GGD VGN Battleship Gondola Arrive

Scott, if you haven't checked out the C & O Historical Society Archives, try:

https://archives.cohs.org/

I searched for "gondola" and scrolled down and found a number of pictures for their 100 ton battleship gondola -- different views than the one you have on your website.  COHS might have more pics that aren't online if you contact them directly.

Scott,

The C&O Historical Society did an extensive article of the C&O gondolas in their September/October 2019 issue of their magazine. Lots of information, data, drawings, and pictures.  There is a much better reproduction of the picture of the car that you have on the GGD website. I can read most of the lettering from the copy of the magazine I have although some is still too small to read. The best bet is to obtain a scan of the photo from the C&OHS archives so. The photo number is COHS 51773.

The photo on the GGD website is the car in its original as-built paint scheme. At least some were repainted in 1931 in a simpler scheme. This is shown on photo COHS 32105.

Go to the C&OHS website, go to Search the Archives, type in battleship and the pictures will show up. Unfortunately they are low resolution. To get higher resolution, the pictures have to be ordered from the C&OHS.

Ken

Re: the PRR version: this appears to be the PRR class G23 gondola.  Good pics are found at the Hagley Digital Archives:

https://digital.hagley.org/collections

Searching for "G23" brings up four views which should show all the markings but you'll have to pay them to download the high-res versions of the images in order to read them all.

I sent you an email Scott.  

Hi Folks,

The long awaited 120 Ton Virginian Battleship Gondolas have arrived. (To Port, To our warehouse next week.)

For those of you that have completed your purchase we will be charging cards and shipping these out next week, probably after the July 4th Holiday.

For those of you waiting to buy them when they arrive, you can do so now on our web site. Please click below.

For those of you that reserved and didn't buy, well we know what happens after that.   

http://www.goldengatedepot.com...rvation.html#GONDOLA

To see our demonstration video of these fine scale models, click on the You Tube link below.

https://youtu.be/Nt7QpLGRuUo

Again, thank you all that participated in producing these models and also to those of you that purchased them.

Just paid this morning, can't wait to see and use these. Thanks Scott.

Can’t wait for these to come. @sdmann any chances of making other rolling stock in the future?

Greg P

Ordered one my 3L with coal load last night, the Virginian. Can't wait to get it

Are these just lettered for Virginian, and can C&O lettering still be ordered?  The webpage doesn't seem to allow ordering C&O at this point.

Mark

@sdmann posted:

Hi Folks,

The long awaited 120 Ton Virginian Battleship Gondolas have arrived. (To Port, To our warehouse next week.)

For those of you that have completed your purchase we will be charging cards and shipping these out next week, probably after the July 4th Holiday.

For those of you waiting to buy them when they arrive, you can do so now on our web site. ...snip...

Odd, the same post as posted on 07/15/21 !

Anyway, I received my bill and sent payment on 05/23/22 and will be happy to add these to my VGN fleet.

C&O and PRR were very small quantities in this production. We won't know if we have any left until after we hear from reserving customers.  We do have some availability of VGN in 2R and 3R.

We will be shipping most paid 3R orders on Friday. 2R will start shipping next week.

Just hit my credit card. Looking forward to getting these.

Ken

@sdmann posted:

C&O and PRR were very small quantities in this production. We won't know if we have any left until after we hear from reserving customers.  We do have some availability of VGN in 2R and 3R.

We will be shipping most paid 3R orders on Friday. 2R will start shipping next week.

Just found the email with my invoice (didn't immediately realize the attached PDF was my specific invoice) and paid up.

---PCJ

Just got a UPS ship notice for mine . . . incoming!

I also received a UPS shipping notification. VGN should be rolling in soon!

Received both of my 3Rs today and am very pleased.  I hope GGD offers more unique freight cars in the future. 

Nice. I am still waiting for my two-rail  cars. No tracking number yet, either.

PRR GONDOLA

I love the low-profile, multi-lumps , drop in real coal loads. They are well worth it. FWIW. IMO, one of the Coolest Add-ons.

Nice model - looks quite comparable to my Rich Yoder version.  Interesting, did not know that the PRR had similar gons. But, the Pennsy had their own - oddball? - trucks. As David P. Morgan observed, "There is the right way and the wrong way of doing things. And then the Pennsylvania RR way !!"

Just got my 2 rail versions in:

Greg P

www.youtube.com/trainbros89

The PRR-version of the Buckeye 6 wheel truck was the 3F-F1 which was employed on their battleship gon.  I wouldn't get particularly exercised that Sunset 3rd Rail did not reproduce this truck - too few to warrant fresh dies.

I went over to turn the porch light on and made a last-minute check outside, there was an unexpected (at least today) package sitting outside the door. My battleship has finally docked! The two-rail ones do not have couplers installed so a pack of metal KDs will be put on tomorrow. I will go to sleep very happy tonight. Scott sure has a winner here. I like it so well that I may see if any more are available.

The label shows an April 2022 manufacturing date; from mid-April to mid-July is not really all that bad in today's shipping situation.

Got mine last week!

I finally got around to installing the KD couplers, it took longer to gather up the Phillips screwdriver and the couplers (they had to be removed from a zinc-pest destroyed Weaver troop sleeper) than it did to install them on the gon. Again, thank you Scott for such a great model.

Got my PRR version just in time to take to my club's setup this past Saturday.  Absolutely fantastic model!  

It can be seen several times in this video of our setup:

And it will be running again this weekend at the Greenberg show in Monroeville, PA. 

Andy

Wish I had jumped on this offering sooner and could have ordered a couple of the Pennsy models, but I just received two of the Virginian model with the real coal loads and they are beautiful. Can’t wait till I get back home and get a chance to run them

For those considering one of these cars, here’s a quick video