MTH McKeen Car "Delivered" ? Don't think so...

I wish they would make it, after all they have gone to the expense of the tooling etc.

James

MTH cataloged it but did not get enough orders to warrant the expense of the tooling so it was cancelled.

   Bill T

I don't think MTH tooled up for the MKeen car.  The photo is most likely a Photoshopped  HO model.

Rusty

I don't think MTH tooled up for the MKeen car

MTH had a prototype at York a few years ago.

MTH most certainly did have a prototype, in O scale, at York a few years ago.  I came

back and immediately preordered.  There have been several threads on here about that, and people kicking themselves for not preordering it and getting it produced.  One thing I did right, and it still didn't help...didn't know I needed to preorder a

hundred and sell the rest off....

Last Fall, I approached Mike Wolf at the TCA pre-York opening presentations and inquired,once again about the McKeen being produced but unfortunately his response was quite negative. Mike indicated that If I was willing to buy a couple of thousand, he might consider producing the McKeen. I did previously order the McKeen when it was first announced. For some time, there has been an unsubstantiated rumor in circulation to the effect that the original tooling was incorrect and that it would have entailed a considerable cost to re-tool and that, plus low pre-orders doomed the production. I still live in hopes that someone will produce an affordable McKeen motor car and trailer either in scale or tinplate O or standard gauge. Unfortunately I don't have another 50 years to wait!

Eric Hofberg

TCA, LCCA 

I checked last year in October and they cancelled because they did not get any orders that met the production standards. Same thing with the scale Berkshires a few years ago.

The original announcement of the McKeen car was at the bottom of the recession. It might just be that people have more money now and there is a demand for something different from the reruns MTH has been producing for a while. It might be worthwhile to float the idea again to see if it attracted more pre-orders. Adding a couple more railroads might also help. I'd order one, but I would want it decorated for the "Kulshan" car of the Bellingham Bay & British Columbia (a subsidiary of the Milwaukee Road). 

Only 20 of us need to buy a hundred?  That sounds doable .

I agree, I even offered to buy their McKeen prototype after production was cancelled but they weren't interested.

You wonder if the minimum cost-effective production run is a couple thousand units as stated above, how many preorders besides ourselves that there were back in 2011 at $400 each.  As a guess, the tooling would have cost about on the order of magnitude for a small diesel, say half a million or so.  While you certainly don't have amortize the mold dies completely on the first production run had MTH decided to make them, there probably wouldn't have been a lot of repeat business in different liveries.  Consider how few times since 1998 that MTH's Doodlebug that probably had a similar tooling investment has been reissued .   

You mean scale UP mountains? MTH has been making "scale Berkshires for many, many years.

My problem with the MTH Doodlebug, and I have one, was that I have not been able

to match it to any of the considerable photos of prototypes I have....(certainly not

all of them).  It was never titled as a Brill, a GE, an Edwards (unlikely), a Pullman,

a St. Louis, a ???, etc.  The 3rd Rail one had the opposite problem, being one road

specific, when some makes had similar cars that were used by a variety of roads, as with the McKeen. 

The solution is to have blueprints of all the details and sections produced in CAD/CAM so that the cars can be 3D printed in as large of assemblies as possible. Then somebody can make the final assembly and paint.

Andrew

That's a sound idea, as it would open the door for the many variations of the McKeen car; the rounded-end style, the shorter versions, etc.

How many people are out there that would spend $450 on a motor car they know barely anything about.  That's the problem, and that's sorta the same problem I see with most everyone in the Railroad world.  It's one of the reasons I am building my website.  Anyways, here is my 3-D model of the McKeen Car "Cuyamaca."  I have been told the smallest detail shapeways can work with is 1mm, so this car is build to be at least 2 (1:1 scale) inches thick.  I hope they come out with a better resolution, if they haven't already, so that it can be more detailed.  

Madison, please correct the spelling error in the thread's title.

I think the looks of the McKeen alone would draw interest once seen. 

And I think its unique trucks must play a large part in it not being done yet.

My interest in 'trolleys' and other MU commuters isn't too heavy.

Neither is "new". I'd never pre-order a model I haven't seen. MPC put an end to that for this family forever.

 But a McKeen would at least make the seriously considered list

The real issue besides tooling costs for any doodlebug is how many can be produced and sold. Sure the first run would sell out but what about subsequent runs? I do NOT see an Premier version for the doodle bug as well as the Budd RDC's- and there are many road names and color schemes to be done!

