Why are there no Boston subway or street car models?

MTH released 4 PCC electric street cars from Boston between 2004 and 2011.  If you visit the MTH website product locator, search for PCC and filter on road name Boston, you will see them.  Hope that helps .

Corgi made a Boston PCC:

Rusty

Bill and Rusty,

Thanks for the info; I guess I got started looking late -- since 2015.  There's hope, as the MTH site identified a few still around. I think the Seashore? Trolley Museum was selling the Corgi models for a while, but I don't remember seeing any in Boston livery.

Encouraging news, although still no subway cars.

Thanks!

Tomlinson Run Railroad

I think they're still trying to get Charlie off of that train

artyoung posted:

I think they're still trying to get Charlie off of that train

Laughing out loud! 

TRRR

I have been waiting for the same thing for a long time now. MTH has made some PCC Boston cars and MBTA which is great but a Boston subway is way overdue. 

island modelworks has some boston kits available:

http://islandmodelworks.com/OB.html

If you are into wooden trains the MBTA store still has the blue line and commuter rail available:

https://www.mbtagifts.com/

 

They used to have green and red lines too but I guess they sold out of those.

 

It is good to see that the MTH commuter rail set includes the control car.

prrhorseshoecurve posted:

island modelworks has some boston kits available:

http://islandmodelworks.com/OB.html

PRRHorseshoeCurve,

Thanks for the photo and link!  That's definitely somethig to think about.  (Those wheels look a little odd to me but what do I know?)  Of course, I've got a model to finish already before thinking of a new one .

TRRR

Choochoo1972,

Yeah, that's a nice shop. Thanks.  Every so often I eye the subway/street car beverage coasters that they have for sale.  Except for the price, they would be great fun for a train running party at the Tomlinson Run RR.  The graphics are great!

TRRR

artyoung posted:

I think they're still trying to get Charlie off of that train

LOL... Always wondered why poor old Charlie's wife never handed him a nickel along with the sandwich as the train passed through Sculley Square Station   

Apples55 posted:

artyoung posted:

I think they're still trying to get Charlie off of that train

LOL... Always wondered why poor old Charlie's wife never handed him a nickel along with the sandwich as the train passed through Sculley Square Station   

Have you ever met Charlie?  Clearly it was part of the Mrs.' strategy!  

TRRR

The curse of the Bambino.

Interesting question. This is not the answer you are looking for but. In the mid fifties Ken Kidder was importing many  brass models from Japan. He was going to have subway cars made. I frequented Ma Websters Model train Shop on 45th Street in Manhattan. There on display was an O Scale Kidder brass Boston Subway car. ( not that a 14 year old kid could afford anyway). It was not for sale and was a display piece. They told me they were waiting for an  IRT R-17. I went to the shop often with my friend Vern buying wood and supplies for our scratch building of subway and el cars. Alas, the R-17's never did come and after a few years the Boston cars were gone never to be seen again. Bill Clouser built an O scale R-17 and an O Scale H&M K car under contract with the St. Louis Car Company. The K car was a cutaway model showing the interior. The R-7 was a full car. They were on display in the old Hudson Terminal in Manhattan. No one knows what happened to th K Car but the R-17 model wound up in a resturant in Manhattan. It still was on display last time I checked about 8 years ago.  I should go back.

 

The population of Boston is 655K.

The population of Chicago is 2.7MM.

The population of New York is 8.5MM.

 

Holding metro area populations constant and assuming the ratio of train collectors to non-train collectors is also constant, this is an issue of demand, pure and simple.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

Steven J. Serenska

Sorry, it's taken me a bit to respond. Nate, thanks for the interesting background story.  I'm impressed to read that you were scratch building subway and el cars at fourteen!

Steven, you have a very pursuasive argument.  Being a historian-type, I tend to see the history of a transit line as a "selling" point. (I'm not a big Franklin Mint fan, but they and other collectors companies seem to use that approach in some of their offerings. Say, an example of one of each representative of the item being produced.)

I'm off to Charles Ro after work today, and may discuss the MBTA engine in a recent catalog if I can locate it before I leave and the pre-order price is still available.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

The people at the train manufacturers are all Yankees fans........

bigkid posted:

The people at the train manufacturers are all Yankees fans........

Well there's only one baseball team. 27 time world champs. !

If you're willing to try some extensive kit-bashing, you could use the MTH Chicago 6000-series PCC el cars to replicate the East Boston Tunnel cars used by the MTA in the 1950s and '60s.  It's actually surprisingly close.

