Atlas Train Cars

Arnold,

Those are two iconic NY brands! Look perfect on your layout.

Our LHS uses Atlas to create small runs of Atlas box and refrigerated cars with local business logos. They are nicely detailed.

Three Atlas reefers that I have.

I also have these two Atlas CNJ work cars.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

I also fell in love with, and bought, this stunning (IMO) Atlas Grand Union boxcar:

Do you remember the sawdust on the floors of the Grand Union markets? I do.

Arnold

Nice buys, Arnold. I was more of a Rheingold… er… Met fan I never had a Grand Union near me (we had Bohack and A&P) - don’t remember sawdust (except for the butcher area), but definitely remember creaky wood floors!!!

I’m primarily a Lionel guy, but I started purchasing some Atlas products a couple of years ago. They have some really fine products with great detail. Here are a couple of my Atlas purchases (from Mr. Muffins):

Their Osgood-Bradley passenger cars were gorgeous. 

Here are 3 Atlas items from my collection.

Early Atlas O boxcar

RS1 with TMCC

Second run of the Natty Bo reffer.  I preordered from Mr. Muffin

Arnold, I love the Grand "Onion" reefer.

I hope to never buy Atlas products new, as one of their reps was quite rude to me at a show when I asked a question about running Atlas O on O-27, but on the second-hand market, the detail of their product is hard to beat.

Great Northern, non-revenue tank car

WFEX/GN reefer

GN steel, rebuilt boxcar

GN caboose

I have been collecting a whole lotta Atlas O!

I have fifteen or twenty "steam era classics".  They fit the era that I model very nicely.  I especially like the detail though it is very fragile.  A word of warning:  they can be quite difficult getting them out of the styrofoam packaging.  Use finger pressure to gently work the car out from the back with the holes provided.  Otherwise the small tab used to connect the trucks to the bolster can easily break.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

.... Why was this boxcar a must have for me? Notice where it is on my layout: in front of Yankee Stadium. I have fond memories of the Ballantine Beer commercials during the NY Yankee broadcasts in the era of Red Barber, Mel Allen and Phil Rizzuto; ...

When a Yankee would hit a home run, Mel Allen would call it a "Ballantine Blast."  lol

That Grand Union car IS very cool, Arnold!

I have many Atlas cars, including that Ballantine, and all the other cars that said "New Jersey" on them ...  where I live. Atlas made a handful of such marked cars, as they are a NJ company.

They're not actually boxcars, but reefers ... with the ice block hatches at each corner on the roof. Regardless, nicely detailed they are.

My favorite is probably Italian Swiss Colony. Might have been an Atlas Club car, I forget. This is boin106's model ... mine is packed away with the Christmas layout.

Trumptrain, who did the painting on your WT Co. Eng?

Alan, Atlas makes great stuff! Here is an Atlas RS-3 and Atlas passenger cars I rebranded to ERIE RR.

Some tankers from Atlas…delicate stirrups are the only faults..

Tom

You have the Ballantine   Now you need the Bohack Beer car   Bohack beer was brewed by Ballantine

I forgot that the very sharp Bohack reefers were from Atlas (and that it was brewed by Ballantine).

And, since we’re talking beer, can’t forget the recent Atlas Natty Bo reefer:

While I do not have access to my photos from this device, I will simply state that I believe Atlas overall makes some of the highest quality cars available in plastic.  I have always enjoyed their freight cars, passenger cars, and locomotives.  Atlas cars make up a large percentage of my current fleet of freight cars and the Comet / Horizon cars are the backbone of my modern era commuter fleet. 

I also have my share of Atlas products in HO and N and the quality is excellent there also.

For us more down to earth ( ie, poor people LOL ) Atlas makes the Industrial rail line that goes perfect with beeps and other smallish traditional size motive power. I'm really enjoy the PFE reefers I got from Beth.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

On Saturday, shortly after the meeting at York about social media, which was very interesting, I decided to do a quick final run through of the trains offered for sale in the Orange Hall.

What caught my eye were the trains for sale at All About Trains, that was primarily selling Atlas train cars.

I had never previously looked at anything by Atlas, let alone bought any Atlas products, so I was curious.

First, I noticed a beautiful Atlas Rutland caboose. However, it had 2 rail trucks (I later found out from a very nice modeller, a retired NJ police officer, covering for the owner of All About Trains, that the owner could change the trucks from 2 to 3 rail ones, once the owner returned).

Then, I noticed something that I had to have. This gorgeous Ballantine Beer train car:

Why was this boxcar a must have for me? Notice where it is on my layout: in front of Yankee Stadium. I have fond memories of the Ballantine Beer commercials during the NY Yankee broadcasts in the era of Red Barber, Mel Allen and Phil Rizzuto; and the can of Ballantine Beer that my father would have with his dinner almost every night.

