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Re: Ore Cars, Atlas and Rivarossi...
T Meserole
Thanks George.
I had forgotten about the entries in Wingard's book. Tom On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 12:10 PM, umtrr <gji@...> wrote:
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Ore Cars, Atlas and Rivarossi...
umtrr
The ore car story keeps getting better and better... if you equate "more complex" with "better."
I had forgotten that Wingard's book "The Collector's Guide to N Scale" does include a section on the Rivarossi releases. And... surprise! Three of the four cars that we have been discussing-- the LS&I, Great Northern and Soo Line-- are shown with catalog number 9399 (all three of them) and the note, "The following ore cars are listed under Atlas." And... double surprise! There is a whole series of ore cars that <are> listed under the Rivarossi brand name that are not part of the Atlas lineup, or at least they weren't during the A1G timeframe. Here they are (I hope Yahoo! doesn't mess up the formatting too much): 6001A - ATSF 5995 6001B - C&NW 538647 6001C - MILW 54058 6001D - Conrail 29540 6001E - UP 4500 6001F - SP 4836 6001G - GN 93715 6001H - PRR 125291 6001J - BN 6774 6001K - Chessie 5987 6001L - RI (Rock?) 58049 6001M - Southern 23450 6001U - Undecorated (black) There's no "6001I" listed, I guess it was thought that it would be too confusing with "1" or "J". The Chessie System ore car happens to be the example pictured in Wingard's book and there are no subsidiary reporting marks. The photo is far too small to make exact comparisons, but it does seem to be the same body style as the Atlas car from what I can see. The practice of using a single stock number with a distinct letter to distinguish releases was also maintained by Con-Cor during the same time. We know that Rivarossi supplied Con-Cor with some product, I believe after the Atlas relationship ended but not sure of the exact dates. I think that that practice may be a clue here. So now what can we conclude? Probably, "more research is required"... Cheers, George |
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Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
In a message dated 4/21/11 2:46:26 PM !!!First Boot!!!, bezetr75@...
writes: Geoge,There are several possibilities. It could be that Atlas requested Rivarossi to put "ATLAS USA on the cars" instead of the usual "ATLAS". This is unlikely, though, and I believe these cars were actually molded in the US. The kits were first and they were strictly a USA venture. Atlas could have molded the basic carbody in the US and then sent them to Rivarossi to be finished (lettered, trucks installed, etc.). Again, based on the kits, this seems unlikely because the kit bodies were lettered although Atlas still could have shipped them to Italy to have them lettered. It must be remembered that, at the time Atlas first started to produce freight cars on their own out of the US, they installed trucks from both RoCo and Rivarossi (there are indentifying characteristics) but they always had "ATLAS USA" on the bottom. If somebody could just locate an ore car with Rivarossi markings on it, the situation could become clearer. Or, maybe not \:^) The original cabooses are easy enough to identify because, back then, even though RoCo made cabooses for several importers, they were always slightly different from one importer to another. The Atlas cabooses have three, closely spaced, windows on each side. The trouble comes with the cupola transfer cabooses and these extended across both the first and second generations of cars. A collector just has to become familiar with the appearance and numbers of the cars to differentiate. The bay window transfer cabooses are strictly A!G. Doug |
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Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
Randy Bezet
Geoge,
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I did not know the possibility of two separate sets may exist!? (Rivarossi & Atlas). These ore cars are so cool and unusual!?I was assuming these were the cars from Rivarossi. I did not know they were made by Atlas. Did Atlas take the Rivarossi cars and re-market them? Did they just continue what Rivarossi was doing? Kinda what? Con-cor later did with the Rivarossi locos.ect. Just place their name on them or something. The A1G cabooses are very difficult to identify. Atlas placed their name in hard places to find.??This is a good mystery to try and solve! Thanks. sincerely, Randy B. --- On Thu, 4/21/11, umtrr <gji@...> wrote:
From: umtrr <gji@...> Subject: [a1g] Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted To: a1g@... Date: Thursday, April 21, 2011, 11:03 AM ? Randy, the examples of the ore cars I have were not made by Rivarossi, but by Atlas in the USA. To me this is the principal reason why I would exclude the ore car series from the A1G roster. However, what confuses things considerably is that there have been ore cars marketed by Rivarossi itself. This was part of the off-line discussion I've been having with another A1G fan. What I personally do not know is whether Rivarossi made these cars-- and that's simply because I haven't seen any with their name or "R" trademark underneath where the "Atlas USA" is on my examples. There's probably more to come on this topic, at some point. The suggestion to contact Atlas directly is a good one. However, we do need to remember that we're talking about rolling stock that is coming up on forty years old now and the records at Atlas may no longer exist. Cheers, George --- In a1g@..., "Randy Bezet" <bezetr75@...> wrote:
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Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
umtrr
Randy, the examples of the ore cars I have were not made by Rivarossi, but by Atlas in the USA. To me this is the principal reason why I would exclude the ore car series from the A1G roster.