Well, I will again cite that frustrating G scale Mack railbus running (was running) in the

Orange Hall.  Are there more G scale modelers than O gauge/scale (I am just asking,

I don't know, but I seriously doubt it, and I THINK I have heard that G scale is in decline...LGB went up the flue, etc.).   I am surprised that I don't think a McKeen was

done in G scale.  HO has long had multiple models of McKeen's and Mack railbuses.  (uh, a brass O scale McKeen was imported, in apparently small numbers) I am a big fan of all these motorized critters (with little interest in interurbans and less in urban tracked trolleys, although I rode on them as a kid).  So that is a small niche in a small niche of three rail hobbyists in the small niche of model railroaders. The McKeen is important as the most successful, perhaps because of its connection to and backing by the Union Pacific, (if unsuccessful) introduction of internal combustion engines to the railroads, where internal combustion now rules.  I have  before been startled when it appeared that facets of railroad history were unknown to the general public, and even to some in the hobby, so wondered if many of the people who walked through the MTH display of their prototype were unfamiliar with the Mckeen, and only with current diesels that stopped them at crossing gates?  With one survivor only recently being restored, and in a museum that is not in a population center, not a lot of people who are not railroad history nuts have heard of it. Were more people locked out of Oriole

Parl than attended York?

If it's the G scale Mack railbus I'm thinking of, it was originally a manufacture-bash done by the defunct Delton Locomotive Works using their Mack switcher and shorty combine parts. 

It didn't require a huge investment in new tooling.

Rusty

I'm guessing that the only cost effective way for a manufacturer, in today's environment, to make the McKeen may be in brass.  This way a manufacturer could recoop his costs with smaller production runs.  The downside for the hobbiest, of course, is that the car would be much more expensive than a plastic bodied model.

Jim

Certainly a viable option for doing an entire body shell and even the floor as 2 pieces as there are now entire trolley models being produced by this technology.

Got a source for that power truck and trailer?

So that G scale Mack bus that was in the Orange Hall several meets was not sold as a production item, and was only one prototype? I thought I had seen them on sale walking through a show several years go, but it  might be wishful thinking?

Then we could pursue the lack of that Mack switcher in O three rail, too.  I have the

brass parts to built one, if, like the McKeen, power and trucks could be found.  It was

offered in two rail.

I assume this is the Mack Railbus being talked about:

If so, this was first made by Delton Locomotive Works and is still available from Hartland Locomotive Works.

Rusty

I've seen Q-car's Brill 39-E and Terry Russell in Britain has similar. Maybe they are adaptable for the McKeen power truck.....a little stretch job I guess.

http://theoldmotor.com/wp-cont.../12/ros5-737x600.jpg

http://qcarcompany.com/news/MT010_39E_Brill.jpg

Is that Q-Car truck shown with two differengt wheel sizes per axle, as the McKeen?

And the Mckeen front truck, with different diameter wheels, has an unusually long wheelbase, all of which make the trucks the problem.

Thanks Madison,

OK, so the Brill 39-E was 33" dia. on the powered axle, and 22" on the idler according to this article: http://www.ectma.org/8042ahtml.html Anybody know if there were other diameter options?

The bolster was offset towards the powered axle to transfer more of the car weight to traction wheels.

I guess the thing to do is build from, say NWSL components and cast your own sideframes? The 0-6-0 (0-4-2?) McKeen switcher truck found its way under some railcars too, but looks more complicated, model-wise.

At first when announced, I wasn't all that interested in a model.  Then I saw this colorized photograph.  Now I'm interested!

Since these ran and then generally disappeared, before few of us saw them, they have

been off the radar, but, as in the NY state photo above, they ran on roads across

the country.  Some were remotored and severely modified by their owning roads.  I can't find the pamphlet, but I have one on an east central Illinois line that was built as an interruban, ran out of money before it could electrify, and substituted two McKeens. I  did find it listed in Keilty, as the "Woodstock and Sycamore".

(I also found a pamphlet, "History of Mack Rail Motor Cars and Locomotives", which

includes Mack railbuses, also on my O gauge, three rail, wish list.)  Keilty's book,

"Interrubans Without Wires", lists 153 McKeens (but states that 152 were built), with several not retired until the 1940's (one wrecked in 1948), two retired: 1950 and 1951.

I could not identify in the list the one that had burned as a diner, after retired near

Toledo, Ohio.  No order, no makee, chop-chop.

The original announcement of the McKeen car was at the bottom of the recession. It might just be that people have more money now and there is a demand for something different from the reruns MTH has been producing for a while. It might be worthwhile to float the idea again to see if it attracted more pre-orders. Adding a couple more railroads might also help.

So true! I was interested then and interested NOW- esp for the PRR to be done.

OK I too will contact Scott MAnn to see if he would make a run. IF 3rd Rail does one, IS everyone prepared to spend for a $500 + motor car?

that mekeen car is the worse looking thing on wheels. no wonder mike wouldnt make it.believe it wasnt the safest form of rail transportation.-jim

Madison,

Considering Mike Wolf's position re the McKeen car, you can expect that the rest of the O-gauge manufacturers will have the same opinion. So it's not likely you will see a mass produced McKeen car because of inadequate market demand.

However, kits lend themselves to low volume production, so why not put your efforts into using stereo lithography (AKA 3-D printing) to produce kit parts, and combine this with detail parts already in the market place to come up with a reasonable facsimile of a McKeen car?