I also fell in love with, and bought, this stunning (IMO) Atlas Grand Union boxcar:

Do you remember the sawdust on the floors of the Grand Union markets? I do.

IMO, Atlas boxcars, although pricey, have great detail and are very high quality. I was concerned that these train cars, which I believe are scale, might have difficulty navigating my 031 curves. Good news: they run just fine through the sharp curves of my layout.

I would love to see pictures of other Atlas train cars pictures, which can be shared here.

Arnold

Arnold, first of all, great to meet you at the OGR forum and the York meet.

The 'All about Trains' folks are very old friends of mine Bob and Karen. They specialize in the billboard Atlas cars and are really solid citizens. Enjoy them!

Jim Waterman

For the Ballantine lovers, Atlas announced CNJ/Ballantine 40' Steel Reefers at York.

See here:

https://shop.atlasrr.com/c-229-082.aspx

I use to have over 30 Atlas O Billboard Reefers but sold nearly all of them as they did not fit into my late 40s era layout.  I do have about 105 Atlas O cars that fit in just fine: boxcars, gondolas, hoppers, reefers, and tank cars.  I real like these cars; they look great, are scale, track well, and have couplers that work.

This post is for those of you who are unfamiliar, as I was until this past York train show, with Atlas rolling stock. Today I took a closer look at the two Atlas refers I acquired there. The detail is, IMO, amazing, as shown in the photos below:

I believe that the latches on the roofs open, though I have not yet tried to open them because they seem very delicate and I dont want to chance it for fear that I might break the fragile plastic parts.

Arnold,

Those hatches do open but you guessed it; they are very delicate.  Gently lift up the lever until it is clear of the hatch, then open the hatch.

Atlas O products are top line, no doubt. I recently got a new Atlas car, one formerly MTH, that had the Atlas logo stamped over the MTH logo. Atlas' Master Line is really hard to beat.

Dick

Here's 120+ atlas wood reefers, just for starters.   

https://www.publicdeliverytrac...tlas%2Breefer%2Bwood

When it comes to detail, you really gotta know whats what.  The MTH Premier 36' wood reefers are same amount of detail as the Atlas ones.    Some of the later Atlas trainman cars are as detailed as the early master line cars.  Some of the later MTH Premier cars are very detailed too.    U just gotta know.

And Lionel bought the MTH woodside caboose tooling and the 1890's day coach tooling, cause those cars are as detailed as Atlas Master also.

We used to set up at York, but just TOOOOOOO much time involved.  IF you look at our website, the front page shows our york setup....as it used to be.

Feel free to check out our website.   Plenty of beer cars, including the Ballantine and 4 more different Ballantines that you can pre-order (coming next year from Atlas), and some special run beer cars.

I guess most ppl on the forum know who we are....but just sayin...

beth

Arnold,

Here's a pictorial history up until 1/2020. There's a link to a pdf master list at the bottom of the web page as well:

https://www.toytrains1.com/atlas_reefers.htm

-Greg

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

This post is for those of you who are unfamiliar, as I was until this past York train show, with Atlas rolling stock. Today I took a closer look at the two Atlas refers I acquired there. The detail is, IMO, amazing, as shown in the photos below:

I believe that the latches on the roofs open, though I have not yet tried to open them because they seem very delicate and I dont want to chance it for fear that I might break the fragile plastic parts.

The Ballantine beer car appears to be former Intermountain tooling. Some 15 or so years ago Intermountain sold its O scale line to Atlas. Intermountain cars are some of the most detailed of any O scale rolling stock including brass models. The detail was fragile though. Atlas replaced some of the fragile detail with metal to better withstand the constant handling.

Also in the the ‘90s K-Line contracted with Intermountain to make O scale reefers for them. They came with metal trucks and some of the underbody detail was left off to both clear the couplers and better withstand handling. For a few years they were some of the most detailed ready to run O scale rolling stock before Lionel and MTH upped their game.

Pete

I honestly have to credit Atlas for being the reason why I am still into 3-rail O gauge.  Being a sucker for detail and scale fidelity, Atlas stands out - next to 3rd Rail - as the manufacturer that seems to me most willing to get down and dirty with researching prototypical accuracy.  Their model-specific detail, paint color matching, and overall fit-and-finish are consistently first-rate.

While Lionel and MTH have had some real home-runs, and I have tons of their stuff, they seem to sort of approach 3-rail scale trains from the "toy train perspective", as toy trains are their bread and butter.  Atlas and 3rd rail, however, approach 3-rail scale trains from the scale modeling perspective, and it shows in the consistent effort they put into their products.