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However, what confuses things considerably is that there have been ore cars marketed by Rivarossi itself. This was part of the off-line discussion I've been having with another A1G fan. What I personally do not know is whether Rivarossi made these cars-- and that's simply because I haven't seen any with their name or "R" trademark underneath where the "Atlas USA" is on my examples. There's probably more to come on this topic, at some point. The suggestion to contact Atlas directly is a good one. However, we do need to remember that we're talking about rolling stock that is coming up on forty years old now and the records at Atlas may no longer exist. Cheers, George --- In a1g@..., "Randy Bezet" <bezetr75@...> wrote:
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Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
Randy Bezet
George,
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If we are to guess if these ore cars are A1G or not, I would say they are A1G. They were made by Rivarossi ?! They surely came before the 2nd generation Atlas stuff ?! I have been looking and researching in my catalogs and your post, internet, ect. This conclusion would not be too far of a stretch in logic,ect !?!? Are these ore cars ancestors to the modern Atlas stuff !?!? Only Atlas RR would know. Atlas RR could be a great help here. Just some thoughts to contemplate for your information. sincerely, Randy B. a1g@..., "umtrr" <gji@...> wrote:
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Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
George,
Have you ever talk to Paul (at Atlas) about this three car set? Rick ________________________________ From: umtrr <gji@...> To: a1g@... Sent: Fri, April 15, 2011 6:43:03 AM Subject: [a1g] A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted I have [finally] gotten to posting a new page on the A1G website discussing the Ore Cars and whether the first four releases (DM&IR aka Missabe, Soo Line, Great Northern and LS&I) should be counted as A1G cars. The net of it is that I've decided not to decide. How's that for a compromise? One of these days I'll get to fixing the pages so that links load more directly, in the meantime I've put a link on the A1G main page. We already have a variation-- the two 2453 Great Northerns I have in my accumulation are of distinctly different brown body colors. Cheers, George (your list-owner) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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Re: A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
George Irwin
Another copy, paste, forget to change...
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However, that can be fixed! Thanks for the heads up. Cheers, George -----Original Message-----
From: dgosha@... |
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A1G Website: Ore Car Page Posted
umtrr
I have [finally] gotten to posting a new page on the A1G website discussing the Ore Cars and whether the first four releases (DM&IR aka Missabe, Soo Line, Great Northern and LS&I) should be counted as A1G cars.
The net of it is that I've decided not to decide. How's that for a compromise? One of these days I'll get to fixing the pages so that links load more directly, in the meantime I've put a link on the A1G main page. We already have a variation-- the two 2453 Great Northerns I have in my accumulation are of distinctly different brown body colors. Cheers, George (your list-owner) |
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Re: A1G Unique Track Pieces
umtrr
I note for the record that an Illuminated Bumper still in the package sold on eBay this week, for the low price of 99 cents plus shipping (which was more than the price!).
