in both trailers and well style.

The K-Line spine cars are being made as single units and being sold under the Williams by Bachmann name. They can be purchased at places like Trainworld and Mario's Trains. 

Andrew

The MTH Spine Cars that have been sold lately car the container only units. 

It looks like somebody will have to come up with photos to remind the Mike's Train House team of what exact trailers on the Spine Flat Cars with the trailer stands do you need to have produced by the people in China. 

Andrew

K line made some awesome 5 car spine sets 20 years ago

I have both of the early MTH 5-Car Spine Car sets.   The Item Numbers are 20-95035 (Delivered in 1997) and 20-95036 (Delivered in 1998).  Both are listed as 1:48 scale and have an assortment of ISO Tanks, Containers and 48' Trailers.   A little hard to find but they pop-up on Ebay every so often.  A used, but in very nice condition, 20-95035 set recently sold for $175.00 plus shipping.

Chief Bob (Retired)  

It seems odd that MTH hasn't offered models of these extremely common prototypes since the late 90s. 

Granted that they currently offer, what I would consider, a perfect version, albeit it with containers.  If they would only offer these current models with fifth wheels (even if they're not collapsible) and trailers, I believe that they'd be a huge hit.  

What we really need are the cars capable of hauling those awesome Atlas O 53' containers- I would be in for several of these

Here is my K-Line lowered and Kadee's installed. 45' trailer

Beautiful work, Clem!

This is what we're talking about.  K-Line did them but they are no more, Lionel did them but not to scale (still gorgeous, though) and MTH is almost there. 

What is it going to take to get these popular models on the market?  

I would love to see Atlas do some 53' ones. The prototypes are becoming a little less common than they once were, but still would be good on any layout for the last ~30 years.

@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.  

If LIONEL has not bought the intermodal spine cars then they will have to be 3D scanned part by part, then the parts will have to be 3D printed.

Andrew

Thanks.  Is Lionel still a possibility?  In the original MTH press release announcing Lionel bought "some" of their tooling, Lionel was keeping what they got a secret until the catalog reveal.  I assumed any Premier offerings would show up in the standard O section of Lionel catalogs, but have not seen any spines yet.  And I can't really tell much from the pictures, but in the 2022 Big Book, p 80-81, Lionel introduces some husky stacks as an "all-new product", but die-cast bodies and opening containers don't sound MTH-ish.  Still, keeping fingers crossed.  

2022 Lionel Big Book

@Jeff78rr posted:

What we really need are the cars capable of hauling those awesome Atlas O 53' containers- I would be in for several of these

Totally agree Jeff! While the MTH spine car sets were nice, they weren't truly scale. We need spine cars that can hold Atlas's 53' containers. Unfortunately, someone will have to design a new tooling.

- Jason

@jdstucks posted:

Totally agree Jeff! While the MTH spine car sets were nice, they weren't truly scale. We need spine cars that can hold Atlas's 53' containers. Unfortunately, someone will have to design a new tooling.

- Jason

What we need for modern day railroading are the 3-car sets of articulated spine cars capable of holding the 53’ containers. The prior released cars for 40’ and 48’ containers are outdated and not used anymore.  The 48’ set could be extended to 53’ with some work on the tooling. Updates are needed in this category.

For unknown reason, my comments got dropped from the previous post.  (Which I quoted from a different thread.)

"Thank you, Jeff.  I absolutely LOVE what you did with those husky stacks."

@Sather we're talking about spine cars which hold one container or trailer each, not the husky stack/ well cars that hold two containers. That is a beautiful model you've made though!

@Will Ebbert posted:

@Sather we're talking about spine cars which hold one container or trailer each, not the husky stack/ well cars that hold two containers. That is a beautiful model you've made though!

Thank you, Will.  I am aware of the difference.  (I have both spine cars and husky stacks in intermodal operations.)  I included the photo of articulated husky stacks, made by @Jeff78rr, admittedly out of context but as an example of what COULD be accomplished by someone with exponentially better modeling skills than I have, as I had previously mentioned that I toyed with the idea of creating some 5-car sets of articulated spine cars by sacrificing some 2-car sets, since MTH no longer made either.  Hopefully, one of the remaining companies will start producing something to fill the void, and I would wish, backwards compatible with existing loads.

The spine cars could be 3D scanned or somebody can borrow the plans for them since they might not currently produced freight car type.

Someone who 3D prints can scan or enter the data of the 53' cars in their program for 3D Printing, then have the spine cars 3D printed.

Andrew