Front Runner cars

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Hi, I´m Christian from Germany,

did the Canadian Pacific had any Front Runner carslike this one from Walthers in HO? Can anyone show me some pictures and in what paint runs they on the NYC in TTX?

Thanks for answer me soon!

2

I think Trailer Train (now TTX) was the only company to own these. I do not know when these were first produced. However, I would guess NYC and PRR had already merged by the time these cars came out.

3

I don’t know the answer to your question but I do have a word of warning; these cars will not negociate a #4 turnout and are hard-pressed to get around 18" radius curves. The reason is that the trucks, if that’s what they’re called on this car, do not swivel.

4

Canadian Pacific intermodal equipment that I have seen most often are the Flat Cars for Containers or National Steel Car built Articulated Well Cars.

Walthers produces the NSC Intermodal Well Cars.

Andrew

5

I recently obtained the “Walthers 75th Anniversary” model of the Front Runner car.

I had not seen these earlier available in local hobby shops, but bought this one on sight. The Walthers model represents the version of this car fitted with the suspension based on the British Rail “Taperlite III” suspension system. I believe this suspension was developed in the early 1980s, which gives a possible date for the introduction of the prototype, well into the Conrail era.

Some Front Runner cars used a simpler General Steel suspension sysem and these might be a bit earlier, but I think all of these cars were built at the same time, so in the early 1980s. I think the first one I actually saw was in Alexandria VA on an RF&P freight in 1988.

M636C

6

I can not speak directly to the Front Runners I know that both CP and CN would have equipment that was lettered for there respective railroads that most RR’s in the US would lease from TTX. The flats under autoracks comes to mind. There were CN and CP autoracks painted and lettered for there home roads. The majority of US autoracks were on TTX flats. This also applied to some spine TOFC and well cars thou not as much.

7

I’m a little lost over here in the modeling world–I have no idea what the Walthers car is like.

The earliest spine-type cars I know of were Santa Fe’s “Six-Pack Fuel Foilers”, built (IIRC) in the late 1970s, and later expanded to “Ten-Packs”.

The TTX “Four-runners”, with four units of cars connected by drawbars and using single axle trucks, were products of the early 1980s.

The Front Runners came well after those, and I’ve only seen the name applied to TTX cars. I’ve seen spine cars lettered FEC, TR, and possibly a few others, but not for Canadian railroads.