MTH premier or not premier

You thought correctly. 

I always look for the 20 in front of the P/N to determine if the product is the Premier Line. As far as I understand, and MTH's explanation on their website states they are FULL 1/48 the size of their prototypes. This means they are scale sized for O scale, not traditional size. If there are questions about the scale of a product that I am purchasing on E-Bay I always make sure to ask and make my questions as direct and precise as possible, O-Scale, not O-Gauge. If I do not receive a direct response, such as Yes it is Premier, O-Scale, here is the P/N,  I don't even bother. This protects both myself and the seller so their are no misunderstandings, not to just be a pain in the rump on my part. Most of the sellers that I see are "Estate Buys" and they have done no research on what they are selling, not even a little, just put it out there, and tell you that they have no knowledge of trains, have no way to test it, all sales are final and then post a price of 10-15% less then original MSRP from 10-15 years ago and say you are getting a great deal. And even though they have "No knowledge of trains", they do know that whatever they have is " Collectable, Scarce, Rare, or Hard to Find".

The Premier line is all scale size. Railking can be traditional (smaller than scale) and can also be scale with their Railking Scale line. The Railking Scale items are noted as such in the catalogs, As far as I know RK Scale is for engines only, I have never seen any RK Scale rolling stock. 

Railking Imperial items are still smaller than scale, but are more detailed like the Premier line.

Alex,

You have to be careful.

Some early MTH products did not yet follow the 20- and 30- numbering systems.

Some Railking, non-scale sized engines came in purple boxes with MT- prefixes to their numbers such as those Railking-sized GG1s.

You can't go by the color of the box or numbers for those early products.

Jim

Their Premier Autoracks / Auto Carriers, that seem to be offered in almost every recent catalog, are also listed as Premier. The catalogs described them as having “1:48 Scale Dimensions” but they are too short to have scale length. Maybe having the correct width & possibly height were sufficient for MTH to consider them as having scale dimensions even with incorrect length.

I owned this car & even though they are available in a lot of road names & multiple 6-pack sets, the non-scale length made them look suitable for the RailKing line, not the Premier line. I have never owned their passenger cars but I had read similar complaints that their Premier versions of North American passenger cars were also not of scale length.

These are just my opinion.

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Those GG1's came out before the Railking line was launched in middle of 1995 with the NYC and ATSF Mohawk. Once Railking was esatblished, the GG1's quickly became part of that line.

I am not sure if there was even a Premier Line prior to Railking. I THINK that Premier was established to differentiate the two product lines after Railking came along.

Those were exciting times.

Naveen..... this is true, the premier passenger cars are not scale length, but the baggage cars are really, really close so I use them with my 21" K-Line.  I did buy a MTH Scale Hudson that came with passenger cars, I liked them so much I bought the add on cars also. The only non scale length cars I have.                                                                                         Sure wish MTH would make scale dimension passenger cars , especially Amtrak Superliners.  

Clem

Clem,

I would also like someone to make Amtrak Superliners with the correct scale length. I love double-decker passenger cars. I already have the Golden Gate Depot Santa-Fe Hi-Level set & will buy Superliners or Surfliners if someone would offer them. I know that K-Line offered them but K-Line went out of business before I got into the hobby & it was getting more expensive to get a complete set around the time I was shopping for them.

I was really angry when I found out that the Premier Auto-racks did not have the scale length when the catalogs advertised them as having “1:48 Scale Dimensions”. I used to work in the auto-industry in the Metro-Detroit area & had seen many of these auto carriers. So, I was excited when I bought the MTH Premier version but then the length of the MTH car, scaled was 13’ shorter than the real auto rack lengths & I ended up selling them. I understand that many hobbyists would prefer these shorter auto-racks but I believe that it is deceptive to advertise these cars as having scale dimensions when they are not of scale length.

These are just my opinion.

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Jim Policastro posted:

Alex,

You have to be careful.

Some early MTH products did not yet follow the 20- and 30- numbering systems.

Some Railking, non-scale sized engines came in purple boxes with MT- prefixes to their numbers such as those Railking-sized GG1s.

You can't go by the color of the box or numbers for those early products.

Jim

I didn't know about that about the earlier RK items, numbers and boxes, I was out of the hobby then. Thanks for the info, it's good to know that.

I also think it would be nice if Lionel would do something like MTH has done with the 20 & 30 numbers and/or different color boxes for their traditional and scale items. 

I thought MTH was 1/48th and Railking was 1/43rd which is actually bigger than O Scale. Am I wrong?

Dick

CBQer posted:

I thought MTH was 1/48th and Railking was 1/43rd which is actually bigger than O Scale. Am I wrong?

Dick

Yes, i.e. you are wrong. The Rail King line is generally slightly smaller than the scale Premier line, more like the "027 foreshortened" rolling stock. 

Fact or fiction; I do not know. My early MTH products had numbers that began with MT. IMO, 20- are 1/48 and 30 - are traditional.