I have the Corgi model which I like, but it is, like many Corgi models, physically a Philadelphia model with Boston paint. It lacks a left hand door, and to account for this, they give it the number of the Boston prototype PCC which lacked a left hand door--but the prototype, like all pre-war PCCs, also lacked standee windows. If you have $700 you can get a more authentic model from St. Petersburg Trams, as well as picture window cars and Dallas double-enders. Okay, you have to win the lottery for that. The Corgi model does closely model the San Francisco F line PCC, which is an ex-Philadelphia car. San Francisco, by the way, looked at buying the 6 Dallas double-enders from the Kennebunkport museum but founded them too rusted and opted for 2 former red-arrow cars from the Branford CT museum instead, and Dallas scrapped there sole double ender, which hey found too rusted to restore.

Okay, how about this?  Get any Corgi Pittsburgh PCC- they all come with a monitor roof.  Corgi also made a Toronto version with a monitor roof.  You now have an acceptable stand-in for the Boston 31-3200s.  To simulate the streetside door, simply cut out a piece of transparent plastic the size of the door.  Glue it down over the spot on the car where the door is located which you have already painted flat black.  Matching whatever livery you choose, apply orange, gray, or green decal strips over the transparent plastic "door" to create the windows.  Now you can paint the model to match whatever decade you're modeling.  SPTC does make its own decals for this car.  However, if you have difficulty getting them, I have a few spares I'd glad to share with you.  Good luck.

My gripe was that Corgi (and other modelers pretend their car are accurate models, even giving them car numbers, when they are not. Older cars didn't have standee windows, Brooklyn and Washington cars were shorter, Chicago's longer (and with three sets of doors), Cincinnati with two poles, etc. One that gets me is San Francisco 1040--the last PCC streetcar ver made. I live in San Francisco near the F line and see the actual car nearly every day, and it looks nothing like the Corgi model. However, most of the other restored PCC streetcars here are from Philadelphia and Newark and look like the inaccurate Corgi models except San Francisco added front  trolley poles to them (without the  front poles, did the others not go in reverse?).

I came across these a couple years ago doing an estate liquidation. Sold them as a single lot, they commanded a pretty good price. 

Timothy, those are absolutely awesome cars!  And great photos, too!  I like the Seaver-Humbold one in particular. Thanks for posting.

And thanks also to the others who had sent replies to this thread.  I've been super busy lately and bad with responding, but I have been reading via emails.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

Found this one. From the same collection that I kept. It's and Atlas, lettered for Boston Elevated Railway. Not sure if it was sold that way or someone relettered it. Either way, Boston Elevated never went any where near Fenway Park as it states on the front.

You can get pretty close to the pre-2008 Mattapan PCCs using the Corgi as a start, but you have to be willing to use your Dremel.  Best to start with one of the Corgis that have the long roof housing.  Then

1. block off the standee windows with .005 styrene; there is enough relief so it doesn't show
2. Dremel out the window band and divide it up more prototypically
3. remove some of the front, below the anticlimber, where the coupler goes; file down the "widow's peak" over the front windows
4. add the second set of double center doors on the left side (scratch-build from styrene)
5. add mirrors and the roof headlight and move the retriever on the back
6. add a sticker for the system map (prototype also uses an applied sticker)
7.  Put Tim Murphy in the cab

 

I think you could also modify a Railking PCC this way so long as you started with one that had the roof housing (e.g., Washington DC).

I have 5 Boston trolleys --one HO Boeing LRV, the Atlas Fenway Park, the Corgi and two MTH PCCs.  Only the Boeing HO and Corgi are  scale of course, but the MTH PCCs call out stops on the Mattapan-Ashmont and Riverside lines.  

Yes, the Boston Elevated did not serve Fenway park directly, but Kenmore station on the trolley subway handled huge numbers of Fenway park patrons.  When the Riverside extension was opened the first station west of Kenmore was named Fenway, although I don't know whether Kenmore or Fenway is closest to the park. 

Yes the Corgis don't have left hand doors, but the standee windows could be found on the 25 Boston all-electrics. Photo taken by myself at Arborway a long time ago.  Lew Schneider

CTSRapid posted:

If you're willing to try some extensive kit-bashing, you could use the MTH Chicago 6000-series PCC el cars to replicate the East Boston Tunnel cars used by the MTA in the 1950s and '60s.  It's actually surprisingly close.

Do you have or have links before and  after pictures of said kit bashed set? 

Serenska posted:

The population of Boston is 655K.

