I have 18 ore cars on my railroad and would like to have another 1/2 dozen. What I have are all MDC cars, 6 that are either DM&IR, or C&NW cars. The other dozen are D&RGW cars that were a set of a dozen all with different road numbers. At one time, I saw Walthers offered some Ore Cars and I know that Tichy has wood ore cars. I could by MDC cars off of Ebay. My guess is everything else would be RTR. I really don’t see ore cars being offered RTR or kits. Anyone have any leads?
Walthers and MDC ore cars are good. I have no experience with Tichy cars. I have many of the old AHM ore cars, and each one took a lot of work to install Kadee couplers and good wheels. … I made a few Northern Pacific ore cars using NP decals for other car types on MDC cars I painted black.
The MDC/Athearn ore cars are ‘Michigan’ ore cars, and the Walthers ore cars are ‘Minnesota’ ore cars from what have read. Both types are 70 ton capacity cars. The AHM car is B&LE prototype and is a 90 ton capacity car, IIRC.
The Tichy car is an older wood car, and they come in two pack kits.
Jim
I have two sets of the Walthers ore cars.
They are both “older” RTR sets that I bought back in the 2004 time range.
All of the cars are DM&IR.
One set is 12 ore cars, all with different numbers, and the other set is 4 ore cars with different numbers.
All 16 cars are matching in appearance and color.
Like pretty much everything else, I have to believe that some of these sets are still available somewhere. The question is: where?
Hope you have luck finding them.
Rich
Edit Note: I just checked eBay listings. At least two sets of the 12 DM&IR ore cars sold just before Christmas. It looks like those cars are a very common auction item on eBay.
Rich, Do you model DMIR?
No, but the ore cars are so cool that I had to get that 12-car set when it was first out. Then, I bought the 4-car set. The 16 cars are hauled by a Bachmann Spectrum DM&IR 2-10-2.
Did you see my Edit Note on the eBay auctions?
You should be able to track some sets down on eBay.
Rich
I have to agree…there is something about seeing a string of ore cars…I currently have 40+ all makes & styles
I am in the process of upgrading to metal wheels & Kadees to all the ones that need them, Also reweighting, weathering & making removable loads for them as I go
Some are currently in pairs connected by a drawbar, I am trying to decide if I should leave them like that or if each car deserves its “independence” [:)]
Athearn has re-released the MDC ore cars as RTR 6-packs. Originally, the MDC kits came in 12-packs. The Athearn cars have loads, metal wheels, and McHenry couplers, whereas the old MDC cars had no loads, plastic wheels, and horn hook couplers.
The newer Athearn cars are much better than the MDC ones, but the hokey plastic load needs to be changed to match your MDC cars if you have any of them. I now have a 48-car SP ore train
That’s the neat thing about ore cars. Given their small size, you can string a whole bunch of them together, even on a smaller layout.
Rich
That’s the neat thing about ore cars. Given their small size, you can string a whole bunch of them together, even on a smaller layout.
Rich
Watching them “snake” through crossovers or a passing siding
a few of mine
Some years ago I watched a Peoria & Pekin Union (that’s right – prounced Pee and PeeYou) switch job in Peoria that had a string of old orecars filled with metal and wire scrap. They sounded like they were going to rattle themselves to pieces as the train went by. So there could be a role for such cars on a non ore carrying line.
From time to time I still find the old Model Die Casting METAL kits for ore cars at swap meets. I keep putting off assembling the two that I bought on a lark. They are nicely lettered and, of course, nothing looks more like painted metal than painted metal.
It would not be easy to find, but the long gone firm of ATT – American Train & Track – imported a plastic ore car some 40 or so years ago that is not uninteresting, although most ATT stuff was no better than trainset quality.
This website has the photo
http://www.ho-scaletrains.net/atttrainsresource/index.html
Dave Nelson
Ore cars! Run screeming from the room while you still have the chance. In my experience ore cars and 21’ shorty tank cars are the greatest cause of operational problems than any other piece of equipment. Even if track is near perfect they can cause problems. Even the Greeley Freight Station Museum has trouble with their 81 car ore train. My final layout will have neither ore cars nor 21’ tanks.
TZ, I think that you are going to find yourself in the minority on this one.
All of my ore cars have Intermountain metal wheels, and they run flawlessly. No derailments.
Rich
RCR on ebay has the MDC unpainted five car kit set. You might have seen them already. Not sure if this is what you want anyway. They are not complete.
Rich
I’ve never had problems with mine and I sure think they look great, snaking around my layout.
What problems are you having?
By the way, I have located the ore cars I need, all are MDC and I got them for a fair price, too.
I don’t have any ore cars. It is just in operating sessions that I participate in (pick one of 12 layouts), 90% of the derailments involve an ore car. I know the Walther’s cars have truck pivot clearance issues.
I bought some undec modern mill gons from RCR on ebay. They are the old MDC molds, yes they are sort of like some of the older craftsman type kits. No weights, trucks or couplers. I felt they were a pretty good deal though, I’ve been modeling for a long time so I have quite an inventory of old trucks wheel sets and weights so making complete cars isn’t a huge issue for me. If you don’t mind painting and decaling and tracking down the trucks, couplers, etc they’re not a bad alternative.
As far as other uses far as other uses for ore cars, The C&NW used to make a daily delivery of sand to Elmhurst Chicago Stone just west of Proviso Yard in Elmhurst IL using ore cars. The quarry also had at least 2 GE 45 ton locomotives for moving the cars inside the quarry. The sand was use to make concrete. IIRC this operation lasted in the early 1990’s at least. I think I have pictures some where.
I could also see coupling to longer cars possibly causing problems with these short cars. Most of the Ore Cars I’ve seen have the truck pivot closer to the ends of the car than any other car I know of (excepting maybe your short tank cars). This means there is pretty limited side to side motion of the couplers in these cars. Then, when coupled to longer cars, where this side to side motion needs to be greater, certainly could cause derailments. In general, I think I’ve have only seen Ore Cars in unit trains.
Could this be the problem, Texas Zepher?
NP2626,
I think you may be on to something there. I always run a 16-ore car train with no other cars, and I never have derailment problems. But mixing the short ore cars with longer cars could possibly be an issue. I will be interested in what others have to say about this issue.
Rich
I got a 1/2 dozen older MDC Ore cars from someone who had read I was looking for some. All of my MDC Ore Cars are from the early 1990s and all are the same and there was no problem dropping Kadee #5s in them. The fellow who sold me this batch stated they are from the late 60s, early 70s. What is unique is that they have dump door details, there are four doors per car bottom, something the last batches made by MDC omitted from their Ore Cars, which is too bad! Two of the six cars, even have have a sloped area under the four doors. I have to buy a couple of Kadee Number 4 couplers and 5 pairs of trucks now so I can complete and put into service on my layout. Since all of these cars have internal hopper doors, they will end up being empties.