I just picked up a couple of these, one from Chris and the other off the bay. I see no history of Lionel making a 521, so I assume it is a MTH creation of a center dump car. Any one know different?
Also I don't care for the orangish colored load. Has anyone painted theirs another color? I'm thinking black to mix in with my Coal Train.
Steve
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Steve,
If I were you I would keep the orange color as I believe it's intended to represent iron ore. Keeping it orange would allow you simulate shipping both your black coal ore cars and your new orange iron ore cars to a tinplate steel mill you might create on your layout.
As a kid I remember seeing long iron ore car trains running from the Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota and the Geogebic Iron Range in northern Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan to the ore docks in Duluth and Superior. Really neat watching a long string of iron ore cars dump their loads into the holds of waiting Great Lakes ore freighters like the famous Edmund Fitzgerald.
Bob
I just picked up a couple of these, one from Chris and the other off the bay. I see no history of Lionel making a 521, so I assume it is a MTH creation of a center dump car. Any one know different?
Also I don't care for the orangish colored load. Has anyone painted theirs another color? I'm thinking black to mix in with my Coal Train.
Steve
Maybe they are supposed to be loaded with Tang? 
Steve, I had paint mixed to match natural ore color at a local paint store. I'am including picture of my loads. Iron Ore glued on styrofoam, taconite is poppy seeds glued on styrofoam & limestone painted on styrofoam. Every other car white (calcite), light gray (dolomite).
The empty ore car is dusted with earth colored chalk that match raw ore. Iron ore from the various mines were many different shades.
Here is one of my MTH ore cars custom painted/decaled for LS&I. I stained Woodland Scenics dark gray ballast to resemble the taconite I had seen, and picked up off the ground, in August 2021. Atlas trucks and Kadee 740s were added.
Iron ore comes in all shades from orange/pink to black. It depends on the mine and kind of ore. I have MTH ore cars with the pink loads, I live with them. too much work to paint 50 ore car loads.
@Rick Wright posted:Here is one of my MTH ore cars custom painted/decaled for LS&I. I stained Woodland Scenics dark gray ballast to resemble the taconite I had seen, and picked up off the ground, in August 2021. Atlas trucks and Kadee 740s were added.
Rick great job on these!
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