The population of Chicago is 2.7MM.

The population of New York is 8.5MM.

 

Holding metro area populations constant and assuming the ratio of train collectors to non-train collectors is also constant, this is an issue of demand, pure and simple.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

Steven J. Serenska

Good point but historically speaking, we have the oldest subway in the states so those statistics are meaningless to railroad model enthusiasts.

Timothy Sprague posted:

I came across these a couple years ago doing an estate liquidation. Sold them as a single lot, they commanded a pretty good price.

I am curious as to when they were sold.

My Boston 3001, unpowered at this time:

Apples55 posted:

artyoung posted:

I think they're still trying to get Charlie off of that train

LOL... Always wondered why poor old Charlie's wife never handed him a nickel along with the sandwich as the train passed through Sculley Square Station   

Ahh... that's Scollay Square …. and "Under" at that !

Dave,

Great looking model!  That paint scheme brings back memories of trips to the "big city", too.  Any plans to add power someday?

Tomlinson Run Railroad

lewrail posted:

 When the Riverside extension was opened the first station west of Kenmore was named Fenway, although I don't know whether Kenmore or Fenway is closest to the park. 

 

If you are heading to Fenway Park on the T you get off at Kenmore square on the Greenline (B, C, D trains) if you are coming from inbound headed outbound.  If you are coming from outbound headed inbound you can get off at Fenway stop only on the D train, and Kenmore on the B, C, or D branch.  The Kenmore square stop is by far the more popular and crowded station for game day traffic and closest to the Park.   Don't take the E branch train that runs to Heath street on the Green if you're trying to get to Fenway.

And by God why can't Lionel or MTH make a Boeing LRV or one of the type 7, 8, or the new 9 models from the greenline.  These Green Line LRV type cars running as single units or paired have always been way more unique in styling than the more conventional looking long string of cars for other subways (NY, Chicago, Washington etc.) or the ones done on O for NY or Chicago.   Even for the MBTA's other lines that are conventional (Red, Blue, Orange) those cars and lines don't compare to the greenline cars for style and uniqueness in their real world appearance, functions, or operation.   

I believe these would sell in sufficient quantities to make a profit given the history of the Boston subway as America's oldest and first, the unique design, and the legacy of the Greenline branches and their dual function as subway/street trolley.  If you have ridden the Greenline on the T you will understand and know what I'm saying.

I think Charles Ro would sell many by themselves.  

 

 

 

jojofry posted:

bigkid posted:

The people at the train manufacturers are all Yankees fans........

Well there's only one baseball team. 27 time world champs. !

With enough money one can buy anything....

TomlinsonRunRR posted:

Dave,

Great looking model!  That paint scheme brings back memories of trips to the "big city", too.  Any plans to add power someday?

Tomlinson Run Railroad

Not at the moment, I have a few other R&T all-electric PCCs that need power first.

rex desilets posted:

jojofry posted:

bigkid posted:

The people at the train manufacturers are all Yankees fans........

Well there's only one baseball team. 27 time world champs. !

With enough money one can buy anything....

Not true.  It does obviously help, but there was a long span (most of my childhood into young adulthood) when the NYY never made it to the WS (not even winning the division most years), much less win the WS. 

The 80's and pre 1995 90's were pretty bleak for NYY fans (even though they didn't win until 1996, I say 1995 since they made it into the playoffs and the seeds of all the talented players forming the great late 90's teams were taking shape).  And plenty of money was spent on trying to get talent in those bleak years too.  Just never formed into a wining combination (particularly pitching in the late 80's, IIRC). 

Sorry.  I just hate it when people say the money thing as if it's an automatic given you can buy the win outright.

Back to train related topic, I do hope you Boston fans get a subway/streetcar/etc made again for you by one of the companies someday. 

-Dave

Maybe it's because nobody outside of Boston can get a grasp as to what you guys are conversing about.... the lingo is too localized. I deal with the accent easily; but none of the above gave me a clue as to who, what, or when is being referenced. I hate to have to say it, but your area is notorious for folks doing that in my experience. The game.... It's not exactly as fair as "you pick a player; I pick a player" either. I have very near zero interest in any sports, but I have to agree, in comparison, NY spends the cash to greatly increase their chances of winning a season. The financial offsets are one of the reasons I always prefered playing to watching a game of pro (or collage) anything.

I can ask the same question about PTC ( Philadelphia Transportation Company ) equipment.  I haven't seen anything in streetcars or subways with the PTC logo.