MTH Diecast boxcars/reefers

I would not hold my breath. They are pretty heavy and add strain on couplers on long trains. Probably more expensive to produce and did not sell well.  K-Line made them also,which were nice units which were blown out cheap. I think I bought a few way back for $10 per car. .

 

Dale H

I have 25 of them you can only pull with diesels and then only about 10 at a time

I would much rather see the Lionel 700- series freight cars reproduced exactly, right down to the couplers.  Maybe even with the cattle car . . .

I have a few, very heavy but roll pretty easily. Use em on the front end of a long consist, hold the rails without any derailing.

 

   Bill T.

I have about a dozen of the K Line cars. I think the idea was mostly a novelty that appealed to guys liking heavy, durable-feeling things. But being a novelty doesn't in itself  make something a bad idea. It was more likely a question of demand and profit. I like the ones I have. I'm not concerned about how many cars my engines can pull, since my trains don't actually make a railroad money, so I can afford to run shorter ones of equipment I enjoy. 

Too heavy, in general, as others have noted.

 

We (LHS) had one customer who loved them when they first came onto the market many years ago.  Swore that that's what Lionel trains used to be all about 50+ years ago.  Could not be convinced otherwise. 

 

However, he alone could not support the local market for this genre.  We ended up blowing them out.  I don't think we'd stock them again were they to be made again. 

 

This idea reminds me of the painful experience Weaver...and the customers...suffered with the Troop Car die cast floors....the ravages of 'zinc pest', a destructive and unstoppable result of poor quality die cast material.  It doesn't manifest itself at the time of manufacture.  It occurs over a period of time....probably within a few weeks-to-months.  It's not very common anymore with proper controls of the die cast materials and process, but when it DOES happen........   As global suppliers of our trains seem to bounce around from here to there over time for various reasons, I suppose there'll always be a learning curve 'oops!' potential for this.  (I have a really interesting...classic... Lionel example of the 'zinc pest' problem from the mid '30s.  If I can dig it out of storage and get a photo, I'll attach it later.) 

 

But, it's just MHO, nothing more....nothing less.

 

KD

My favorite Railking cars by far ... But you do need a lot of motors to pull a decent train.

http://youtu.be/O0SD5vx-iKw