Considering that the MSRP of the track piece was 80 cents, I guess this didn't do too well keeping up with inflation. Was it any of you guys who bought it? Cheers, George (your list-owner) |
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Re: Black Plastic Wheels in Kits (was Ore Cars)
In a message dated 4/11/11 12:03:37 PM !!!First Boot!!!, gji@...
writes: ...It certainly couldn't have been the difficulty factor in assemblingYeah, they were definitely the N scale version of the Athearn HO "Blue Box" kits of the time! It was still a thrill to find them in the hobby shop though. Doug |
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Re: Ore Cars: A1G or not?
In a message dated 4/11/11 10:39:48 AM !!!First Boot!!!, gji@...
writes: They're blackened metal, but whether they were that way originally orI have seen some silver wheels discolor but never to the point of turning completely black. They could very well have come with the black wheels. Or somebody along the line could have used blackening on them. There were still some black wheels around at Atlas back then, though. Doug |
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Re: Ore Cars: A1G or not?
In a message dated 4/11/11 9:36:27 AM !!!First Boot!!!, dckuk@...
writes: I'm trying hard to remember which had what back then, but I know I had aThe Atlas car kits originally had plastic wheels which had horrible rolling qualities and I believe they began to supply a pair of trucks with silver metal wheels in them in the later kits before discontinuation. This may have even been a factor in discontinuing the kits as I'm sure having to put those trucks in the kits definitely reduced the profit margin considerably. As it was, even without the trucks, the retail price difference between a car kit and RTR was only $.21 except for the 50' cars which was $1.21 but I doubt the cost of producing a 50' RTR car was really that much more and the $2.50 retail price of those may have been a bit inflated. Doug |
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Black Plastic Wheels in Kits (was Ore Cars)
George
The black plastic wheels supplied with the "One-and-a-Halfth Generation" kits were, how can I say this delicately, not as well formed as we would like.
Oftimes there would be "strings" of excess plastic attached to the wheels. (The same was sometimes true of the trucks as well.) Trimming with a pair of scissors was usually the minimum required. As I recall, occassionally the wheels would have a bit missing from the flanges. Those wheels couldn't be saved. I suspect many N Scalers swapped out the plastic wheels in the kits with something a bit better. We could speculate as to whether this was a factor in the discontinuing of the Atlas kits, although there were probably other "good business" related reasons as well. It certainly couldn't have been the difficulty factor in assembling them! There were as close to "shake the box" as we ever had in N Scale in my opinion, at least until the Roundhouse (MDC) kits came along many years later. Cheers, George (your list-owner) |
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Re: Ore Cars: A1G or not?
George Irwin
They're blackened metal, but whether they were that way originally or turned color over time might be an open question.
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--George -----Original Message-----
From: dgosha@... |
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Re: Ore Cars: A1G or not?
Are the wheels on those black plastic or blackened metal?I'm trying hard to remember which had what back then, but I know I had a few cars, including some pieces I acquired USED in the early 1970's that had blackened metal wheels. And nothing other than Micro-Trains (well, nothing of note) as far as I can recall had plastic wheel. We where better off in that regard, even with humongous flanges, as my HO friends were suffering from crummy plastic wheels. I know MDC cars came with what we thought at the time were some of the best metal wheels for rtr or kits, with reasonable flanges as well, but they too were soon edged out by too-often useless plastic wheels... As for the blackened metal ones; it was nice to see them hang on, as I prefer metal wheels where I get an option, and blackened wheels didn't look so out of scale. Yeah I know the treads should be bright, but you can't have everything... Dennis England (by way of Chicago, Shreveport, and points west and north!) |
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Re: Ore Cars: A1G or not?
Randy Bezet
Doug& Geoge et all,
Those ore cars are surely cool! I have never seen these before. The three pack ore car set are news to me.?The original bumper track package is neat too! Amazing what you can find on ebay even after all of these years. I found some of my A1G cars at a garage sale about ten years ago. I consider myself lucky that I have them! Thanks again for showing these cars. Sincerely, Randy B. ? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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