MPC Freight Cars.

CAPPilot, Thank you for posting a picture of your Strohs reefer.

Gary Clare, Sorry to hear about your mother.

Jon Stachowicz, Thank you for posting pictures of your Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Standard O car and your Burlington gondola.

Happy Easter to everyone.

I’ve been a fan of MPC rolling stock for just about all of the 32 years since I returned to O gauge. I can usually find MPC boxcars and tank cars at local TCA meets for $10-15 and, if the piece is particularly “attractive” to me, I’ll splurge and upgrade the car by adding sprung metal trucks. I realize this “improvement” doesn’t make economic sense but, what about this hobby really does? 😉

Curt

@jim sutter posted:

Do you have a favorite MPC freight car? This was my favorite one. It came out of the New York Central Empire Express Set.

Over the years I never could understand why there's never been a dedicated area for those that collect trains on the OGR forum.  Today there's dedicated forums for specific companies so it would be easy to add a collector section on each  and see if it flies.  I think it will.

@jim sutter posted:

nickaix, Thank you for posting a picture of your Southern Pacific HI Cube box car. I always liked these cars. Except for the three they made in early eighties, They were cheaply made. They had plastic wheels and they weren't even painted.

I agree the 70s cars were the better ones for sure. Oddly, though, it seems to me that this car, also, is not painted. Pretty sure the red is the plastic itself. Somehow, they avoided that "cheap look" that molded-in-color stuff so often has.

Pictures from our store when MPC was king.

Back in eighties through the nineties we always tried to have 500 to 600 different brand new cars in the store for people to pick from.

The 40' Standard O cars look oversized next to classic sized cars.  But the Standards look OK next to othet scale sized cars.

The 92/94/9700 boxcars also had many cars from the transitional era of railroading plus cars one would see in ttains in the 1970's.  MPC made a RAILBOX car soon after those cars hot the rails.

The NC&StL boxcar unfortunately has incorrect striping! The Stroh's reefer is  classic, as was their fire brewed beer with the carmelized malt from that process! Correct striping for the NC&StL boxcar:

The 40' NC&StL prototypes NEVER had a solid stripe!

@breezinup posted:

The photos of these didn't show up on the previous listing, for some reason. A few examples from the "Tobacco Road" series.

I have to agree - this one was one of my first cars as a kid and still earns a place on my layout today. I added some weathering chalks to the doors to tone down the yellow a bit.

I once had a sizeable collection of the early years of MPC boxcar production (1970-1974) and they made a beautiful display until I sold them all to a collector friend in 1974, who also had all the original 6464's in mint condition.

@jim sutter posted:

Pictures from our store when MPC was king.

Back in eighties through the nineties we always tried to have 500 to 600 different brand new cars in the store for people to pick from.

Good thing I wasn't there at that time, Jim. I would probably have spent all day hanging around every time I came into the store, which would have been most days! I think my wife would have ordered you to lock the door whenever you saw me coming.

breezeinup, I would of been glad to have you as a customer. You would of been always welcomed.

@nickaix posted:

Well, if I have to pick, it has to be this Southern Pacific Hi-Cube, no. 9607. This car is thoroughly MPC / Fundimensions, from the all-new body and frame, to the fast-angle wheels and Symington-Wayne trucks, to the flawless paint masking and crisp lettering. It is just beautiful.

It is a sentimental favorite, too. This was the first old car I ever purchased that was still new in the box. It was only my second York ... at the first I had focused on used stuff in an effort to make my train money go farther. I asked the seller if he would remove it from the box for me, because I was incredulous that a car with an asking price of only $15 could really be as clean as it looked through the cellophane. The seller kindly obliged, though he did say, with a bit of a rueful smile, "now I can't sell it as mint anymore." No need, I was sold. Mint! It was a revelation. It blew me away that you could buy C-10 MPC for such prices. Super-affordable trains, Christmas-morning new! What more could a toy train guy want?

That car has been of interest to me as well, owing at least partly to the fact that I saw one set out with some other cars once while railfanning back in the late 80s. It really stood out with that sharp paint scheme. On this no. 9607, besides the red and white colors, the light grey ends and roof contrast nicely with the dark grey arrows on the side

I added diecast sprung trucks to the hi-cubes I had. They ran better with more weight down low to balance out the top-heaviness inherent in the car. One of the hardest of these to find was the yellow painted Frisco one, which was only available as part of the Rocky Mountain set from 1977. Very attractive car - wish now I'd kept it.

One of my favs.

One of the many things I liked about the MPC period was the fact that, because of the variety of freight offered, you could make your own custom train sets.  When I first saw the MPC Penn Central GG1 in all black I didn't think too much about it but when I realized there were enough MPC Penn Central freight cars to make up a consist...well, everything changed...

Here's my MPC PC freight set.

...don't worry - the crane has been assembled since the picture was taken...

Here are my 9200 MPC cars.  However I don't seem to have a 9212 or 9213.

Every train needs a caboose !

Doug

@boomer0622 posted:

Here are my 9200 MPC cars.  However I don't seem to have a 9212 or 9213.

Doug

Don’t feel bad—no one does.  😀.   9212 is an uncatalogued piggyback car and 9213 is a covered hopper.   MPC freight car numbering was either well organized or a total crapshoot.

Okay Tommy, thanks for the Info.  I guess there's no need in looking for them.

Here's a short video I just put together of my 9200's

Chi town Steve, Thanks for posting a picture of #9783 Baltimore and Ohio box car. Like you, this car was always one of my favorites.

Robert S Butler, Thank you for posting pictures of your Penn Central GG-1 and freight cars. MPC also made a #9300 Penn Central log dump car and a number #8576 Penn Central GP-7 diesel.

Doug, The #9212 was a LCCA Seaboard flat car with trailers.

The MPC #9213 is Minneapolis and St Louis red hopper. It came in the 1978 Lionel Service Station set.

Boomer0622, Thank you, for posting pictures of (15) of your MPC freight cars. Sure do make a colorful display. Also, the two cars you asked about I would hunt them. Both will show up.