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Does anyone else here besides myself have custom cars lettered for any of the 'great' model railroads, or the roads of friends?
I have Allegheny Midland, V&O, Blue Ridge and Southern and Virginia Midland as greats.
I have Pittsburgh Southern cars from a deceased friend's layout.
I have an On30 boxcar from my old friend Steve Sherrill lettered for his Sherrill's Grove & Southern.
There were a few old offerings of the Gorre & Daphetid by Roundhouse and Train Miniature (now Walthers) did the V&O, AM and VM cars commercially. On occasion, NMRA divisions will do special runs of famous layouts' cars (what I call 'greats') but they sell out quickly.
None of the grates though I do have:
A Woodsville Terminal boxcar
Most of the Suffern Hobken Interstate Transfer cars and power when the owner relocated to Florida from NY, also have power from his custom leasing road
Mohawk Central (club) car on my layout
Teen Association Of Model Railroaders club car
Great! I do have some club stuff too which I left out:
Mon-Yough Valley Hopper and Boxcar (McKeesport PA club)
Allegheny Valley (former Pittsburgh Model RR club, now Pittsburgh Model RR Historical Society)
Maryland & Allegheny hoppers and 2 locos! (Triangle & Western MRR club)
And one other 'great'
Ohio Southern (Jim Hediger) TM hopper
Still, the average Joe's Appalachian themed model with custom cars is more my style, especially hoppers or boxcars. Passenger cars would be a coup, they would end up as interchange bait (sitting on a siding at a station) just looking pretty. The BR&S combine I have is in service though, on a branch line mixed train hauling miners. It hasn't even been to the shop yet to be re-lettered (and never will ). It is an anachronism though, the BR&S didn't come to pass until the 60's and the M&WV only lasted til 1959, I've played with time a little. I may move the end date on the M&WV into the early 1960s though to allow for other things.
It was in MR a while ago, photo backdrops and a stone quarry article I think, the guy is up in NH I think. A good friend of mine knows him well and has done custom work for him the car I have was on his layout.
Although I‘ve never run cars from any of the “great“ model RR‘s, a few years ago, myself, & a couple of my online buddies, all of us having free-lance N scale layouts at the time, featured each others‘ equipment on our layouts…
Mine was the Kentucky & Indiana RR, based here in KY, my friend Jonathan from Michigan, operated the Grande Valley RR, & my friend Mike from North Carolina, ran the Nantahala Midland…
We had a lot of fun doing that!
I have the old Roundhouse GD meat reefer, an Allegheney Midland 40' boxcar, A V&O car and a few private road cars from friends who did that. Interesting conversation pieces. The NMRA runs those if you like them. They offer them to help raise funds. Check out the NMRA store.