Boyd
A lot of the rolling stock from the MPC era is fairly inexpensive. As far as what's "classic", that's up to each of us to decide. What makes the short gondolas (and short boxcars & tank cars) fun to collect is their relatively limited production number. During the same time period, a far greater number of long gondolas were produced. One would need a lot of storage space and $$ to collect them all.
Papa D
I cannot, but I can probably email it to you. PM with your email and I will.
Mea Culpa on the 16313 Pennsylvania short gondola write-up. I have no idea where I came up with the production history in the earlier posting (which I will edit later). So to set the record straight, it was produced in only 2 years (U’88 & ’89) and came in only one set (11708 Midnight Shift).
Now the fun part about whether it came in two different green body colors. Here is a photo tinplatacis sent me of his 16313 Pennsylvania short gondola that came in his 11708 Midnight Shift set. Proof positive that there are two different color bodies for this piece of rolling stock.
Here’s my further investigation into this variation. My favorite reference booklet is the Toy Train Review “Lionel Illustrated Price Guide & History”, Vol. 2 1970 – 2000. It lists the 16313 without a photo as green body with white graphics and black cable reels produced in U’88 and ‘89 with no individual box (NIB). It lists the production years of the11708 Midnight Shift as U’88 and 89 which included the 16313. Next I looked in TM’s “Lionel Illustrated Price & Rarity Guide 1900 – 2002. It gave the same information as above, also with no photo. Then I looked in my “Standard Catalog of Lionel Trains 1970 – 2000” edited by Justin Moen. It shows a photo of the 16313 with a light green body and 3 white canisters. It also showed a box! It has the same U’88 and 89 production years. Now I’m confused. Did it only come in the 11708 Midnight Shift which means no box or was it also a separate sale item?
I looked in the ’88 catalogs and didn’t find the 16313. The ’89 Toy Fair Catalog had the 11708 Midnight Shift set with the 16313 Pennsylvania short gondola. It indeed had two black reels and…….a light green body the same as the 9033 PC short gondola that appeared on the same page. This raises a question on which of the body colors is rarer?
I looked back at the original article in the January ’95 issue of CTT’s and the photo shows the dark green variation.
Lastly I decided to look on eBay. There were two 16313’s listed for about the same price; one with the light green body and the other with the dark green body. To complete my collection, I both the one with the light green body for $19.99 including shipping.
Hopefully someone reading this thread can shed some additional light on this. Does anyone have a box stamped for the 16313 and does anyone have a 11708 set with a dark green body 16313?
Have fun collecting cheap classics………………………
By any chance were there any gondolas mentioned in that article series, produced around the same time the 16313, that had your dark green body? It's possible yours is the one that was an error (lol). Also, I suspect there might be a third variant, as after you produced your briefing on the light green variation, and thus arose the paradox of the box, I searched google images for "Lionel 16313 Gondola", and the 2nd and 6th results seem to indicate a variation about halfway between ours shade wise. Might be the lighting, but hey. You never know.
As an aside, did you see that eBay has a lot of approx half the short gondolas of the MPC era up?
Got my eBay light green 16313 Pennsylvania short gondola the other day. Turns out it is not quite the same color as the 9033 PC. I have over 300 pieces of rolling stock from all eras, and the 16313 light green is not a match for any of them. The same is true for the 16313 dark green. Guess it’s just a throwback to the MPC era. LOL.
Papa_D Got my eBay light green 16313 Pennsylvania short gondola the other day. Turns out it is not quite the same color as the 9033 PC. I have over 300 pieces of rolling stock from all eras, and the 16313 light green is not a match for any of them. The same is true for the 16313 dark green. Guess it’s just a throwback to the MPC era. LOL. Have fun collecting cheap classics……………………… Papa D
Wouldnt surprise me if there were a score of minute shade variants. I think that our gondolas are different shades, plus there is the dark green gondola and the teal-green one I noted from a Google search. Potentially the lighting, but as I recall, this isnt the first time we have seen variations like that.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month