Norfolk Southern Top Gon

I agree. NS Top Gons should have been made a while ago by any one of the manufacturers. 

Surprised Atlas or MTH hasn’t made models of these hoppers yet.

Suggest it to the people at ATLAS O on their website.

Andrew

Replying to this just to bring it to the top of the threads. Maybe somebody of a higher power will see it. I’d buy a few four packs!

Agreed!

Count us in for at least a dozen.

I'd buy a handful. Maybe someone could resin cast them?

NS Dolly Parton gondolas would be good sellers

Unless you can show a multitude of rr's buying/having similar equipment and or a multitude of paint schemes, its not cost effective to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for tooling on a one road single paint scheme freight car. Just ask Atlas O and that Thrall articulated auto carrier.

Nice to see this thread resurrected from 3 years ago.

Yes, Norfolk Southern is the only railroad who uses these. But its a very popular road name and the audience would likely buy many at a time. If 20 road numbers were offered, I'd buy 20. Heck, I'd buy 40 if 40 were offered!

Like I said in my original post, many of us enjoy coal trains on our layouts and this car is the backbone of NS coal operations. Would be a great car to make in O-Scale.

Jason

Also not sure why this is listed under 2-Rail Scale Trains? But all good.

Jason

How about Lionel Bathtub Gondolas - similar. It's about all you will find.

If you are sure this will be a profitable venture, what you do is front the development $ and share in the profits.

What a great idea Jason, maybe a "Special Run" for one of the hobby shops????

A 3 bay hopper, a dremel and a 3-D Printed bottom looks like you could churn these out from existing models if you really wanted to. Decals dont look like they'd be a huge hurdle for someone to custom make.

@prrhorseshoecurve posted:

Unless you can show a multitude of rr's buying/having similar equipment and or a multitude of paint schemes, its not cost effective to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for tooling on a one road single paint scheme freight car. Just ask Atlas O and that Thrall articulated auto carrier.

I think the fantasy paint schemes will solve this. These cars don't fit my era but as a youngster, I would have loved these things in any scheme. I think people would buy them if they were done in popular schemes.

@Boilermaker1 posted:

A 3 bay hopper, a dremel and a 3-D Printed bottom looks like you could churn these out from existing models if you really wanted to.

I was thinking along similar lines:

-  What hopper would you suggest for a donor, the Weaver 9 panel or something else ?  Did anybody pick up this tooling ?

-  I think a small table saw would be quicker / better / straighter to cut off the hoppers [ from my personal experience years ago creating ballast hoppers ]

-  For the bottom I think a selection of  plastic strip, a Chopper, and a jig might be as easy as 3D'ing it -- especially for us old dogs...

arf, SZ

@Boilermaker1 posted:

A 3 bay hopper, a dremel and a 3-D Printed bottom looks like you could churn these out from existing models if you really wanted to. Decals dont look like they'd be a huge hurdle for someone to custom make.

A modified 3 bay hopper does seem like a good idea. As far as cutting up 20 cars and 3D printing a bottom, that is out of my realm of expertise hah!

Jason

MTH would be able to make their Coalporter cars with more road numbers at one time than LIONEL.

Andrew 

Considering that Atlas owns the BLMA tooling for the HO and N version of this car, it would be a little easier to get it done in O scale.  But I agree with the other posters that any manufacturer would need to shamelessly crank out multiple roadnames to make it a good venture.  BLMA exhausted the 3-4 variations in NS (with reflectors, without, with Top Gon logo, without, etc)

-Sean

This is a freight car that would have to be 3D Printed in a built to order manner every month until there are no more orders.

Andrew

Someone could start researching and 3D printing O scale models all of the unique to the Southern Railway and Norfolk Southern freight cars.

Andrew

Or...we could get Eric from MMW to do these.......LOL!    We may have to wait 6-8 years, and they'll be over $600 each...but.........

Probably easiest to have someone create 3d printed tubs and replace the stock tubs on Lionel or MTH cars.  You get to do the work.  But if you are saying RTR at MTH prices won't happen any time soon as stated above.  If someone did 3d print just the tubs they would likely cost $50 each.  3d printing is not cheap and does not scale.  It costs the same for each print whether there is one or 10 thousand.

If you can get/make a commitment for 1000+ plastic cars talk to Scott Mann.  Lots of people like to talk about popularity and selling millions of them but when it comes to putting skin in the game it becomes a ghost town.

@rdunniii posted:

If someone did 3d print just the tubs they would likely cost $50 each.  3d printing is not cheap and does not scale.  It costs the same for each print whether there is one or 10 thousand.

Yup.  More realistic to 3D print a few masters and cast 50-70 copies from each mold derived from each master.  Still not cheap, but cheaper and probably faster.

You can get O Scale TopGon decals through ShellScale. Circus City prints them.

Of note, the old plastic Lionel 100 ton 3 bays have low end slopes and match the shape of a TopGon almost perfectly with about 3/16” of height removed...

You can 3D print them at Shapeways

https://www.shapeways.com/blog...ide-to-aluminum.html

Andrew

Here you go fellas, hot off the work bench. N scale BLMA model for comparison.

I built it using an old Lionel 3 bay hopper (not the newer die cast ones), obviously it was very heavily modified to get it to this point. I did pretty much exactly what boilermaker listed in his reply. Easier said than done.

No doubt somebody will announce these once I finish up the next few. 😅

@Steven Michael posted:

Here you go fellas, hot off the work bench. N scale BLMA model for comparison.

I built it using an old Lionel 3 bay hopper (not the newer die cast ones), obviously it was very heavily modified to get it to this point. I did pretty much exactly what boilermaker listed in his reply. Easier said than done.

No doubt somebody will announce these once I finish up the next few. 😅

Your Dad told me you were working on these. I'll take 50 please! lol

Awesome work!

- Jason

That looks terrific! Wonder if you could make a mold of that and offer resin kits? I'd buy a few.

MrMuffins or Stockyard Express here is an opportunity for you.

That is an awesome replica shown above! Nice work- that is what this hobby needs, more guys willing to model these types of cars for their own needs. Great job!

@jjames9641 posted:

MrMuffins or Stockyard Express here is an opportunity for you.

I agree!!!

I'll gladly promote these for Stockyard if they got someone to do them.

With these cars being released by BLMA/Atlas in N and HO scales, I would suspect they have the engineering drawings already.  Just would need to justify the tooling costs in O scale... IMO, these would be spectacular in the Master line!

Jason, I though you would!! LOL  Maybe it will happen?? I would be in for at least a 6 pack of them, if not more!! Twelve road numbers would seem about right to produce, I would think.

Jeff

Here are the ones I have done, with loads I made yesterday. Going for 7 cars total, hope to have a full NS coal train done by the end of the year, with other cars mixed with these appropriately.

Just excellent Steven! Let us know when you start selling them 😄

@Will Ebbert posted:

Just excellent Steven! Let us know when you start selling them 😄

Maybe if we all flood Atlas with emails they’ll listen. I’d buy 23 more to finish off a 30 car unit train 😆